, or Russia, had here come to their journey's
end.

At the cemetery gate, fastened by a wire, was the quaint sign:

"NOTICE
PLEASE PUT THIS WIRE ON AGIN
TO KEEP IT SHUT."

A beautiful clear mountain stream flows along one side of the ground and
pours into the river below. A lone pine chants requiems over the dead;
and yellow poppies with red hearts spring out of the graves. Many of the
headstones are boards, naturally; and one poor fellow, whose estate at
death was probably a minus quantity, is commemorated by a strip of tin
with his name pricked into it. There is a fair proportion of pretentious
monuments, which were drawn by ten-horse teams from some distant
railroad station.

Marked by such a monument was the grave which Keeler sought. The
symbolism was striking,--a broken column, an angel holding out an olive
branch, and Father Time. And this was the verse of Scripture carved in
stone:

"Man walketh in a vain shadow:
he heapeth up riches and cannot
tell who shall gather them."

Forgetting the murdered Frenchman in the forcefulness of the text,
Keeler wondered if Robert Palmer's journey, too, would end like this.

CHAPTER XIV

Golden Opportunities

In California Opportunity knocked at every gate--not once but many
times. It returned again and again, most persistently, and intruded
alike on men awake and feasting, or asleep and dreaming. John Keeler had
hardly spent an hour in Downieville before he had met a Golden
Opportunity. On approaching the town he had passed several short tunnels
dug into the hillside, and at the court-house he met the owners of one
of these tunnels. Smith came from Ohio,--he had for many years been a
teacher, and was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. His
partner, whom he introduced as a Confederate veteran, was a Virginian.
As partners, the blue and the gray were almost irresistible. Three
hundred dollars invested in their shaft would mean a rich strike.

But other Opportunities had left Keeler rich in experience and short of
cash. He could not use Robert Palmer's money as his own; so he could
only smile, rather sadly, and wish his new friends success. How many of
his acquaintances had invested good money in a hole in the ground! Even
the most prudent, in some unguarded moment, had parted with thousands of
dollars, like the dog in the fable which dropped the real bone to seize
the shadow. There was Mack, proprietor of the hotel at Granit