“One would think you men asked nothing better than to kill each other,” Inez Windham stormed.

Yet she was secretly proud.  She would have felt a mite ashamed had Adrian displayed less martial ardor.  And to her little son she showed the portrait of Francisco Garvez, who had ridden with Ortega and d’Anza in the days of Spanish glory.

Lithographs of President Lincoln appeared in household and office.  Flags flew from many staffs and windows.  News was eagerly awaited from the battle-front.

Adrian had been rejected by a recruiting board because of a slight limp.  He had never quite recovered from a knife wound in the groin inflicted by McTurpin.  Benito had been brusquely informed that his family needed him more than the Union cause at present.  Still unsatisfied he found a substitute, an Englishman named Dart, who fell at Gettysburg, and to whose heirs in distant Liverpool he gladly paid $5000.

But Herbert Waters went to war.  Alice kissed the lad good-by and pinned a rosebud on his uniform as he departed on the steamer.  Little Robert clung to him and wept when they were separated.  Adrian, Benito and a host of others shook his hand.

A whistle blew; he had to scamper for the gang-plank.  The vessel moved slowly, turning in her course toward the Golden Gate.  Men were waving their hats and weeping women their handkerchiefs.  Alice stood misty eyed and moveless, till the steamer passed from sight.

* * * * *

Though one heard loud-chorused sentiments of Unionism, there were many secret friends of slavery in San Francisco.  One felt them like an undercurrent, covert and disquieting.  To determine where men stood, a public meeting had been called for May 11.  Where Post ran into Market street, affording wide expanse for out-door gathering, a speaker’s stand was built.  Here the issues of war, it was announced, would be discussed by men of note.

“Starr King, our pulpit Demosthenes, is to talk,” Benito told his wife.  “They tell me King’s a power for the Union.  He’s so eloquent that even Southerners applaud him.”

They were interrupted by Po Lun, their Chinese servitor, who entered, leading Robert by the hand.  The boy had a soldier cap, fashioned from newspaper by the ingenious celestial; it was embellished with plumes from a feather duster.  A toy drum was suspended from his neck; the hilt of a play-time saber showed at his belt.  The Chinaman carried a flag and both were marching in rhythmic step, which taxed the long legs of Po Lun severely by way of repression.

“Where in the world are you two going?” Alice laughed.

“We go public meeting, Missee,” said Po Lun.  “We hea’ all same Miste’ Stah King pleach-em ’bout Ablaham Lincoln.”

“Hurrah!” cried Benito with enthusiasm.  “Let’s go with them, Alice.”  He caught her about the waist and hurried her onward.  Bareheaded, they ran out into the morning sunshine.