CHAPTER XXX

"GROWING PAINS"

On the morning of February 28, 1850, Theodore Shillaber, with a number of friends, made a visit to the former's leased land on the Rincon, later known as Rincon Hill. Here, on the old government reserve, whose guns had once flanked Yerba Buena Cove, Shillaber had secured a lease on a commanding site which he planned to convert into a fashionable residence section. What was his surprise, then, to find the scenic promontory covered with innumerable rickety and squalid huts. A tall and muscular young fellow with open-throated shirt and stalwart, hirsute chest, swaggered toward him, fingering rather carelessly, it seemed to Shillaber, the musket he held.

"Lookin' for somebody, stranger?" he inquired, meaningly.

Shillaber, somewhat taken aback, inquired by what right the members of this colony held possession.

"Squatter's rights," returned the large youth, calmly, and spat uncomfortably near to Shillaber's polished boots.

"And what are squatter's rights, may I ask?" said Shillaber, striving to control his rising temper.

The youth tapped his rifle barrel. "Anyone that tries to dispossess us'll soon find out," he returned gruffly, and, turning his back on the visitors, he strode back toward his cabin.

"Wait," called Shillaber, red with wrath, "I notify you now, in the presence of witnesses that if you and all your scurvy crew are not gone bag and baggage within twentyfour hours, I'll have the authorities dispossess you and throw you into jail for trespassing."

The large young man halted and presented a grinning face to his threatener. He did not deign to reply, but, as though he had given a signal, shrill cackles of laughter broke out in a dozen places.

Shillaber, who was a choleric man, shook his fist at them. He was too angry for speech.

Shillaber had more than his peck of trouble with the Sydney Ducks that roosted on his land. He sent the town authorities to dispossess them, but without result. There were too many squatters and too few police. Next he sent an agent to collect rents, but the man returned with a sore head and bruised body, minus coin. Shillaber was on the verge of insanity. He appealed to everyone from the prefect to the governor. In Sydney Town his antics were the sport of a gay and homogeneous population and at the public houses one might hear the flouted landlord rave through the impersonations of half a dozen clever mimics. At The Broken Bottle a new boniface held forth. Bruiser Jake had mysteriously disappeared on the evening of election. And with him had vanished Alec McTurpin, though a sly-eyed little man now and then brought messages from the absent leader.

In the end Shillaber triumphed, for he persuaded Captain Keyes, commander at the Presidio, that the squatters were defying Federal law. Thus, one evening, a squad of cavalry descended upon the Rincon squatters, scattering them like chaff and demolishing their flimsy habitations in the twinkling of an eye. But this did not end squatterism. Some of the evicted took up claims on lots closer in. A woman's house was burned and she, herself, was driven off. Another woman was shot while defending her husband's home during his absence.

Meanwhile, San Francisco's streets had been graded and planked. The old City Hall, proving inadequate, was succeeded by a converted hotel. The Graham House, a four-story wooden affair of many balconies, at Kearny and Pacific streets, was now the seat of local government.

For it the council paid the extraordinary sum of $150,000, thereby provoking a storm of newspaper discussion. Three destructive fires had ravaged through the cloth and paper districts, and on their ashes more substantial structures stood.

There was neither law nor order worthy of the name. Only feverish

## activity. A newsboy who peddled Altas on the streets made $40,000 from

his operations; another vendor of the Sacramento Union, boasted $30,000 for his pains. A washerwoman left her hut on the lagoon and built a "mansion." Laundering, enhanced by real estate investments, had given her a fortune of $100,000.

Social strata were not yet established. Caste was practically unknown. Former convicts married, settled down, became respected citizens. Carpenters, bartenders, laborers, mechanics from the East and Middle West, became bankers, Senators, judges, merchant princes and promoters.

White linen replaced red flannel, bowie knives and revolvers were sedately hidden beneath frock coats, the vicuna hat was a substitute for slouch and sombrero.

But, under it all, the fierce, restless heart of San Francisco beat on unchanged. In it stirred the daring, the lawless adventure, the feverish ambition and the hair-trigger pride of argonauts from many lands. And in it burned the deviltry, brutality, licentiousness and greed of criminal elements freed from the curb of legal discipline.

David Broderick discussed it frequently with Alice Windham. He had fallen into a habit of coming to the ranch when wearied by affairs of state. He was a silent, brooding man, robbed somehow of his national heritage, a sense of humor, for he had Irish blood. He was a man of fire, implacable as an enemy, inalienable as a friend. And to Alice, as she sat embroidering or knitting before the fire, he told many of his dreams, his plans. She would nod her head sagely, giving him her eyes now and then--eyes that were clear and calm with understanding.

Thus Alice came to know what boded for the town of San Francisco. "Benito," she said one night, when Broderick had gone, "Benito, my dearest, will you let me stir you--even if it wounds?" She came up behind him quickly; put her arms about his neck and leaned her golden head against his own. "We are sitting here too quietly ... while life goes by," her tone was wistful. "You, especially, Benito. Outside teems the world; the gorgeous, vibrant world of which our David speaks."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked, stirring restlessly, "go into business? Make money--like Adrian?"

"No, no," she nestled closer. "It isn't money that I crave. We are happy here. But"--she looked up at the portrait of Francisco Garvez, and Benito followed her glance. "What would he have you do?"

"I promised him in thought," her husband said, "that I would help to build the city he loved. It was a prophecy," his tone grew dreamy, "a prophecy that he and his--the Garvez blood--should always stir in San Francisco's heart." Swiftly he rose and, standing very straight before the picture, raised his right hand to salute. "You are right," he said. "He would have wanted me to be a soldier."

But Alice shook her head. "The conquest is over," she told him. "San Francisco needs no gun nor saber now. In our courts and legislatures lie the future battlegrounds for justice. You must study law, Benito.... I want"--quick color tinged her face--"I want my--son to have a father who--"

"Alice!" cried Benito. But she fled from him. The door of her bedroom closed behind her. But it opened again very softly--"who makes his country's laws," she finished, fervently.

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