with fresh mercury. This clean-up was going to be
especially good, and he was glad to be alone.

Treasure like this would tempt his lawless neighbors. He wanted no such
rogues round as they had at Angels Camp, Calaveras County, where,
according to his last copy of "The California Democrat," the post-office
had been robbed of a thousand dollars, including one hundred dollars'
worth of postage stamps. Postage stamps! He laughed to think to what
straits thieves had come in Calaveras County.

Then he thought of his own hard-earned treasures, safely locked up in
the Hibernia Bank of San Francisco and with D. O. Mills of Sacramento.
Some day kindred back in Connecticut would have cause to praise his
frugality and self-denial. Sometimes he thought of his blasted romance
and of the poor woman in San Francisco who scrubbed floors for an honest
living. Ah, well, life is hard. His own years of toil were nearly over,
as he knew by unmistakable signs. Perhaps this rich clean-up would be
his last. And so it was; though nearly two years elapsed before a
merciful Providence released the old man from this world where thieves
break through and steal the fruits of our labors.

The Woolsey boys, young men now, with the strength of the hills in bone
and muscle, were the old man's chief reliance. They could see that he
was failing, and felt sincerely sorry. They noted with what grim
determination he stuck to his work. The tenacity inherited from a
hundred generations of strong men, farmers, sea-kings, warriors, nerved
his old arms and kept strong the will within him.

One day about the first of August, in the early afternoon when the sun
is hottest, they found the old man within doors, washing dishes.

"Sit down, Mr. Palmer," said John, the older of the boys, "and we will
do the dishes for you."

"Well, boys, go ahead. I know what famous pot-wrastlers ye be. I can't
compete with you." And he gladly sat down, to examine a legal document
the boys had brought him. For one Dupre, who had a rough farm at the
bottom of the canon and sold the old man vegetables, had sued him for
damages, because the dirt washed down from Palmer's diggings had covered
up a few square rods of grass land. The damage was slight, but the
Frenchman was thrifty, and had sued for a round sum. Palmer was quite
willing to pay actual damages, but he had refused to be robbed. A
compromise had finally been made, and Dupre agreed to withdraw his suit
upon the payment of fi