Angelo Hall

“ Mason, canny Scot though he was, could not forget the sight of ninety thousand dollars' worth of gold bullion he had once seen piled up at North Bloomfield, and so was persuaded to gamble with his earnings. He had lost as much as Mack. How rosy is the rainbow, and how evanescent the pot of gold at the end of it! California had swallowed up more wealth than its gold could ever repay, as Keeler well knew. It was only occasionally that some lucky devil, or some prudent, saving man like Robert Palmer, after thirty years in the gold fields, had anything to show for it. ”

“ Often the doctor was one of Mat's passengers. Often he would leave the stage where some trail wound down into a cañon, and putting on his skis glide away among the great pines, which, covered with snow and ornamented with shining icicles, were scattered over the mountain slopes like great wigwams of white canvas. A doctor anywhere is a welcome visitor and a friend in need; in the wilderness, in the depth of winter he ranks but little lower than the angels. Often, coming to a lonely cabin, fairly buried in snow-drifts, he would climb in through the gable window of the loft ”

“ Of course, Cummins was a fool. A man of such character would not miss a few thousand dollars in the long run. What a fool he had been to risk his life! Of course, he, Collins, had risked his life, too. But how different were the two cases! Cummins had rich friends who would help him; Collins had no friends, barring a few silly women. His long suit was women. He really regretted Cummins' death more on Mamie's account than for any other reason.
Poor Mamie! But it must be the gold and not the girl this trip. ”

“ Robert Palmer, tall, thin, bent with toil, had lived in California thirty years. In May, 1849, when the snow drifts were still deep in the cañons of the Sierras, he had crossed the mountains, past Donner Lake and the graves of the Donner party, through Emigrant's Gap, to the valley of the Sacramento. He was thirty-two years old at that time,—no mere youth, seeking treasure at the end of a rainbow. He was already a man of experience and settled habits, inured to hardship and adverse fortune. ”

“ The Celestial was an honest man, and shook his head:
"Me only look on. That cullud niggah he lob me."
Will Cummins glanced at the Chinaman's pistol and smiled. By this time the stage had crossed Bloody Run and was ascending the high narrow ridge known as the Back-Bone, beyond which lay the village of North Bloomfield. By the roadside loomed a tall lone rock, placed as if by a perverse Providence especially to shelter highwaymen. For a moment Cummins looked grave, and he reached for his six-shooter. Mat Bailey cracked his whip and dashed by as if under fire. ”

“ They ought to be treated worse than rattlesnakes. But, as you said just now, all this don't help Will Cummins. But Will is all right, John. You know that as well as I do."
"I came up here to hear you say so. I've pretty near lost faith in God and man, I reckon."
"I lost faith in man long ago," answered Palmer, smiling sardonically. "If the fall of Adam and the curse of Cain are fables,—as they are, of course,—they are just as true as Æsop's fables, for all that. They hit off human nature. But man isn't all. I've never belonged to any church, as I've often told you. ”

“ Mat Bailey were not actually happy ever after, they found life worth living. As only people of humble fortune are likely to do, they lived the simple life. And they found it pleasant. They realized, as many people of humble fortune do not, that the sweetest pleasure can be derived from the cheerful performance of obvious and commonplace duties. Mat had always taken pride in his unpretentious calling, and his wife learned to love the blessed busy life of wife and mother. ”

“ But what is that to your affection for your partner, John Keeler? It is a good old world, I say. Then the Power that's in it and back of it, 'in whom we live and move and have our being,' is a good Power. Well, then, God is good. And that's all we need to know. If God is good, we can depend upon Him in life and death. We don't know what death means. But it's only a natural thing. It can't matter much. I will know more about it, I guess, when I am dead."
"I don't doubt you're right, Mr. Palmer. Once, back in Maryland, I heard a minister say that grief comes to open our hearts to God. ”

