cis deemed it good
policy to assume no obligations. So for thirty-three years that honest
debt remained unpaid; while in the meantime Francis, Hintzen and
Haggerty became wealthy, lost their money, and passed on to their
reward. The doctor, long since removed from North Bloomfield, thieves,
and murderers, was finally paid by Palmers of a later generation.

CHAPTER XVI

When Thieves Fall Out

When news of Robert Palmer's death reached his relatives, pity for his
lonesome life of self-denial was swallowed up by pleasant anticipations.
But weeks and months passed by with no word of encouragement from his
executors. Finally, Mrs. Sherwood, thinking the heirs were being
defrauded, wrote East urging that some member of the Palmer family visit
California. So the astronomer nephew, at considerable expense to
himself, was delegated to cross the continent. At the end of August he
found himself in the Sierras once more. On horseback he visited
Sherwood's ranch, and his uncle's house on Fillmore Hill, ran the
gauntlet of rogues at Alleghany, and passed on over the mountains to
Forest City and Downieville. It was a glorious outing, in spite of the
dust. How brightly the stars shone down on the Sierras! But the further
he investigated the deeper grew the mystery. Dr. Mason told the story of
the sixty thousand dollars loaned by Robert Palmer to the water company.
But the three California executors, reputed honest men, assured the
nephew there was no money to be found. Bankers in Sacramento and San
Francisco were polite but disappointing. All the astronomer brought home
was Mat Bailey's story of the murder of Cummins, a copy of Robert
Palmer's will procured at Downieville, and a problem which defied his
higher mathematics. "Set a thief to catch a thief;" the astronomer was
an honest man.

A few months after his return from California, the tangled web of my
yarn began to unravel. Mat Bailey had reported that nothing had been
heard of the highwaymen "from that day to this." But John Keeler's work
had not been done in vain. O'Leary of You Bet, the Nevada City
jail-bird, had been duly impressed with the handsome reward offered for
the apprehension of the murderers. So every time he met an old
acquaintance he talked about the murder of Will Cummins. It was a simple
method of procedure, and it did not prove immediately successful. As it
was about as easy to be a vagabond in one locality as in another, he
drifted from place to pl