CHAPTER I.
HO, FOR CALIFORNIA.
One beautiful misummer night in 18-- a large, heavily laden steamer was
making her way swiftly up the Pacific coast, in the direction of San
Francisco. She was opposite the California shore, only a day's sail
distant from the City of the Golden Gate, and many of the passengers had
already begun making preparations for landing, even though a whole night
and the better part of a day was to intervene ere they could expect to
set their feet upon solid land.
She was one of those magnificent steamers that ply regularly between
Panama and California. She had rather more than her full cargo of
freight and passengers; but, among the hundreds of the latter, we have
to do with but three.
On this moonlight night, there were gathered by themselves these three
personages, consisting of Tim O'Rooney, Elwood Brandon and Howard
Lawrence. The first was a burly, good-natured Irishman, and the two
latter were cousins, their ages differing by less than a month, and both
being in their sixteenth year.
