Peyton is glad to have a mentor in the West. He has gained neither peace nor fortune in wandering under the fringing palms of Latin America. Toiling up the Sierra Nevada, Woods shows Peyton where Valois won his golden spurs as a pathfinder. "I have a favor to ask of you, Peyton," says Joe. "I want to hunt up that boy in Paris. I'm no lawyer, but I think he ought to have some of this great estate. Now, Hardin is a devil for slyness. I want you to keep silent as to Valois till I give you the word. I'll see you into some good things here. It may take time to work my game. I don't want Hardin to suspect. He's an attorney of the bank. He counsels the railroad. He would spy out every move." "By the way, Colonel Woods," Peyton replies, "I have the papers yet which were found on Valois' body. I sealed them up. They are stained with his blood. I could not trust them to chances. I intended to return them to his child. I have never examined them." 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." From session to session, the volatile heart of San Francisco throbs responsive to the sliding values of these paper "stock certificates."