Inez Windham called to David Broderick, who was passing, “There’s room for one more on our balcony.  Come up.”  As he stood behind her in the window, stooping a little, she looked eagerly into his careworn face.  “One might think it was a circus.”  He smiled.

“You remind me of champagne, you San Franciscans.  The inherent quality of you is sparkle....  Even if an earthquake came along and swallowed you, I think you’d go down with that same light, laughing nonchalance.”

Mrs. Stanley made a moue at him.  “You find us—­different from your Eastern ladies, Mr. Broderick?” she asked expectantly.

He considered for a moment.  “Sometimes I think it is the land more than the women.  They come from everywhere—­with all their varied prejudices, modes, conventions.  But, after a time, they become Californians—­like you.”

“That’s what Benito says,” returned his sister.  “He’s daft about San Francisco.  He calls it his Golden City.  I think”—­she leaned nearer, “but you must not say I told you—­I think he has written poetry about it.”

“Ah, yes,” said Broderick, “he has that strain.  And how is Alice?”

“Alice is well,” he heard Inez say.  Then a great shout from the street silenced their converse.  Colonel Bailie Peyton was speaking.

“We are here to consider principles of the first magnitude and which may result in the shedding of innocent blood.  One of the objects of this meeting is to prevent so dire a calamity.

“The Vigilance Committee must be sustained or put down.  If they are put down it must be at the point of the bayonet.  The question is whether we shall appeal to the Governor to put them down in this way, or whether we shall ask him to withdraw his opposition.”

He looked up at the balconies across the street.

“The Vigilance Committeemen have the prayers of the churches on their side, and the smiles of the ladies—­God bless them.”

There were cheers and applause.

Again his voice rose to crescendo: 

“Let us show the Governor that if he fights the Committee he will have to walk over more dead bodies than can be disposed of in the cemetery.  Let us indorse all the Committeemen have done.  Let us be ready to fight for them if necessary.”

The crowd broke into wild huzzas.  Volney Howard and Richard Ashe, the naval officer, paused on a near-by corner, attracted by the uproar.  Howard scowled and muttered something about “damned pork merchants,” but he looked uneasy.

* * * * *

The Vigilance Committee, undaunted by Governor Johnson’s proclamation or the efforts of the Law and Order element, continued quietly the work of ridding San Francisco of its criminals and undesirables.

On June 10 the National Guard of San Francisco disbanded and Marshal Hampton North resigned.  Rumor had it that the Vigilance Committee’s work was finished.  On July 4 they would disband with a great public demonstration, it was rumored.  Coleman did not deny this.