This duty of standing watch and watch kept the friends from leaving the ship even for a single moment, if indeed they had felt the least desire to do so. In fact all that there was left of the late bustling city was spread out stark and grim before their wondering eyes from the deck of the ship, and a dismal sight it was. Acres of ground, so lately covered with buildings so full of busy life, were now nothing but a blackened waste of smoldering rubbish. Here and there some solitary tree, scorched and leafless, lifted up its skeleton branches as if in silent horror at the surrounding desolation. Men, singly, or in little groups, were moving about in the gray-white smoke like so many uneasy specters. Others were carefully poking among the rubbish for whatever of value might have escaped the flames. But more strange than all, even while the ruins were ablaze about them, it was to see a gang of workmen busy laying down the foundations for a new building. There was to be no sitting down in sackcloth and ashes here. That was California spirit.
All this time the lumber dealer was by great odds the busiest man there. He was fairly up to his ears in business, selling lumber, in small parcels or great, from the head of a barrel, to a perfect mob of buyers, who pushed and jostled each other in their eagerness to be first served. All were clamoring as loudly for notice as so many Congressmen on a field-day to the Speaker of the House. To this horde of hungry applicants the lumberman kept on repeating, "First come, first served. Down with your dust." The man was making a fortune hand over fist.
Scarcely had our boys the time to look about them, when they were beset with offers to lease or even to buy the ship outright. One wanted her for a store, another for a hotel, another for a restaurant, a saloon, and so on. Men even shook pouches of gold-dust in their faces, as an incentive to close the bargain on the spot. As such a transaction had never entered their heads, the three friends held a hurried consultation over it. Charley firmly held to the opinion that he had no right to dispose of the ship without the owner's consent, and that was something which could not be obtained at this time. Walter was non-committal. Bill was nothing if not practical. Bill was no fool.
"Ef she goes back, what does she do?" he asked, squinting first at one and then at the other. "Why, she lays there to her anchors rottin', doin' nobody no good," he added.
"She won't eat or drink anything if she does," Charley said rather ambiguously.
"Seems as though we ought to put her back where we found her," Walter suggested, in a doubtful sort of way.
"Settle it to suit yourselves," was Bill's ready rejoinder. "But how does the case stand? Here's a lot of crazy hombres e'en a'most ready to fight for her. 'Twould cost a fortin to get her ready for sea. Her bottom's foul as a cow-yard; some of her copper's torn off; upper works rotten; she needs calkin', paintin', new riggin', new——"
"There, hold on!" cried Charley, laughing heartily at Bill's truly formidable catalogue of wants; "I give in. I vote to lease the old barky by the month—that is, if Walt here thinks as I do."
"In for a penny, in for a pound," Walter assented decisively.
So the bargain was concluded before the cargo was half out of the ship, so eager was the lessee to get possession. Walter drew up the lease, a month's rent was paid in advance, and the thing was done.