The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1912-08-03
Copyright 1906 By the Bobbs- Merrill Co.
CHAPTER TX.
The Sons Of Their Fathers.

It was at the end Of the Bonanza
times, that period Of startling upheav-
ais and downfalls, when miners had
suddenly become millionaires, and
rich men found themselves paupers,
that Bill Cannon built his mansion in
San Francisco. He had made his for
tune in Virginia City, not In a few
meteoric years, as the public, who
loves picturesque histories, was wont
to recount relishingly, but In a series
Of broken periods OF plenty with lean
years in between. The Crown Point
and Belcher rise made him man Of
means, and it's collapse was said to
have ruined him. Afterward, wise
acres shook their heads and there
were rumors that it was not Bill Can
non who was ruined. In the dead
period which followed this disastrous
cataclysm Of fortune and confidence,
he was surreptitiously loyal to the ca
PRECIOUS town from which men had
withdrawn their affection and belief
as from a beguiling woman, once
loved and trusted, now finally proved
false.
In those short years Of mourning
and lost faith between the downfall
of Crown Point and the rise Of Con-
Virginia and the Rey del Monte, Bill
Cannon "lay low" His growing repu-
tation as an expert mining man and
rising financier had suffered. Men
had disbelieved in him as they did
in Virginia, and he knew the sweet
ness of revenge when he and the great
camp rose together in titanic part
nership and defied them. His detrac-
tors had hardly done murmuring to-
gether over the significant fact that
Crown Point had not scooped every
dollar he had" when the great ore
body was struck on the thousand-foot
level Of the Rey del Monte, and Bill
Cannon became a Bonanza King.
That was in seventy-four. The
same year he bought the land in San
Francisco and laid the foundation for
the mansion on Mob Hill. His wife
was still living then, and his son and
daughter-the last Of seven children,
five of whom had died in infancy
were as yet babies. A year later the
house was completed and the Cannon
family, surrounded by an aura Of high
colored, accommodating anecdote,
moved down from Nevada and took
possession.
Mrs. Cannon, who in her girlhood
had been the prettiest waitress in the
Yuba Hotel at Marysville and had
married Bill Cannon when he was an
underground miner. was the subject
Of much gossip in the little group
which at that time made up San Fran
cisco's fashionable world. They
laughed at her and went to her enter
tainments. They told stories Of her
small social mistakes, and fawned on
her husband for positions for their
sons. He understood them, treated
them with an open, cynical contempt,
and used them. He was big enough to
realize his wife's superiority, and It
amused him to punish them for their
patronizing airs by savage imperti-
nences that they WINGED under but
did not dare resent. She was silent,
sensitive, loving woman, who never
quite fitted into the frame his wealth
had given her. She did her best to
fill the new role, but 1t bewildered her
and she did not feel at ease in it. In
her heart she yearned for the days
when her home had been a miners
cabin in the foothills, her babies had
known no nurse but herself, and her
husband had been all hers. Those
were her beaux jours.
She died some twelve years after
the installation in San Francisco. Bill
Cannon had loved her after his fash
ion and always respected her, and the
withdrawal or her quiet, sympathetic
presence left void behind 1t that
astonished, almost awed him. The
two children, Eugene and Rose, were
eighteen and thirteen at the time. She
had adored them, lived for them, been
a mother at once tender and intelli-
gent, and they mourned her with pas
sion. It was to dull the ache left by
her death, that Gene, a weak and
characterless changeling in this Wig
Qrous breed, sought solace in drink.
And II was then that Rose, assuming
her mothers place as head Of the es-
tablishment, began to show that ca
pacity for management, that combina-
ton of executive power and gentle
AOASO-OOquC6Nb lAOlu pOlu
that added admiration to the idolizing
love the Bonanza King had always
given her.
The house in which this pampered
princess ruled was one Of those enor-
nous structures which a wealth that
sought extravagant ways of expanding
itself reared upon that protuberance
IN the city's outline called by San
Francisco Mob Hill. The suddenly
enriched miners OF the Comstock Lode
and the magnates Of the railway had
money waiting for investment, and
the building Of huge houses seemed as
good one as any other.
Here, from their front steps, they
could see the city sweeping up from
Its low center on to the slopes Of grid
ling hills. 1t was a gray city, crowd
ing down to the edge of the bay,
which, viewed from this height. ex-
tended far up into the sky. In sum-
mer, under an arch Of remote, cold
blue, 1t looked a bleak, unfriendly
place, town in which the stranger
felt a depressing, nostalgia chill. In
winter, when the sun shone warm and
tender as a caress, and the bay and
hills were like a mosaic in blue and
purple gems, 1t was a panorama over
which the passer-by was wont to lin