Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/338

 she enters a dimly-lighted, ill-ventilated room, steps up to an opening in the barrier of separation between customer and proprietor, similar to a post-office window, and timidly lays upon the board perhaps a diamond ring, relic of happy days departed. A dark visaged man in greasy coat and faded smoking-cap from within seizes the jewel, and through glasses of the greatest magnifying power, critically scrutinizes it as if to read the sparkles of its soul.

"How much?" at length he asks, peering at his customer over the top of his spectacles.

"Thirty dollars," replies the applicant, who wishes to borrow as little as possible so that the jewel may be the more easily redeemed.

"No more than twenty," the man in spectacles briefly responds. The ring had cost a hundred dollars years ago when diamonds were not worth so much as now. But taking the coin and certificate which the man of money as a matter of course presents, the victim of necessity departs, thinking "when and how shall I redeem it?"

Lines of travel were soon established and every facility offered the impatient gold-seekers for getting from place to place. Good wagon roads were marked out through the valleys which in the summer answered every purpose, but after the winter rains had thoroughly saturated the parched and porous soil a loaded wagon once off the beaten track sank to the hubs and must be unloaded and pried out as from a marsh. Through the town the stage thundered out into the valley, over the broad plain, up the ascent, through rugged and sometimes more than suspicious defiles, then down by gradual and winding descent to where the half-stripped miners planted their heavyblows through the hot livelong day. The river steam- boats entered into the spirit of the times, and now and then there was strong opposition. Then might be heard opposition runners at the wharf crying "One dollar to Sacramento by the magnificent steamer