Brainard lay awake in his berth long afterwards, listening to the laboring locomotives as they pulled the heavy train over the mountains, rushed through the snowsheds, and emerged occasionally to give glimpses of steep, snowy hillsides. The rarefied air of the lofty altitude had set his pulses humming. So much it seemed had happened to him already since he stepped aboard the train in Jersey City that he could hardly realize himself. The “boss of the fight trust” and the cheerful miner who had “lost the old woman six months back” and still had faith after a lifetime of disappointments that he would dig a fortune from that “hole up in them hills,” were real experiences to the young man. The simple, natural, human quality of these strangers appealed to him. “It must be the west,” he generalized easily. “I suppose Krutzmacht is the same sort,—large-hearted, simple, a good gambler.” But the man who had signed his name between convulsions,—H. KRUTZMACHT,—didn’t seem to fit the same genial frame. He was of sterner stuff. “Anyway he’s given me one fine time and I’ll do what I can for him out there!” It was useless to speculate further as to what awaited him in San Francisco. It might be that court proceedings having already begun, the affair would be taken out of his hands completely. He might find a telegram from Krutzmacht countermanding his orders. At last he dropped to sleep, buoyant and eager for that unknown future that lay before him, while the train having surmounted the last mountain barrier wound slowly down into the green, fruit-covered valleys of California. VII The Overland was several hours late; it was nearly four o’clock of a foggy April afternoon before Brainard emerged from the ferry station with his big valise in his hand. His first intention had been to go to a hotel and there deposit his bag and make inquiries. The miner had urged him to accompany him to the old “Palace.” “They say it’s finer than ever since the quake.” But Brainard, reflecting that it was Saturday afternoon and considering that a few hours’ delay might mean the loss of two days, shook hands with his fellow travelers and turned to the telephone booths to discover Krutzmacht’s city address. When he had memorized the street and number he started up Market Street, still carrying his bag. He was astonished to see how thoroughly the city had recovered from its disaster in little more than a year. There were large gaps in the business blocks, to be sure, but it was a lively, substantial city with a great deal of building going forward, especially in the noisy erection of tall steel buildings. The very sight of these ambitious structures inspired courage!