“ There was a strong sentiment in California against capital punishment. There seemed to be little objection to murder committed by private citizens, but people raised their hands in horror at what they were pleased to call judicial murder. What right has the State to take so precious a thing as human life, even though the life be that of a hardened criminal? Carter was sick at heart. ”

“ Keeler stopped at the hotel there for dinner. It seemed strange that intelligent men should so lose their heads. Great quantities of liquor were being consumed at the hotel bar, poker games were in full blast, and there was a cemetery handy.
Keeler was glad to leave Alleghany to climb over the mountain ridge to Forest City. Now to the eastward the lofty peaks of the Sierras hove into view, dwarfing the mountain ridges of the gold fields. ”

“ No chance left for a poor man. It takes a big company with capital to run the business of hydraulic mining as they do at Moore's Flat and North Bloomfield. Quartz mining is still worse. By the time you've sunk a shaft and put up a stamping-mill, you've mortgaged your quartz for more than it is worth, perhaps. It takes capital to run a quartz mine."
"Yes," assented Brown, "this country has seen its best days."
"That's what old man Palmer says," remarked Keeler, looking across the cañon at Palmer's Diggings. ”

“ And this was a good reason why bankers at Moore's Flat or Lake City might ship bullion that fatal day. Mat Bailey nodded solemn assent, for he knew that this was sound logic.
It was now his turn to offer suggestions. A stage-driver is always a person of importance, especially in California. For the past six days Mat had found his public importance rather embarrassing. Every trip past the robbers' hiding-place had brought an avalanche of questions from curious passengers. Probably Mat Bailey had been forced to think of the tragedy more constantly than had any other person. ”

“ You couldn't employ a better man than Keeler. He is the soul of honor, as you all admit. For several years he was Cummins' partner. As sheriff of Nevada County he would free it of thugs and murderers as he frees every claim that he works of rattlesnakes. He is death on rattlers. Killed more than a hundred of them last summer. But the lawless element of this county take mighty good care that Keeler is not elected sheriff. So much the better for us, for he is free to manage this business. ”

“ But Mat had become so strongly addicted to stage-driving that he could not give it up even to enjoy the continuous society of his bride. He might, for instance, have become a florist, and employed Mamie as his chief assistant. Instead of this he took her to what he considered the most beautiful place on earth.
He established his home in the meadows of the Yosemite Valley, where the clear waters of the Merced preserve the verdure of the fields the whole summer through. In midsummer, the floor of the Yosemite Valley is like an oasis in the desert. On all sides are rough, dry mountains ”

“ A charitable author must admit the virtues of his "heavy-villain." The sun rises upon the evil and the good, and rain descends upon the just and the unjust, for the simple reason, no doubt, that no other arrangement would be possible, inasmuch as there are no people who are entirely good and none who are wholly bad. In every man the forces of good and evil are at war.
If Henry Francis yielded to temptation there were extenuating circumstances. In the first place, Robert Palmer's will distinctly stated that everything was left to the judgment of the executors. ”

“ To gain a few thousand dollars by highway robbery was no worse than to win it by a dozen other methods counted respectable. Among the youth of Nevada City with whom he had associated, it was commonly believed that every successful man in town had done something crooked at some time in his career—that life was nothing but a gamble anyhow, and that a little cheating might sometimes help a fellow.
When he had learned, some months before, how greatly Mamie admired Will Cummins, he had thought it good policy to pretend a like admiration. ”

“ Arrived at Nevada City, with its steep streets, compactly built up at the centre of the town, church and county court-house on the hillside, the traveler finds himself fairly out of the mountains, the luring fatal mountains, whose very soil has now the color of gold and now the color of blood. ”

“ Then came those scenes of terrifying magnificence when she followed Mat over the trail cut along the perpendicular walls of the cañon five miles down to the floor of the Valley. One who has not passed over that trail can scarcely conceive of it; and one who has, brings away a sense of the sublime and the beautiful mingled with terror. ”

