That life had been a hard and bitter one. From his earliest childhood Harding had been a victim of the weakness and cruelty of others. A miserable home, made a hell by drink and contention, was at last broken up in ruin, and the young man went forth into the world to meet coldness and injustice at every turn. Suspicion and selfishness are among the almost certain fruits of an experience like this, and the world is naturally more ready to condemn such fruits than to find excuses for them. When Harding found himself unpopular and distrusted he as naturally shaped his conduct so as to justify its condemnation. Surrounded from the beginning of his life by bad influences, and by these almost exclusively, he found little to soften his harsh judgment of men or to mitigate his resentment for their ill treatment. In time he fell in with one who with greater strength and higher wisdom might perhaps have led him up to nobler views and a loftier destiny. For he loved her deeply and without reservation. But her charms of person found no counterparts in her mind or heart, and Harding was cheated and betrayed. To escape old thoughts and associations, and to mend if possible broken fortunes, he sought the Land of Gold. He had heard that men were more generous there than elsewhere, less cunning, tricky, and censorious. Perhaps even he might find average acceptance among new scenes and among a new people.
But on the day he landed at San Francisco Harding was robbed by a fellow traveller, whom he had befriended, of the last penny he had in the world. The man had shared his stateroom on board the steamer, and knew that he had a draft on the agent of the Rothschilds. When Harding cashed his draft he took the proceeds, in gold coin, to his hotel. That night he was visited by his shipmate, who contrived to steal the belt containing this little fortune, and to escape with it to the mines. Next morning Harding sought a near relative, an older man of known wealth, his sole acquaintance on the Pacific coast.
"I've come to you," he said, after receiving a somewhat icy greeting, "to ask you to help me. A serious misfortune has overtaken me, and----"
"If it's money you want," interrupted the other brusquely, "I've got none!"