Nineteen rounds of drinks. What more would John Barleycorn ask in
order to have his will with men? They were ripe to forget their
dearly cherished plans. They rolled out of the saloon and into
the arms of the sharks and harpies. They didn't last long. From
two days to a week saw the end of their money and saw them being
carted by the boarding-house masters on board outward-bound ships.
Victor was a fine body of a man, and through a lucky friendship
managed to get into the life-saving service. He never saw the
dancing-school nor placed his advertisement for a room in a
working-class family. Nor did Long John win to navigation school.
By the end of the week he was a transient lumper on a river
steamboat. Red John and Axel did not send their pay-days home to
the old country. Instead, and along with the rest, they were
scattered on board sailing ships bound for the four quarters of
the globe, where they had been placed by the boarding-house
masters, and where they were working out advance money which they
had neither seen nor spent.

What saved me was that I had a home and people to go to. I
crossed the bay to Oakland, and, among other things, took a look
at the death-road. Nelson was gone--shot to death while drunk and
resisting the officers. His partner in that affair was lying in
prison. Whisky Bob was gone. Old Cole, Old Smoudge, and Bob
Smith were gone. Another Smith, he of the belted guns and the
Annie, was drowned. French Frank, they said, was lurking up
river, afraid to come down because of something he had done.
Others were wearing the stripes in San Quentin or Folsom. Big
Alec, the King of the Greeks, whom I had known well in the old
Benicia days, and with whom I had drunk whole nights through, had