Читать книгу Hard-Pan. A Story of Bonanza Fortunes онлайн

32 страница из 59

Such a sudden and unexpected rise to opulence might have dazed another man, but the colonel rose to it like a race-horse to the spur. He was born with a natural instinct for luxury. Formerly he had been merely one of a thousand good fellows. Now he became a prince. Nothing was too whimsically extravagant for the pioneer who had crossed the isthmus in 1849. He could be traced by the trail of squandered money. He bought a country place near San Mateo, raised a palace on it, and entertained such celebrities as then drifted to California in a way that made them tell astonishing stories of the “Arabian Nights” existence of the bonanza kings. In the heyday of his prosperity he had married a young actress, who had enjoyed the splendors of her sudden elevation for three years, and had then died, leaving her husband but one legacy—a baby daughter.

Very shortly after her death the colonel’s fortunes began to decline. He put on a bold front and was more lavish in his expenditures than ever, for his belief in himself was unshakable. Then stories of his reverses got abroad, and people said the whole brief span of his glory had been a piece of pure and unmerited luck; as a financier he had no ability. The misfortune which attended all his later investments seemed to prove this assertion. His money melted like wax before fire. He bought largely of land about South Park and Rincon Hill when it was at its highest, refused to sell out, and saw the tide of popularity move to the other side of the city, leaving him overweighted with real estate upon which he could not pay the taxes. He mortgaged it to its full value, speculated with the money, and lost it. Ten years after his wife’s death he was ruined. Twenty years after saw him living in the house near South Park, the sole possession left him.