pture 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 canons! 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."

"Well, Keeler, I'm glad of one thing, Cummins was a bachelor, like me,
and not a married man."

"I've thought about that, but it don't give me