Original subtitles

- California, 1854.

Still a land of boom and bust,

with gold still buried in the hills

and plenty of men to find it.

It was the land of greed and folly

as gold-hungry men stampeded from one digging to another.

This was one of the wildest camps,

a strike on Misery Creek built a small town

out of the wilderness in a matter of days.

Been on the trail two days, need a place to sleep

and a place to keep these two men overnight.

- Who are you?

- Matt Wayne, city marshal of San Francisco.

- This aint no jail, mister.

And what's more, we don't have no jails around this place.

- Lay it down, marshal, I reckon we can fix you up.

Oh Shorty, take Marshal Wayne around the back

and tell the boy to fix him up with a bite of supper.

And put these two hombres down in the root cellar.

It's a good, strong cellar with a good strong door, marshal.

I reckon they'll be safe.

Who are they?

- This man's Corbett, his partner's Hastings.

They held up a stagecoach, killed two men.

All right men, get down.

- Better lock 'em up good, Shorty, they look dangerous.

Marshal, you go along with Shorty.

- Are you out of your mind, Dayton?

This ain't no time to have lawmen around.

- Shut up, I'll do the thinking.

That jackass with the star is gonna be our goat.

We ain't gonna have to dodge a posse after all.

(dramatic music)

* California, California

* There's gold in them - "The Californians."

* In California

* I've come to live where life is best *

* In the golden West

* I'm gonna strike it rich in California *

* California

- Wayne?

Marshal Wayne?

What he got with his supper

will keep him asleep till morning.

Come on.

All right, you fellas come out of there.

Corbet, Hastings, come out.

- What's this all about?

- Nevermind, you'll find out, go on.

(explosion booms)

- Get up, get up!

- Do you mind telling me what this is all about?

- Maybe you can tell us.

Where's Dayton, where's Piute?

- What? Who?

- And them two fellas you brought in last night?

- Put that thing away.

- There was $100,000 worth of gold in this safe.

Every cent the camp made on the last strike.

- Why was it kept there?

- Dayton banked it for us.

Now it's gone, so is Dayton, so is Piute,

and so are them two fellas you brought in.

- And you figure they blasted out and got away?

- Looks that way, don't it?

- That root cellar had a door six inches thick,

it was iron-bound to boot.

Who let Corbett and Hastings out?

- Guess who.

- What? Me?

- That's good guessin'.

- Oh now wait, you're not using your sense.

I'm a lawman.

Those two men were my prisoners.

- Maybe you ain't a lawman?

Maybe you and them fellas cooked it up together.

- You've got a lot of maybes, but no facts.

- Stop arguing with him, Shorty.

Let's give him a miner's trial and hang him.

(people shouting) (gunshot booms)

- Hold it!

Hold it, everybody.

If there's gonna be a hanging,

I wanna be a part of the festivities.

There ain't no fun in a hangin'

unless you do it up right and proper.

Well howdy, stranger.

- Vinegar Pete, get outta here.

- Oh I guess not.

As the first citizen of this town

I got a right to be here.

And besides that, I've got this old widow maker

and the first one of ya that makes a move

is gonna get a load of buckshot right in your brisket.

Now, uh.

You got anything with you to prove you are

who you say you are?

- In my pocket.

- Well, take it out but take it out slow.

Any fast action makes me nervous.

Shorty, you can read can't you?

Well study that a bit.

I ain't got my specs with me and besides that I can't read.

(Shorty grunts)

- Says he's city marshal of San Francisco all right.

- Well, I guess I should've shot you at that.

You hanged a cousin of mine a while back,

maybe you remember him?

J. Jameson Jones?

- I remember him.

- Well, I'm Vinegar Pete Jones.

J. Jameson was a tricky old coot,

maybe he deserved a hanging.

(Vinegar Pete chuckles)

Turn the man loose, boys.

- Not on your life! - Get him!

(men shouting)

- [Man] String him up!

- Wait a minute, wait a minute!

Ain't you even gonna give him a trial?

- Get outta here, Jones, before we put you up with him.

- I'm sorry, mister.

Give my best regards to cousin J. Jameson when you see him!

- All right boys, haul away!

- Wait a minute, wait a minute, look, look!

(eerie music)

(crowd murmuring)

- Now take it easy, boys, I'll tell you all about it.

Some of you give poor Piute a hand.

- Thanks.

