With the gray twilight of the dawning, weary and worn, he reached his cabin door, but the golden crown and scepter had passed away into the mists of night.
The poor emperor told of his wanderings to his comrades, and mourned over the night in which his crown and scepter had departed from him, but they only laughed, saying, "You have been dreaming again, Emperor Norton."
He never took the pick and shovel again. "Shall an emperor work," he would say, "while thousands of his subjects roll in luxury?"
An emperor, he thought, should reside in the chief city of his realm, so he left the mines and came to San Francisco.
Here for years he has lived, always wearing a well-worn suit of blue, with epaulettes upon the shoulders, which, perhaps, might have been an unmentioned gift of the gray king of the mountains.
At the table of all restaurants and hotels he is a free and welcome guest, and all places of amusement are open to him; in fact, wherever you go in San Francisco, you are almost sure to meet the Emperor Norton.
DEATH'S VALLEY;
OR,
THE GOLDEN BOULDER.
Years ago, even before what Californians understand to be the "early days," Dick Fielding was promoted to a captaincy in the United States Army.