“Seems to me his place was right here where we are,” puzzled Johnny. “Hanged if I don’t believe this is the place; only they’ve stuck a veranda roof on it.”
We turned into the entrance of the hotel, to find ourselves in the well-remembered long, low room wherein we had spent the evening a few months before. It was now furnished with a bar, the flimsy partitions had been knocked out, and evidently additions had been constructed beyond the various closed doors. The most conspicuous single thing was a huge bulletin board occupying one whole end. It was written over closely with hundreds and hundreds of names. Several men were laboriously spelling them out. This, we were given to understand, was a sort of register of the overland immigrants; and by its means many parties obtained first news of scattered members.
The man behind the bar looked vaguely familiar to me, but I could not place him.
“Where’s the proprietor of this place?” I asked him.
He indicated a short, blowsy, truculent-looking individual who was, at the moment, staring out the window.
“There used to be an Italian─” I began.
The barkeeper uttered a short barking laugh as he turned to attend to a customer.
268“He found the climate bad for his heart–and sold out!” said he.
On the wall opposite was posted a number of printed and written handbills. We stopped idly to examine them. They had in general to do with lost property, stolen horses, and rewards for the apprehension of various individuals. One struck us in particular. It was issued by a citizens’ committee of San Francisco, and announced a general reward for the capture of any member of the “Hounds.”
“Looks as if they’d got tired of that gang down there,” Johnny observed. “They were ruling the roost when we left. Do you know, I saw one of those fellows this afternoon–perhaps you remember him–a man with a queer sort of blue scar over one cheekbone. I swear I saw him in San Francisco. There’s our chance to make some money, Jim.”