CHAPTER XVIII

NEWS OF BENITO

Brannan turned from contemplation of the dead to find himself surrounded by a curious, questioning group.  A bartender, coatless, red-faced, grasping in one hand a heavy bung-starter as if it were a weapon of defense; a gambler, sleeves rolled up, five cards clutched in nervous fingers; half a dozen sailors, vaqueros, a ragged miner or two and several shortskirted young women of the class that had recently drifted into the hectic night-life of San Francisco.  All were whispering excitedly.  Some of the men, with a show of reverence, removed their hats.

“Do you know who did this?” Brannan asked.

“I saw it,” cried one of the women.  She was dressed as a Spanish dancer and in one hand held a tambourine and castanets.  “They fight,” she gave a little smirk of vanity, “about me.”

Brannan recognized her as Rosa Terranza, better known as Ensenada Rose.  She had been the cause of many rivalries and quarrels.

“Dandy” Carter, the gambler, let down his sleeves and thrust the cards into his pocket.

“Rose was dealin’ faro,” he explained, “and this galoot here bucks the game....  He lose.  You un’erstan’.  He lose a lot o’ dust ... as much as forty ounces.  Then—­just like that—­he stops.”  The gambler snapped his fingers.  “He says, ’My little gal; my partner!  God Almighty!  I’m a-wrongin’ them!’ He starts to go, but Rose acts mighty sympathetic and he tells her all about the kid.”

“Hees little girl,” the dancer finished.  “I say we dreenk her health together, and he tell me of the senorita.  He draw a picture of his claim with trees and river and a mountain—­ver’ fine, like an artist.  And he say, ’You come and marry me and be a mother to my child’.”  She laughed grimly.  “He was ver’ much drunk ... and then—­”

“That Sydney Duck comes in,” said Dandy Carter.  “He sits down at the table with ’em.  They begins to quarrel over Rose.  And the fust I knows there was a gun went off; the girl yells and the other man vamooses, with this feller staggerin’ after.”

“He shot from under the table,” a sailor volunteered. “’Twas murder.  Where I come from they’d a-hanged him for’t.”

“But who was he?” Brannan asked the question in another form.  The girl and Dandy Carter looked at one another, furtively.  “I—­don’t know his name,” the girl said, finally.

“Don’t any of you?” Brannan’s tone was searching.  But it brought no answer.  Several shook their heads.  Ensenada Rose shivered.  “It’s cold.  I go back in,” she said, and turned from them.  Brannan stopped her with a sudden gesture.  “Wait,” he ordered.  “Where’s the map ... the paper this man showed you ... of his mine?”