rest. But it still goes on.”
Their informant, moved perhaps by their youth and seeming
helplessness, directed them to one of the hulks that had been towed close to the shore and scuttled.
“Jemmy Kemp was her cook, an’ the skipper left him in charge, see, when he an’ the rest went off to the diggings,” he explained. “Now he’s turned her into a rooming house. He’ll give you somewhere to sleep if you tell him that Gene Drucker sent you. It’ll cost you, but you’ll be all right aboard the Nancy Bray, and Jem’s an honest man.”
They had found him so, although Luke had been outraged by the rent demanded for the tiny two-berth cabin Kemp had offered them. But it was shelter, and their meals were provided; there was no need for Mercy to show herself in the streets anymore, and, the girl thought, as she stood on deck watching yet another vessel nose her way into the harbor, it would not be for much longer. Despite the delay, Jasper Morgan’s trail was still warm; Luke’s initial inquiry at the office of the United States Mint had elicited the information that their quarry had been there barely a month before them.
Mercy recalled the visit. The Mint was where they had begun their search, and a talkative clerk had been ready enough to tell them what they wanted to know, for clearly it was not every day that a man brought a fortune in gold to be redeemed for cash by the Mint, even in San Francisco.
“A fine gentleman,” the clerk had said without prompting. “I remember him well. A military officer, British, he told me, who came out here in the paddle-steamer Panama. At the beginning of the year it was, when the Panama made her best passage from the East—a hundred and forty-two days. But of course the new clipper ships out of Boston have cut that record. The Sea Witch made it in ninety-seven days around the Horn from New York. No paddle-wheeler will match that.”
He had been disposed to enlarge on the clipper’s achievement, but Luke had brought him back to the subject of their inquiry, and they had learned, to their profound astonishment, that Dan’s estimate of ten thousand dollars had been too low. The mint had paid Jasper Morgan more than twelve thousand, and one nugget alone had been weighed by the mint’s chief assayer and found to turn the scale at thirteen pounds, four ounces.
“Lord alive!” Luke had confided in a hoarse whisper as Mercy stood beside him in the small, dimly lit clapboard office. “That was the nugget I found in the hole where the manzanita bush was growing, halfway up the riverbank. I knew it was big, but I never dreamed it would weigh that much.”
And Jasper Morgan had robbed him of it, Mercy reflected bitterly, watching as the clerk counted out the meager payment for their own small bags of dust, while continuing to sing the praises of the British military gentleman, whose strike had set everyone employed at the Mint enviously talking. None of them, however, had been able to say or even hazard a guess as to Morgan’s present whereabouts or his future plans.
“I figure he’ll have gone back to his claim,” the clerk had suggested. “In the Sacramento Valley, wasn’t it? Or … no, the captain mentioned the Feather. If you’re so set on finding him, maybe you should make for the Feather. There are river paddlers plying from here now, up as far as Sacramento and Marysville, and I hear tell there are stagecoaches running up the valley, if you can afford the fares.”
Jasper Morgan had been able to afford the river steamer; that was probably how he had gained so long a start over them, Mercy decided, knowing his ways. He would not go back to Windy Gully, of course—however carefully he had covered his tracks, he would not take that risk. The area covered by the diggings had expanded; each day the gold seekers moved farther and farther afield as word of some new strike reached the camps, but Morgan, she was convinced, would not choose to remain in
Their informant, moved perhaps by their youth and seeming
helplessness, directed them to one of the hulks that had been towed close to the shore and scuttled.
“Jemmy Kemp was her cook, an’ the skipper left him in charge, see, when he an’ the rest went off to the diggings,” he explained. “Now he’s turned her into a rooming house. He’ll give you somewhere to sleep if you tell him that Gene Drucker sent you. It’ll cost you, but you’ll be all right aboard the Nancy Bray, and Jem’s an honest man.”
They had found him so, although Luke had been outraged by the rent demanded for the tiny two-berth cabin Kemp had offered them. But it was shelter, and their meals were provided; there was no need for Mercy to show herself in the streets anymore, and, the girl thought, as she stood on deck watching yet another vessel nose her way into the harbor, it would not be for much longer. Despite the delay, Jasper Morgan’s trail was still warm; Luke’s initial inquiry at the office of the United States Mint had elicited the information that their quarry had been there barely a month before them.
Mercy recalled the visit. The Mint was where they had begun their search, and a talkative clerk had been ready enough to tell them what they wanted to know, for clearly it was not every day that a man brought a fortune in gold to be redeemed for cash by the Mint, even in San Francisco.
“A fine gentleman,” the clerk had said without prompting. “I remember him well. A military officer, British, he told me, who came out here in the paddle-steamer Panama. At the beginning of the year it was, when the Panama made her best passage from the East—a hundred and forty-two days. But of course the new clipper ships out of Boston have cut that record. The Sea Witch made it in ninety-seven days around the Horn from New York. No paddle-wheeler will match that.”
He had been disposed to enlarge on the clipper’s achievement, but Luke had brought him back to the subject of their inquiry, and they had learned, to their profound astonishment, that Dan’s estimate of ten thousand dollars had been too low. The mint had paid Jasper Morgan more than twelve thousand, and one nugget alone had been weighed by the mint’s chief assayer and found to turn the scale at thirteen pounds, four ounces.
“Lord alive!” Luke had confided in a hoarse whisper as Mercy stood beside him in the small, dimly lit clapboard office. “That was the nugget I found in the hole where the manzanita bush was growing, halfway up the riverbank. I knew it was big, but I never dreamed it would weigh that much.”
And Jasper Morgan had robbed him of it, Mercy reflected bitterly, watching as the clerk counted out the meager payment for their own small bags of dust, while continuing to sing the praises of the British military gentleman, whose strike had set everyone employed at the Mint enviously talking. None of them, however, had been able to say or even hazard a guess as to Morgan’s present whereabouts or his future plans.
“I figure he’ll have gone back to his claim,” the clerk had suggested. “In the Sacramento Valley, wasn’t it? Or … no, the captain mentioned the Feather. If you’re so set on finding him, maybe you should make for the Feather. There are river paddlers plying from here now, up as far as Sacramento and Marysville, and I hear tell there are stagecoaches running up the valley, if you can afford the fares.”
Jasper Morgan had been able to afford the river steamer; that was probably how he had gained so long a start over them, Mercy decided, knowing his ways. He would not go back to Windy Gully, of course—however carefully he had covered his tracks, he would not take that risk. The area covered by the diggings had expanded; each day the gold seekers moved farther and farther afield as word of some new strike reached the camps, but Morgan, she was convinced, would not choose to remain in
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