CHAPTER XIV
THE AUCTION ON THE BEACH
It was the morning of July 20. Fog drifts rode the bay like huge white swans, shrouding the Island of Alcatraz with a rise and fall of impalpable wings and casting many a whilom plume over the tents and adobe houses nestling between sandhills and scrub-oaks in the cove of San Francisco.
Robert and Benito Windham, on the hill above Clark's Point, looked down toward the beach, where a crowd was gathering for the auction of tidewater lots. The Windhams, since their dispossession by McTurpin, had been guests of hospitable Juana Briones. Through the Alcalde's order they had secured their personal effects. But the former gambler still held right and title to the Windham acres. Adrian Stanley made his home at the City Hotel and had been occupied with an impromptu school where some four score children and half a dozen illiterates were daily taught the mysteries of the "Three Rs."
"Adrian has determined to buy some of these mud-lots," said Windham to his son. "He believes some day they will be valuable and that he will make his fortune." He sighed. "I fear my son-to-be is something of a visionary."
Benito gave his father a quick, almost furtive glance. "Do not condemn him for that," he said, with a hint of reproach. "Adrian is far-sighted, yes; but not a dreamer."
"What can he do with a square of bog that is covered half of the time by water?" asked Windham.
"Ah," Benito said, "we've talked that over, Adrian and I. Adrian has a plan of reclamation. An engineering project for leveling sandhills by contract and using the waste to cover his land. He has already arranged for ox-teams and wagons. It is perfectly feasible, my father."
Robert Windham smiled at the other's enthusiasm. "Perhaps you are right," he said. "God grant it--and justify your faith in that huddle of huts below."