So, after a fruitless visit to the Big Trees, Lawrence concludes to return to San Francisco, knowing that the Livingston party must ultimately find their way there, before they return to the East. In this place, which was just beginning to get excited over the great mining boom in the Belcher and Crown Point, which three years afterwards gave way to the still greater one of the Consolidated Virginia and California, in which many fortunes were won, and more fine ones were lost, he passes two anxious weeks. Being known to several mining men, and receiving telegram from Garter that the first one hundred thousand dollars had been paid upon his mine by the English company, and he can draw on him for fifty thousand dollars at sight, he goes to driving away thoughts of his errant sweetheart, by taking flyers in the securities of the San Francisco Stock Board, and one afternoon, purchasing a couple of hundred shares of "Belcher" at about fifty--its ruling price in the market at that time--he pays for them, and puts them in his pocket, hoping to sell them on the morrow at a few dollars a share advance, and strolls up to the Grand Hotel, for that is where the Livingstons have stopped before, and will probably stay on their return to San Francisco. Therefore he makes it his headquarters. Here he is delighted to find Mr. Ferdinand Chauncey playing billiards. "By Jove, Harry! What are you doing here?" cries this young gentleman, who has become very familiar with the man who has saved his life. "Hunting for you," replies Lawrence, returning Ferdie's warm grip very cordially. "Ah, you've come to tell us the news, I suppose," laughs Mr. Chauncey. Then he amazes Lawrence with the query: "How is she?" "Who?" "Erma Travenion, of course--how is she getting along with her many step-mammas?" "What do you mean?" ejaculates Harry, thinking Mr. Chauncey has gone daft. "I mean what I say. Innocence won't do. Has old Tranyon given you his mine as well as his daughter? Ollie and his mother quarrel every day over his desertion of the heiress. The widow says that she and Louise won't be able to live on their income now, and Oliver has turned sullen, and says if they can't, Louise can go into a Protestant nunnery. So that young lady is in despair." "What the dickens do you mean?" gasps Harry. Then he says: "Are you crazy?" and looking into Ferdie's face, and seeing sanity there, suddenly seizes him, leads him apart, and commands: "Tell me what you're driving at!" Then Mr. Chauncey, guessing from Lawrence's manner that he does not know what has happened, tells him what took place in Salt Lake the evening before their departure, to which Harry listens with staring eyes. As Ferdie closes, he suddenly breaks out: "Now I understand!--Tranyon's deed to me--it was that angel's doing!" Then mutters: "My God! She'll think me a monster of ingratitude! A prig, like that scalliwag up-stairs;" he turns up his thumb towards where Mr. Livingston is supposed to be.