ARTHUR MORRELL: an English adventurer.
MIMI MORRELL: his wife or mistress.
BEN SANSOME: a lady-killer, destined to become an "old beau."
W. T. COLEMAN, or "old Vigilante," a leader.
DAVID TERRY: a leader on the other side.
JAMES KING OF WILLIAM: a modern Crusader.
THE SPIRIT OF SAN FRANCISCO
AND OTHERS




I


On the veranda of the Bella Union Hotel, San Francisco, a man sat enjoying
his morning pipe. The Bella Union overlooked the Plaza of that day, a
dusty, unkempt, open space, later to be swept and graded and dignified into
Portsmouth Square. The man was at the younger fringe of middle life. He was
dressed neatly and carefully in the fashionable costume of the time, which
was the year of grace 1852. As to countenance, he was square and solid; as
to physique, he was the same; as to expression, he inclined toward the
quietly humorous; in general he would strike the observer as deliberately,
philosophically competent. A large pair of steelbound spectacles sat
halfway down his nose. Sometimes he read his paper through their lenses;
and sometimes, forgetting, he read over the tops of their bows. The
newspaper he held was an extraordinary document. It consisted of four large
pages. The outside page was filled solidly with short eight or ten line
advertisements; the second page grudgingly vouchsafed a single column of
news items; the third page warmed to a column of editorial and another of