This street is impassable
       not even JACKASSABLE

In which there was both truth and poetry.  Passersby who laughed at the inscription witnessed simultaneously the rescue of an almost-submerged donkey by means of an improvised derrick.

* * * * *

Benito was showing his friend David Broderick, a recent arrival from New York, some of San Francisco’s sights.  “Everything is being used to bridge the crossings,” said the former laughingly ... “stuff that came from those deserted ships out in the bay.  Their masts are like a forest—­hundreds of them.”

“You mean their crew deserted during the gold rush?” Broderick inquired.

“Yes, even the skippers and officers in many cases....  See, here is a cargo of sieves with which some poor misguided trader overwhelmed the market.  They make a fair crossing, planted in the mud.  And there are stepping stones of tobacco boxes—­never been opened, mind you—­barrels of tainted pork and beef.  On Montgomery street is a row of cook stoves which make a fine sidewalk, though, sometimes the mud covers them.”

“And what are those two brigs doing stranded in the mud?” asked Broderick.

“Oh, those are the Euphemia and Apollo.  They use the first one for a jail.  That’s Geary’s scheme.  He’s full of business.  And the second’s a tavern....  Let’s go up to the new post-office.  Alice is always eager for a letter from her folks in Massachusetts.”

They made their way to the new wooden structure at Clay and Pike streets where several clerks were busily sorting the semi-weekly mail which had just arrived.  Hundreds of people stood in long queues before each of the windows.  “Get in line stranger,” said a red-shirted man laughingly.  “Only seventy-five ahead of us.  I counted ’em....  Some have been in line since last night I’m told.  They’re up near the front and holding places for others ... getting $20 cash for their time.”

Broderick and Benito decided not to wait.  They made another journey round the town, watching Chinese builders erecting long rows of habitations that had come in sections from Cathay.  Everywhere was hasty, feverish construction—­flimsy houses going up like mushrooms over night to meet the needs of San Francisco’s swiftly augmenting populace.

“It’s like a house of cards,” said Broderick, who had been a fireman in New York.  “Lord help us if it ever starts to burn.  Even our drinking water comes from Sausalito across the Bay.”

CHAPTER XXV

RETRIEVING A BIRTHRIGHT

Benito Windham stole from his dwelling, closing the door softly after him so Alice, his wife, might not wake.  A faint rose dawn colored the Contra Costa ridge.  From a few of the huts and larger buildings which sprinkled San Francisco’s hills and hollows so haphazardly, curls of blue white wood smoke rose into the windless air.  Here and there some belated roisterer staggered toward his habitation.  But otherwise all was still, quicscent.  San Francisco slept.