"Jim Recket?" I echoed. "He's the man I was to leave change for my gold slug with."
"Recket keeps the El Dorado, next door in the tent. He impressed me as a very quiet, direct, square sort of a fellow. The best type of professional gambler, in matters of this sort, generally is.
"'I am looking for a man,' said I, 'who has a little idle money, some time, no gold-mining fever, plenty of nerve, and a broad mind. Can you tell me who he is?'
"He thought a minute and then answered direct, as I knew he would.
"'To take up your points,' said Recket, checking off his fingers, 'he came out with a shipload of Mormons as their head, and he collected tithes from them for over a year; that's your idle money. He has all the time the Lord stuck into one day at a clip; that's your "some time." He has been here in the city since '48 which would seem to show he doesn't care much for mining. He collected the tithes from those Mormons, and sent word to Brigham Young that if he wanted the money to come and get it. That's for your nerve. As for being broad minded--well, when a delegation of the Mormons, all ready for a scrap, came to him solemnly to say that they were going to refuse to pay him the tithes any more, even if he was the California head of the church, he laughed them off the place for having been so green as to pay them as long as they had.'
"I found Sam Brannan, finally, at the bar in Dennison's Exchange."
"What was he like?" asked Johnny eagerly. "I'll bet I heard his name fifty times to-day."
"He is a thickset, jolly looking, curly headed fellow, with a thick neck, a bulldog jaw, and a big voice," replied Talbot. "Of course he tried to bully me, but when that didn't work, he came down to business. We entered into an agreement.
"Brannan was to furnish the money, and take half the profits, provided he liked the idea. When we had settled it all, I told him my scheme. He thought it over a while and came in. Then we rowed off and paid the captains of the ships. It was necessary now to get them warped in at high tide, of course, but Sam Brannan said he'd see to that--he has some sort of a pull with the natives, enough to get a day's labour, anyway."
"Certainly. You couldn't expect the merchants to lighter their stuff off in boats always. We'll beach these ships at high tide, and then run some sort of light causeway out to them. There's no surf, and the bottom is soft. It'll cost us something, of course; but Sam and I figure we ought to divide three thousand clear."