"They had no business to have so weak a rail!" he cried bitterly.

"Well, you're here, all right," I said soothingly. "There's no great
harm done."

"Oh, isn't there?" he snarled.

Then we learned how the weight of the gold around his waist had carried
him down like a plummet; and we sensed a little of the desperate horror
with which he had torn and struggled to free himself from that dreadful
burden.

"I thought I'd burst!" said he.

And then he had torn off the belt, and had shot to the surface.

"It's down there," he said more calmly, "every confounded yellow grain
of it." He laughed a little. "Broke!" said he. "No New York in mine!"

The crowd murmured sympathetically.

"Gol darn it, boys, it's rotten hard luck!" cried a big miner with some
heat. "Who'll chip in?"

At the words Johnny recovered himself, and his customary ease of manner
returned.

"Much obliged, boys," said he, "but I've still got my health. I don't
need charity. Guess I've been doing the baby act; but I was damn mad at
that rotten old rail. Anyway," he laughed, "there need nobody say in the
future that there's no gold in the lower Sacramento. There is; I put it
there myself."

The tall miner slowly stowed away his buckskin sack, looking keenly in
Johnny's face.

"Well, you'll have a drink, anyway," said he.

"Oh, hell, yes!" agreed Johnny, "I'll have a drink!"

CHAPTER XLII

SAN FRANCISCO AGAIN

We drew up to San Francisco early in the afternoon, and we were, to put
it mildly, thoroughly astonished at the change in the place. To begin
with, we now landed at a long wharf projecting from the foot of
Sacramento Street instead of by lighter. This wharf was crowded by a
miscellaneous mob, collected apparently with no other purpose than to
view our arrival. Among them we saw many specialized types that had been
lacking to the old city of a few months ago--sharp, keen, businesslike
clerks whom one could not imagine at the rough work of the mines;
loafers whom one could not imagine at any work at all; dissolute,
hard-faced characters without the bold freedom of the road agents; young
green-looking chaps who evidently had much to learn and who were
exceedingly likely to pay their little fortunes, if not their lives, in
the learning. On a hogshead at one side a street preacher was
declaiming.

Johnny had by now quite recovered his spirits. I think he was helped
greatly by the discovery that he still possessed his celebrated dia