- No trouble, no trouble at all.

- What happened to him?

- It was them two fellas, they busted out of the cellar.

They held up me and Piute and blew the safe.

We took out after them and run into an ambush.

They got Piute, we got out of there.

- How bad is he hit?

- Well, he's got a permanent part in his hair.

- Hm, just a scratch.

He'll be all right when he comes around.

- What about this fella?

We think he was in on it with them two.

- Oh, he was sleeping when it happened.

- Seems blowing a safe ought to wake him up.

Seems like somebody should've heard something

when them fellas were busting out of the root cellar,

blowing up a safe, and stealing a couple of horses.

- What are you trying to say?

- I'm saying that it's mighty peculiar

how them fellas knew that gold was in your safe.

I'm saying that this whole business needs some study.

Now mister, don't you try leaving this mining district

until some of them questions is settled.

- But he's the marshal of San Francisco.

- I don't care who he is, he stays.

- All right.

Let's get Piute inside.

(crowd murmuring)

- Suppose you've done a lot of mining, eh?

- A considerable.

- Did you ever use blasting powder?

- Yep.

- Did you ever notice the way powder blows up?

- Well naturally.

(Vinegar Pete chuckles)

- The way that safe door was hanging,

that powder would have to blow down.

- Well I didn't notice that.

Say you got a brain, son, that's for sure!

- How well do you know Dayton?

- Oh, he's uh...

He's the biggest man in town, that's all.

There ain't a living soul in Misery Flats

who will say a word against him.

Of course, there's a lot of dead ones

that would like to make a few remarks.

- How'd they die?

- Accident.

- Eh, this ain't going as slick as you figured, Dayton.

- Why?

- Seems to me Shorty Slaughter was lookin' at us

with hanging in his eyes.

- Well we'll just have to take what comes.

They won't do nothing without proof

and that's something they won't find.

- How's that head, Piute?

- [Piute] Sore.

- Which way were those two headed

when you caught up to them?

- Uh, south.

That is, southwest.

They were on the Stockton road.

You goin' after them, ain't you?

- I think I'll look around here for a while.

Take care of that head, Piute.

(dramatic music)

- This fella's dangerous.

- I wanna see you, Vinegar Pete.

- What about?

- I need you in my business.

- Well how's that?

- You seem to know the ropes,

you know everybody around here.

- Well I should, I helped to settle this place.

- [Matt] How much money did you lose in that robbery?

- You don't think I put my gold in that safe, do you?

- [Matt] Why not?

- I been burned by Dayton before.

He jumped a claim of mine, all legal and everything

but real low and tricky.

- [Matt] Seems to fall in line with my thinking

that Dayton robbed his own safe.

- Yeah, I guess you're right.

He was kinda lucky having his own

two prisoners to blame it on, huh?

(Pete chuckles)

- Why don't you sort of spread that idea around?

- Uh, you ain't aiming to scheme up something are you?

- Maybe.

- Kinda a tight mouth, ain't ya?

Seems to me you're asking a lot

after hanging a cousin of mine.

- I gave J. Jameson the best funeral San Francisco ever had.

- Yeah well, that's in your favor.

Now, what else do you want?

- You got any gold?

- About $1,000 in dust and nuggets.

- I want it.

- You what, son?

- I wanna borrow your gold.

- Now now, just hold on a minute!

Let me chew on that for a while,

what makes you think I'll trust you with my gold?

- I'm the marshal of San Francisco.

- Oh shucks, son, there ain't no honest marshals.

I can't take your word.

- Didn't I keep my promise to J. Jameson?

He had a fine funeral, didn't he?

- He sure did, that's right.

- All right, I want that gold

and I also want that big shotgun of yours.

Have them ready tonight.

- Well what on earth are you gonna do?

- Start the biggest stampede this town ever saw.

See you tonight.

(dramatic music)

Got the gold?

- Yeah, but...

Well, you be careful with it

'cause that's all the gold I got.

What're you gonna do?

- Put a little color into Polecat Creek.

When I get through, this'll look like

the richest strike in all of California.

- Well what's that got to do with Dayton and Piute?

- Dayton and Piute are like two pigs

with both feet in the trough.

Anybody that greedy isn't likely to be satisfied

with the $100,000 they've got

if they think they're leaving millions more behind.

- Yeah, but they ain't dumb enough

to think that anybody in this camp

would trust them with the gold after that holdup.

