The news of California's admission finds Hardin and Valois already
men of mark in the Occidental city.
Disappointed at the issue, Hardin presses on to personal eminence;
he turns his energies to seeking honors in the legal forum.
Maxime Valois, quietly resuming his studies for the bar, guards his
funds, awaiting opportunity for investment. He burns the midnight
oil in deep studies. The two men wander over the growing avenues
of the Babel of the West. Every allurement of luxury, every scheme
of vice, all the arts of painted siren, glib knave, and lurking
sharper are here; where the game is, there the hunter follows.
Rapidly arriving steamers pour in hundreds. The camp followers of
the Mexican war have streamed over to San Francisco. The notable
arrival of the steamer California brings crowds of men, heirs to
future fame, and good women, the moral salt of the new city. It
also has its New York "Bowery Boys," Philadelphia "Plug Uglies,"
Baltimore "Roughs," and Albany "Strikers."
By day, new occupations, strange callings, and the labor of organizing
a business community, engage all men. The ebb and flow of going
and returning miners excite the daylight hours. From long wharves,
river steamers, laden to the gunwales, steam past the city shores
to Sacramento.
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