They are dead, long ago—Ah Quong, old Sing, Shotgun-Chinaman—and gone to the blessed region of the Five Immortals, I know, but every true Californian will understand the regard the pioneer families had for these faithful Chinese servitors who took as much loving pride in the aristocratic and unblemished names of their “familees” as the white persons who bore them. Four generations of my family, old Sing lived to serve—but I must get on with my forty-niner's tale of the hanging of Charlie Price!
“Eh, mon, but the spring is here again,” said Jim “Hutch” (Hutchinson) to Old Man Greeley.
“Is it so, now?” returned the little man, gazing off through the sunny, velvet air to a world which had been painted clean, new green. His shrewd, blue eyes returned to the ponderous Scotchman.
“And how came you to realize that it was spring?” he asked maliciously.
“How came you to lick Sandy McArthur-r-r?” Hutchinson came back at him. “Tell me that.”
“Well, but whisper, man,” said old Jimmie plaintively, “what else could a man be after doin'? Me boots were on, an' I could not run away an' climb a tree, so I used them on McArthur.”
“Ye're a wild fightin' Irishman with no regard for the Sabbath,” returned Jim Hutch, sternly. Now Greeley had a fear of what the dour old Scotchman might tell upon him. It would not pay to lose his Celtic temper.
“It was to church I was goin'.” he growled. “'Twas why I was wearin' me red-topped high boots.”
“Where was church that day, whatever? At the Widow Schmitt's?”
Jimmie squirmed. “You mentioned the beautiful spring, I mind,” he countered deftly. Suddenly Jim Hutch grinned.