- No.

But they might think people would trust them

if the gold were returned.

You say you had no idea how stupid a greedy man can be.

Especially if he's a greedy man to start with.

(gunshot booms)

(gunshot booms)

You know what to do?

- Yep, stir up trouble and distrust.

Cousin J. Jameson said I shined at that.

- You look more like him every time I see you.

All right, get moving.

(Pete chuckles)

- Yes sir, you're a fine bunch of innocents.

Put everything you owned in a beat-up old tin can of a safe

that anybody could open with a pinch bar and a jackknife.

Why shucks, it was only two days travel

to the Express office in Stockton.

Your gold would've been safe there!

Well all I'm saying is it's funny the robbery happened

just when the safe was crowded to the doors with your gold.

- You were saying?

You been saying an awful lot, Vinegar Pete.

Maybe it's time you started packing your say-so.

- Sit down, Jones.

If you want a little gunplay, I'll be glad to oblige.

- I wasn't mean nothing, marshal.

Nothing at all.

- Shouldn't have talked that way, Vinegar Pete.

- Why not?

Seems that Piute got a little too upset

by what Jones said.

You know the old saying, gentlemen.

The wicked fleeth where no man pursueth.

- I tell you that old coot's poising everybody against us.

And I'll tell you another thing,

that Marshal Wayne's behind him.

- Oh, you're imagining things.

Oh Shorty, why don't you have a drink on me?

- No I don't reckon I will, Dayton.

- Well what's the matter with you?

- Nothing.

Just hate to drink a man's liquor

that I might have to help hang.

(tense music)

- If I ever saw a hanging look, they're wearing it.

I told you we was fools to come back here.

- It'd have been all right if it wasn't for Wayne,

he started all the trouble.

- I told you he needed killing.

- Then let's do it.

- He's always riding out to Vinegar Pete's camp.

I can lay back in the brush and pick him off.

(Dayton grunts)

- You do that and we will hang,

everybody will know we done it.

You gotta meet him in a fair fight.

Your honor's been insulted,

you've got a right to call him on that.

That way, everybody will know

we resent what's being said about us.

- Now wait a minute, Dayton.

He'll kill me before I can get my gun out.

- Now don't you worry,

I'll be right behind him all the time.

- I got folks stirred up pretty good against them two.

What's next?

- Get Shorty Slaughter to prospect Polecat Creek with you.

When you find gold, raise the biggest row in town

you can think of.

- What'll it be, marshal?

- Let me have some Monongahela.

- [Dayton] There you are.

- That was real clumsy, Piute.

- Maybe I meant it to be.

You been talking about me, Wayne.

Maybe it's time you eat some of your words.

- Dayton, do you want this man's blood

all over this clean floor?

- Marshal Wayne, this is not my affair.

If Piute felt insulted by anything you said,

that's his business.

- I'm gonna kill you, Wayne.

(men shouting)

- Grass roots deep and thick as fleas on a dog.

Look at it, just look at it!

Smell it, taste it, feel it!

If this ain't the richest gold strike in California

I'm a first cousin of a mule's hind leg!

- Where'd you get it? - Polecat Creek!

(men exclaiming)

- Gold, nothing but gold!

- If it's all like this,

there'll be millions dug in this camp within a month.

I'll take this to Vinegar Pete.

Millions!

Must be all kinds of money up there.

(door creaks)

- And we only took a measly 100,000.

- Shut your mouth, I'm thinking.

I'm thinking that what we might get up there

is better than we got here.

- You can't get away with it.

- Let me tell you something.

I know miners, they're greedy.

After they make a big strike,

they're not gonna waste a lot of time

toting gold to some Express office.

Not while they can dig more, uh-uh.

They're gonna leave it right here

with good old honest Amos Dayton.

- Not anymore they won't

after all that talk Jones made.

- Ah, they'll forget all about Jones

once I give them back all their gold.

- I don't wanna take the chance.

- You'll do what I say.

Come on.

Well here it is, boys, every speck and penny of it.

Every cent them thieving polecats took from you.

- Well how'd you know where it was?

- Boys, you don't know how sick I was about that robbery.

Why I had Piute out most every day scouting them hills.

- How'd you know it would still be there?

- Well fellas...

I was figuring that there was just too much of it

for them two fellas to tote very far.