“ Self-defense is a duty which civilized man owes to civilization. Will you tell me that the hundreds of thousands of Armenians who, making no resistance, have perished like sheep at the hands of the Turks, were better men than the four thousand who fled to the mountains and fought off their persecutors till help arrived? Read of the heroic defense, when for fifty-three days the men of that gallant band, with a few rifles, saved their women and children from worse than death. ”

“ A woman's at the bottom of everything, you know."
"Yes, we would none of us be here in this wicked world except for our mothers," remarked the doctor sarcastically. "How has Miss Slocum been acting since the tragedy, Mat? I must confess I can't think ill of that girl."
"Well, Doctor," replied Mat, "she has acted just as you would expect an innocent girl to act. She's been all broken up—down sick a good part of the time. And I don't believe there's a man, woman, or child in Nevada City who mourns Will Cummins more than she does. ”

“ But choosing to dig for gold and to live among adventurers, thieves, and speculators, he had come to distrust human nature. He became so secretive that even at the approach of death, when the kindly French doctor had given him fair warning, he would confide in only one man. Verily, he had his reward.
Incidentally, the three Californians whom he had named as his executors prospered. They may not all be included among the forty-one thieves of this story, but it may not seem unreasonable to suppose that Henry Francis made it worth while for Hintzen and Haggerty to keep quiet. ”

“ Palmer's dust was very fine, and more than once he had suffered through such sharp practice, only to vow he never would suffer so again. In Francis he had found a strictly honest banker, whose virtue he was inclined to attribute to correct political principles, overlooking the moral delinquencies of other Democratic neighbors. But the old man, through long years of experience with human nature in California, had grown extremely cautious and secretive. Probably no one would ever have been the wiser in regard to his old sweetheart and her sad history except for the escape of Cummins' murderers. ”

“ The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life. Did He not caution us to look not to Himself but to God? "Why callest thou me good? One there is who is good, even God" ... "Not those who say, 'Lord, Lord,' but those who do the will of My Father which is in heaven." ”

“ Cummins exchanged glances with the driver, and luckily, as Mat thought, the gamblers seemed to take no notice.
Will Cummins had been in the gold regions twenty-five years. He had already made and lost one small fortune, and now at the age of forty-five, with all his available worldly goods, some seven thousand dollars in bullion, he was homeward bound to Reedsville, Pennsylvania. In the full vigor of manhood, he was a Californian of the highest type. He had always stood for law and order, and was much beloved by decent people. ”

“ While reckless young men were swarming up the valleys of South, Middle and North Yuba, finding fabulous quantities of gold and squandering the same upon the Chinese harlots of Downieville, Robert Palmer was making hay while the sun shone, which was every day in the Sacramento Valley. ”

“ In September, ten weeks after Henry Francis's visit, Palmer put his house in order, and with Sammy, the cat and his dog Bruce, sought protection at Sherwood's. For Sherwood he had little respect; and he thought Mrs. Sherwood a silly woman to have brought her boys to such a home. But the boys were now grown men, friendly, generous, and strong. The old man had no better neighbors.
He insisted, proud and independent to the last, that he should provision the family for the winter. So he drew on Hintzen, who packed in an abundance of good things from Forest City. ”

“ As a money-making proposition, mining with all its uncertainties was more attractive than professional detective work. Then again, these Californians could not trust a man actuated by motives higher than their own. Indeed, their chairman, Henry Francis himself, for some subtle reason which it would have been well for him to analyze, was opposed to employing honest John Keeler. It would have been well for Francis, before it was too late, to realize to what an extent money standards were replacing honor in his own life. It takes determination, loyalty, devotion, to accomplish a difficult task ”

“ It made his heart rejoice to watch the budding affection of these normal, healthy young people. And he knew the magic of the violin. And so they waltzed on to their heart's content in the large dining-room of the hotel at Graniteville. At midnight, the feathery snow began to fall, insuring several other blissful nights. Between dances they looked out of doors and windows; when the drifts buried the whole first story of the hotel, the warmth of that great bare room seemed even more genial. ”