r of '51. Although the occasion was an auction, the bidders'
chances more than usually hazardous, and the season and locality famous
for reckless speculation, there was scarcely any excitement among the
bystanders, and a lazy, half-humorous curiosity seemed to have taken the
place of any zeal for gain.

It was an auction of unclaimed trunks and boxes--the personal luggage of
early emigrants--which had been left on storage in hulk or warehouse at
San Francisco, while the owner was seeking his fortune in the mines. The
difficulty and expense of transport, often obliging the gold-seeker
to make part of his journey on foot, restricted him to the smallest
impedimenta, and that of a kind not often found in the luggage of
ordinary civilization. As a consequence, during the emigration of
'49, he was apt on landing to avail himself of the invitation usually
displayed on some of the doors of the rude hostelries on the shore:
"Rest for the Weary and Storage for Trunks." In a majority of cases
he never returned to claim his stored property. Enforced absence,
protracted equally by good or evil fortune, accumulated the high storage
charges until they usually far exceeded the actual value of the goods;
sickness, further emigration, or death also reduced the number of
possible claimants, and that more wonderful human frailty--absolute
forgetfulness of deposited possessions--combined together to leave
the bulk of the property in the custodian's hands. Under an understood
agreement they were always sold at public auction after a given time.
Although the contents of some of the trunks were exposed, it was found
more in keeping with the public sentiment to sell the trunks LOCKED and
UNOPENED. The element of curiosity was kept up from time to time by the
incautious disclosures of the lucky or unlucky purchaser, and general
bidding thus encouraged--except when the speculator, with the true
gambling instinct, gave no indication in his face of what was drawn in
this lottery. Generally, however, some suggestion in the exterior of
the trunk, a label or initials; some conjectural knowledge of its former
owner, or the idea that he might be secretly present in the hope of
getting his property back for less than the accumulated dues, kept up
the bidding and interest.

A modest-looking, well-worn portmanteau had been just put up at a
small opening bid, when Harry Flint joined the crowd. The young man had
arrived a week before at San Francisco friend