As a matter of fact, it was Marshal Wayne

who gave me the idea that it might be buried

and they was planning to come back later

when the coast was clear and dig it up.

Anyhow, we found it, and here it is!

Now fellas, I don't suppose

you wanna leave it with me again.

After all, I let you down once

and believe me, boys, I wouldn't blame you one speck

if you never trusted me again.

- Oh it's not a matter of trusting you, Dayton.

But my gold's going to the Express Company

where I'm sure it'll be safe.

- You mean you wanna waste two whole days

toting gold back and forth

when you could be digging a lot more?

- You're right, Dayton.

As far as I'm concerned, you can put mine

right back in that safe.

- Well that's mighty nice of you, Shorty.

Yes sir, it's nice when a man knows he's got friends

that appreciate what he does for them.

- Well Dayton, you can take mine too.

- Well add gold for me too.

(mem murmuring)

- Why, you fellas are just about

the nicest men I ever did know.

- I say we put the whole thing back in Dayton's safe

and let's go in and have a wetdown.

(men shouting)

(dramatic music)

- Something you forgot, Dayton,

when you were digging up the gold.

- [Shorty] What're you talking about, Wayne?

- Corbett and Hastings.

Both of them shot in the back,

both of them buried in the same spot

underneath the gold.

Right where Dayton and Piute put it.

(gunshot booms)

- [Man] Is he dead?

- No, just a crease in his skull

to match the one Dayton gave him

to make it look as though they'd been bushwhacked?

Well, I guess you might as well haul out of here, men.

This is a dead town.

- What do you mean dead?

There's a new strike on Polecat Creek.

- Well, sorry about that, boys.

I salted that area myself with a shotgun.

(men exclaiming) - You what?

- I had to do something to bring

Dayton and Piute out into the open.

I guess men greedy enough to steal from their own friends

are greedy enough to believe anything.

Well, goodbye.

- Boys, I heard of salted mines before

but there goes the only man

that ever salted a whole stampede.

(triumphant music)

- Howdy!

I figured you'd be along.

Oh, be careful of Catastrophe.

She's awful touchy today.

Well, all cleaned up, everything shipshape?

- Everything's fine.

- Tell me one thing.

How did you know them fellas was gonna fall for

that story about the new gold strike, huh?

- Well, gold's a funny thing.

Does a lot of queer things to people.

I'll tell you a story.

See there was this old prospector who died

and he tried to get into heaven.

But they wouldn't let him in

because he'd been sent down to the other place.

So pretty soon his old prospector friends came

and talked to him through the pearly gates,

asked him how things were down below.

They talked to him about a half an hour, but then he left.

Don't you know, pretty soon every old prospector in heaven

starts stampeding out of there headed for the other place.

- Well that old scoundrel!

I bet he told 'em there was gold down there.

- That's exactly what he did.

- Hm, sounds like cousin J. Jameson.

(both chuckle)

- Or somebody just like him.

But that's not the whole story.

- Oh? - Pretty soon

the old prospector himself came along.

He was all packed up, ready for gold mining,

and they asked him why he was leaving.

He said he was joining the stampede,

he heard that it was likely ground down below.

- Well that's just plain foolish!

He started that story his self.

- Which proves my point.

A man will believe any lie including his own

especially where gold is concerned.

- Ain't that the simple truth.

- Going prospecting, eh?

- [Vinegar Pete] Yep!

- Where?

- Up on Polecat Creek.

- You said yourself that ground wasn't worth digging up.

- Well you got a brain son,

and you said it looked like there was gold up there.

- But we salted that ground ourselves.

- Yeah, but I've been thinking it over

and the more I think about it

the more I think there's gold there just the same.

So I'm gonna go up there and locate

before the big stampede starts.

Come on, Catastrophe.

Goodbye, Wayne!

- Pretty soon every old prospector

was stampeding out of heaven

heading for the place down below.

Hm.

(triumphant music)

* California

* Oh I've traveled here, I've traveled there *

* I guess I've been most everywhere *

* But I like where I am today

* And here is where I'll stay

* Now one thing I just can't endure *

* Is being broke and being poor *

* So I come west to take the cure *

* And here is where I'll stay

* I've come to California, California *

* There's gold in them there hills in California *

* I've come to live where life is best *

* In the golden West

* I'm gonna strike it rich in California *

* California, California

* California, California

* There's gold in them there hills *

* In California

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