Dot Huntington found San Francisco to exceed her wildest imaginings of what a great city really was. Born of the desert and having been an intimate part of that desert all her life and, until the establishment of Geerusalem, knowing nothing of those centers where men forgathered and schemed and battled and died in a fury of commercial competition, she had always pictured a metropolis as similar to an ant hill for life and activity; but she had never thought it so spectacular, so dynamic in potentialities, so gigantic a thing as that architectural pile which greeted her eyes on that memorable morning when she and her father crossed the seven miles of green bay from Oakland, toward the picturesque horizon of buildings rising step on step, miles long and wide, tier on tier, up the steep slopes of hills that hid their crests in a low-lying, fleecy bank of fog.
And Market Street, Mississippian in its aspect, flowing full with its surging, irresistible stream of pedestrians and traffic, appalled her. The chaotic blockade of street cars at the Ferry terminal, the deafening thunder and shriekings of the busy Embarcadero, the mad confusion of it all, bewildered her—and bewildered Lemuel still more.
It was during the period when the Golden West Hotel was to the country people of California what the Congress, in Chicago, is to the political world of the nation—the one and only caravansary. Accordingly, Lemuel set his blind course for the Golden West Hotel. He did this after making a number of inquiries on how to reach his destination, regarding with considerable suspicion each one of his informants, for he had heard about the suaveness of confidence and bunko men and their artful way of misdirecting their victims to dens of iniquity, abounding in trapdoors and subterranean dungeons and murderous gangsters, and he felt that he was just a trifle too smart to fall a prey to the sly brotherhood.
“Them slick fellers’s got to git up purty early in the mornin’ to beat yore dad, Dot,” he grinned proudly, as they started off in a taxi. “I ain’t up on city ways, but I’m kinder foxy myself. That’s what comes of knockin’ around with Lennox, the minin’ engineer, an’ the rest of them Geerusalem sports, like I’ve done.”
But with all Lemuel’s belief in his own sagacity, when it was a matter of pitting his wits against the other fellow’s, he failed to notice that, ever since their arrival at the Ferry terminal, he and Dot had been the object of intense secret interest on the part of a man who, once his sharp eyes rested on them as they came in sight with the rest of the passengers, trailed them about until they entered the taxi.
He was a broad-shouldered, powerful individual, perhaps in the late thirties, with a red, coarse face and expressionless blue eyes. His clothes were cut along flashy lines, his shoes of glittering patent leather, his hat worn jauntily. But his very appearance, particularly when he walked, somehow impressed one that he was more at home in the hills than in the city. As Dot and her father began their slow progress up Market Street the stranger sprang into another taxi and instructed the driver to follow the first.
Arriving at the hotel, Lemuel and his daughter registered and were shown to a cheerful little suite overlooking the street. They sat down in the parlor and stared at each other.
“My!” exclaimed Dot breathlessly. “Isn’t this just—just wonderful?”
“Geerusalem ain’t got nuthin’ on this burg, has it? Sounds like ol’ hell broke loose—an’ I’m not cussin’ when I say that, Dot,” chuckled Lemuel.
Her eyes kindled, and she rose from her chair and went over and threw her arms around his neck. “It’s such a glorious adventure. I—I only wish poor mother was with us. Don’t you, daddy?”