"
Joe bounds from his seat. "A ten-strike! Now, you take a look at
them when we reach 'Frisco.' If there are any to throw a light on
his affairs, tell me. Don't breathe a word till I tell you. I will
probe the matter. I'll break Hardin's lines, you bet." The speculator
dares not tell Peyton his hopes, his fears, his suspicions.
San Francisco is reached. Peyton has "done the Comstock." He is
tired of drifts, gallery, machinery, miners, and the "laissez-aller"
of Nevada hospitality. The comfort of Colonel Joe's bachelor
establishment places the stranger in touch with the occidental
city.
Received with open arms by the Confederate sympathizers, Peyton is
soon "on the stock market." He little dreams that Joe has given
one of his many brokers word to carry a stiff account for the
Virginian. Pay him all gains, and charge all losses to the "Woods
account."
Peyton is thrilled with the stock gambling of California Street.
Every one is mad. Servants, lawyers, hod carriers, merchants,
old maids, widows, mechanics, sly wives, thieving clerks, and the
"demi-monde," all throng to the portals of the "Big Board." It
is a money-mania. Beauty, old age, callow boyhood, fading manhood,
all chase the bubble values of the "kiting stocks.
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