in."

The three surveyed each other in a startled silence.

"Benito and he are sure to quarrel," Inez whispered. "Madre Dolores!
What can we do?"

"Perhaps I'd better run up to the mines," said Adrian. "I've my own
affair, you know, to settle with this fellow."

"No, no, you must not," cried his wife in quick alarm.

Spear smiled. "I wouldn't fret," he spoke assuringly. "Sam's gone up to
see this fellow ... on a little business of his own."

CHAPTER XIX

THE VEILED WOMAN

Several months went by with no news from Benito. James Burthen had been
buried in the little graveyard on a hill overlooking the bay. And that
ended the matter in so far as San Francisco was concerned.

In the Alta California, a consolidation of two rival papers, appeared a
brief notice chronicling the death of an unidentified miner, whose
assassin, also nameless, had escaped. Ensenada Rose, described as an
exotic female of dubious antecedents and still more suspicious motives,
had left the Eldorado on the morning after the shooting "for parts
unknown." She was believed to hold some "key to the tragic mystery which
it was not her purpose to reveal."

But killings were becoming too familiar in the growing town to excite
much comment. San Francisco's population had quadrupled in the past half
year and men were streaming in by the hundreds from all quarters of the
globe. Flimsy bunk-houses were hastily erected, springing up as if by
magic overnight. Men stood in long lines for a chance at these sorry
accommodations and the often sorrier meals which a score of enterprising
culinary novices served at prices from one dollar up. Lodging was $30
per month and at this price men slept on naked boards like sailors in a
forecastle, one above the other. Often half a dozen pairs of blankets
served a hundred sleepers. For as soon as a guest of these palatial
hostelries began to snore the enterprising landlord stripped his body of
its covering and served it to a later arrival.

"If the town grows much faster it will be a tragedy," remarked Adrian
to James Lick that afternoon. Lick had bought a city lot at Montgomery
and Jackson streets and had already sold a portion of it for $30,000. He
was a believer in San Francisco's future, and at San Jose his flour
mill, once contemptuously called "Lick's folly," was grinding grain
which at present prices brought almost its weight in gold.

"Things always right themselves, my boy," he said. "Don't worry. Keep