CHAPTER LXIV
AN IDOL TOPPLES
News had come in early spring of Robert Windham senior's death in
Monterey; less than two months afterward his wife, Anita, lay beside him
in the Spanish cemetery.
The old Californians were passing; here and there some venerable Hidalgo
played the host upon broad acres as in ancient days and came to San
Francisco, booted, spurred, attended by a guard of vaqueros. But a new
generation gazed at him curiously and, after a lonely interval,
he departed.
Market street was now a lordly thoroughfare; horse-cars jingled merrily
along the leading streets. Up Clay street ran that wonder of the age, a
cable-tram invented by old Hallidie, the engineer. They had made game
of him for years until he demonstrated his invention for the conquering
of hills. Now the world was seeking him to solve its transportation
problems.
Ralston, as usual, was riding on the crest of fortune. His was a
veritable lust for city building. Each successive day he founded some
new enterprise.
"Like a master juggler," said Benito to his wife, "he keeps a hundred
interests in the air. Let's see. There are the Mission Woolen Mills, the
Kimball Carriage Works, the Cornell Watch Factory--of all things--the
West Coast Furniture plant, the San Francisco Sugar Refinery, the Grand
Hotel, a dry dock at Hunter's Point, the California Theater, a
reclamation scheme at Sherman Island, the San Joaquin Valley irrigating
system, the Rincon Hill cut, the extension of Montgomery street .
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