Luckily
for him, the English immigration consisted mainly of gold-seekers en
route to Sacramento and the southern mines. He was prudent enough to
resist the temptation to follow them, and accepted the post of semaphore
keeper,--the first work offered him,--which the meanest immigrant,
filled with dreams of gold, would have scorned. His employers asked him
no questions, and demanded no references; his post could be scarcely
deemed one of trust,--there was no property for him to abscond with but
the telescope; he was removed from temptation and evil company in his
lonely waste; his duties were as mechanical as the instrument he worked,
and interruption of them would be instantly known at San Francisco. For
this he would receive his board and lodging and seventy-five dollars a
month,--a sum to be ridiculed in those "flush days," but which seemed to
the broken-spirited and half-famished stowaway a princely independence.
And then there was rest and security! He was free from that torturing
anxiety and fear of detection which had haunted him night and day for
three months.
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