Two of a Kind
The day after the council of war at Moore's Flat, John Keeler crossed the cañon of the Middle Yuba to talk over the death of his old partner with Robert Palmer. As he clambered up the steep side of Fillmore Hill to the claim he had worked with Cummins fifteen years before, all the poetry and all the sadness of life in California came over him. How vividly he remembered his arrival, at the age of eighteen, in this land of romance and adventure! He had reached Moore's Flat on the Fourth of July, 1860, when bronzed miners were celebrating in reckless fashion. The saloons were crowded, and card games were in progress, with gold coins stacked at the corners of the tables. Out of doors some red-faced fellows were running races in the streets and shouting like wild Indians. Over the door of a restaurant was the sign "Eat, Drink, and Be Merry," and the youth pondered the words of Scripture following these festive words, but not quoted by the enterprising proprietor.
He remembered now, after nineteen years, the strange aspect of nature in this strange land. What great mountains! What deep cañons! What huge pines, with cones as large as a rolling-pin! The strange manzanita bushes, the chaparral, the buck-eye with its plumes, the fragrant mountain lily, like an Easter lily, growing wild. It had seemed good to him, a stranger in this strange land, to see old friends in the squirrels that scampered through the woods and crossed his path, to find alders, and blossoming dog-wood, the mountain brake, and his childhood's friend the mullen stalk. Even to this day when he came upon an orchid, or a wild rose, with its small pink petals (smaller in this red sterile soil than in his native country), or when a humming bird in its shining plumage came to sip honey from the flowers, or when in the still woods he heard the liquid notes of a hermit thrush, the romance and the reverence of youth thrilled him.
John Keeler was something of a poet, though the needs of his family at Eureka South kept the bread and butter question in the foreground. He must see "old man Palmer" to talk over the death of Cummins. He was comforted a little when the old man's small black dog, Bruce, came frisking down the trail to meet him; and when Sammy, the cat, tail in air and purring a thousand welcomes, rubbed his sleek fur against the visitor's boots, Keeler fore-tasted sweet solace for sorrow.
"Why, hello, Keeler! Mighty glad to see you!" And then in a changed voice, "You're fagged out. It's an all-fired steep trail. Come in."
"No, thank you," replied Keeler, and he seated himself upon a chair in the door-yard. "It's pleasant out here under the pines. I want to talk."
"I've been expecting you," said Palmer, "ever since the news came about Cummins."
"Well, if it wasn't for my wife and boy, I'd pull up stakes, and get out of California."
"Don't blame you. This thieving and promiscuous killing are enough to discourage anybody. Too bad they can't get the robbers, just this once, and string 'em up."
"I'm a peaceable man, as you know, Mr. Palmer. But I'd be willing to hang those fellows with my own hands. It wouldn't help Will Cummins any, but it would give me solid satisfaction."