"Everybody calls him 'Bill,'" his mother added. "Washerwomen, teamsters, beggars, millionaires. If ever there was a friend of the people it is he."
"Some day, though, he'll overplay his game," Benito prophesied.
Ralston had been euchered out of a railroad to Eureka, planned by Harpending and himself and opposed by the Big Four; "Montgomery to the Bay" was meeting with a host of difficulties; the Grand Hotel was building and Kearny street, where he owned property, was being widened. Ralston's genial countenance showed sometimes a little strained pucker between the eyes.
Now and then Benito met a man named Adolph Sutro. They called him "The Man With a Dream." Stocky, under average height, intensely businesslike, he was--a German Burgomeister type, with Burnside whiskers and a purpose. He proposed to drive a tunnel four miles long from Carson valley, and strike the Comstock levels 1800 feet below the surface.
An English syndicate was backing him. The work was going on.
Much of Sutro's time was spent in Virginia City, superintending the work on his tunnel. But he fell into the habit of finding Benito whenever he came to town--dragging him from home with awkward but sincere apologies to Alice.
"You will lend me your husband, Hein?" he would say. "I like to tell him of my fancies, for he understands ... the others laugh at me."
Alice smiled into his broad, good humored face. "That's very silly of them."
"Donnerwetter! Some day they will laugh the other way around," he threatened.