The Hunt for Gold

Written by: Wyatt Clayton

Steeped in history and rich in beauty, San Francisco was Buck

Cartwright and any photographer’s dream. When his employer
commissioned him to travel to San Francisco and take pictures of
the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill for the magazine, Buck couldn’t
believe his luck. He was asked to do something he loved, and he’d
get paid for it!

Once Buck arrived, he bolted from the hotel, eager to explore the
sights. But as he stood on the street corner, he felt overwhelmed,
asking himself where he should go first and how he would get
there.

“Can I help you?” a man asked, adding, “You look a little lost.”

Buck’s face burned hot with embarrassment as he said, “I’ve dreamed of visiting this beautiful
city my whole life, but now that I’m here, I don’t know where to begin.”

“My name is Jack Randal,” the man said as he extended his hand, introducing himself. “San
Francisco is my specialty! I’ve lived here my whole life, I’m retired now, and I’d be happy to give
you a tour of my city.”

“I’d love a personal tour guide!” Buck brightened, thinking how lucky he was.

“OK, then I recommend traveling the city by cable car. After all, our city invented cable cars,
and they were named a national historical landmark in 1964.”

As the two set off, something glittered beside a storm drain in the
street. Curious, Buck bent down and picked up a golden rock that
shimmered in the sunlight.

“Incredible…even the rocks in your city are beautiful!”

“That’s not a rock; that’s a gold nugget! San Francisco must be your
lucky city.”

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 “Lucky indeed!” Buck exclaimed. “I feel just like James W. Marshall, who discovered gold in
Sutter’s Creek, California. Just like that was the beginning of the gold rush in America, this
marks the beginning of my adventure!”

“Be sure to take good care of your gold nugget and keep it in a safe place.”

Buck agreed it was best to be preventative and tucked

it into his front, left pocket. He didn’t want to end up
like Marshall, who, after years of searching for more
gold, never found any sizable amount of gold and went
bankrupt. With no money, Marshall learned the hard
way that all that glitters is not gold.
Buck and his new friend Jack hopped onto a cable car
that bounced and twisted around town, climbing up
steep hills and going down narrow streets. True to his
word, Jack took Buck on an awe-inspiring tour of San Francisco.

At the end of the day, Jack promised to return in the

morning to take Buck to Telegraph Hill. The two set off at
dawn and took a leisurely tour, where Buck finally
glimpsed the wild parrots. Their bodies were bright green,
with red feathers covering most of their heads, making it
look like they were wearing red masks.
“These creatures are amazing!” Buck told Jack as they
watched the birds nibble on fruit and fly from tree to tree.

“They’re a medium-sized parrot called the red-masked parakeet,” Jack explained, “and they
originated from Peru and Ecuador, but this colony was formed by released and escaped
parrots.”

After Buck got to work and took photographs for the magazine, the two were as hungry as
bears and headed to a hot dog stand.

“These pictures I took will be perfect for my article,” Buck said. “I must be the luckiest person in
San Francisco, and I even have a gold nugget to prove it.”

Buck went to pull it out from his pocket, but all he felt was material. His heart sank when he
realized it was not there or in his other pocket, either.

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 “Oh, no, I lost my gold nugget!” he exclaimed as he knelt down and began scouring the
sidewalk.

“You lost it?” Jack asked. “Let me help you. When did you last have it?”

“I can’t remember! I should’ve taken better care of it.”

“Don’t panic,” Jack reassured his friend as he put his hand on Buck’s shoulder. “We’ll be
detectives, retrace your steps, and see if we can find it.”

“But you’re just a stranger, and you’ve already helped me so much.”

“We’re not strangers anymore. We’re friends, and friends are supportive and help each other
out in fun times and tough times. Now, let’s go back to our last activity.”

After checking and being unsuccessful at Telegraph

Hill, the two jumped onto a ferry to Alcatraz Island,
which they had toured the day before. Buck paid
admission once again for the two of them, remembering
what he had learned exploring the old cells that once
held some of the worst criminals in the United States.
Together, they searched the prison’s hidden rooms,
passageways, and underground cells to no avail.

Frustrated, Buck let out a long breath. “How am I going to find my gold nugget?”
“We haven’t retraced our steps at Golden Gate Park yet,” Jack encouraged.
They repeated their stroll down the paths of the park, but despite careful scrutiny of every
path and trail, they couldn’t find the gold nugget.

“There’s still one more place we visited that we haven’t

checked,” Jack pointed out when Buck sagged onto a
park bench in despair.

“The San Francisco Zoo.”

Buck bee-lined it to the capuchin monkey exhibit, where
he had spent the longest amount of time, but there
wasn’t a trace of the nugget there, either. They searched
every place they visited at the zoo, but they didn’t find the elusive gold nugget.

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 Exhausted from two days of sightseeing and upset about the mystery of his lost treasure, Buck
plopped down on a bench next to the giraffes and sank his head into his hands.

“Maybe I’m not as lucky as I thought.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t find your lucky golden nugget,” Jack said. “But in other ways, I’m not sad.
Because you lost your treasure, I got to spend extra time hanging out with you.”

“You’re right! I got to see the amazing sites of San

Francisco thanks to you, and I got to see them
twice. I was looking at this all wrong. It wasn’t [Photo: A wide shot of
finding the gold nugget that made me lucky, it San Francisco. Getty
was finding a new friend.” 1279891732]

As Buck cheered up, the two friends boarded the

cable car to go back to Buck’s hotel. Buck started
to relax when, from the corner of his eye, he
spotted something metallic beneath the seat in
front of him.

“It can’t be!” He reached down and plucked up a gold nugget.

The familiar shape and texture of the nugget convinced him it must be the same one he
originally found by the storm drain. Unbelievable! Not only had he made a new friend on his
trip, but he found a gold nugget twice! Perhaps San Francisco was the luckiest place in the
world!

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