He paused in reminiscence.  “But it wasn’t so gay that moonlight night, the next February, when we hung Jenkins.  He was a Sidney Cove and had just stole a safe, but that was the least of his crimes and of the whole gang.  When we Vigilantes heard the taps on the firebell here in the Plaza, we gathered in front of the committee rooms.  Nobody was excited; we just had to drive out the Sidney Coves and put an end to crime.  We marched Jenkins here and hung him over there to the beam on the south end of the Custom House.  Forty of us pulled on the rope, while a thousand more stood ’round as solemn as a prayer meeting to give us moral support and shoulder the responsibility.  It wasn’t no joke hanging a man, but it had to be done, if decent men was to live here.”

He shook off his depression.  “Everybody was in the Plaza sometime in the day, and once a month when Telegraph Hill signaled a steamer, everybody was here.”

“Telegraph Hill?  I never heard of it,” he cast an accusing glance in my direction.

“It belongs to forty-nine,” I retorted.

“All the shops closed immediately,” continued the miner, “and Postmaster Geary was the most important man in town.  The post-office was a block up the hill at Clay and Pike Streets, but the lines from the windows stretched down into the Plaza, and over among the tents and chaparral on California Street Hill.  Men stood for hours, sometimes all night, in the pouring rain, and many a time I sold my place for ten dollars, and even twenty, to some fellow who had less patience or less time than I.

“But you should have been here on election day in fifty-one.”  The miner threw back his head and laughed aloud.  “Colonel Jack Hays was running for sheriff,” he resumed, “and his opponent hired a band to play in front of his store here on the Plaza as an advertisement.  It worked fine!  He was polling all the votes and the Colonel was about out of the running, ’til he got on his horse that he’d used on the Texas ranges and came cavorting into the square.  He showed ’em some fancy turns they weren’t used to and kept it up ’til the polls closed.”

“Did he win?” I asked excitedly.

“Well, I guess he did!  Hands down.  But a sheriff ain’t no use when the laws won’t stick.  That’s why we had to have the Vigilance Committees.”

I arose.  That was a long story and the afternoon was fast going.  My companion took the hint.  He extended his hand and grasped the old miner’s heartily.

“I thank you,” he said, “you have opened up a new epoch to me and I shall not soon forget you.  I shall come again and the place will have lost much of its interest if you are not here.”

“Oh, I’ll be here,” laughed the old fellow.  “It’s home to me.”

Telegraph Hill

The Latin Quarter.  The signal station of ’49 and a view of the city as it was.  The Golden Gate.