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 place--first to Sacramento, then to San Francisco, then over the Sierras to the mining camps of Nevada, then through Utah and Wyoming, till at last he found himself in jail in St. Louis.
There, three years after the murder, he found his old pal J. C. P. Collins--but how changed! Could that coarse and bloated countenance belong to the fastidious and pleasure-loving Collins?
"Well, Collins, I hardly knew you. How does the grub here compare with what we used to get at Carter's boarding-house?" O'Leary referred to the jail at Nevada City.
"This must be your first week in St. Louis," replied Collins, "if you haven't put up at this hotel before. Been caught stealing again, I suppose?"
"That's me. Only the matter of a lady's purse that was of no use to her."
"Well, women are the cause of all my trouble. They drag a man down worse than drink. They are a bad lot, are women."
"Why, you're a regular preacher, ain't you? You used to be a ladies' man."
"That was in California."
"How's the wild and woolly?" asked Collins, presently, looking his old pal over contemptuously.
"Oh, I know I ain't stylish like you Eastern dudes. I'm a honest miner, I am. And I don't wear boiled shirts like you."
"You're honest, all right. We'll leave that to Sheriff Carter. Remember how he caught you stealing that Chinaman's dust? I can see that Chinaman's sign now: 'Heekee & Co., Gold Dust Bought.' By the way, what's become of my old flame back there?"
"Oh, a lady? I don't remember no ladies that was acquainted with gents like us."
"I don't reckon you know the girl I mean. She wasn't in your class, that's a fact."
"Maybe I can tell you if you'll just say her name."
"Well, I'm inquiring after Miss Mamie Slocum, the sweetest little girl in Nevada City."
"You're joking, sure. That girl never had any use for the likes of you. Mat Bailey would knock your head off if he heard you breathe her name."
"Insult me as much as you like. 'No fighting' is the rules of this hotel. I asked you, how is that little girl? Sweet on Mat Bailey, is she? Well, I'm glad of it."
"Yes; she and Mat have been good friends ever since Will Cummins was killed."
"So? How's that?"
"Why, you know she came down on the stage that day, and saw it all. Some say she knew the robbers and helped them find Cummins' bullion. I guess Mat was in the deal, too. Anyhow, she and Mat have been good friends ever since, as I tell you."
"Now look here, O'Leary, you're dead wrong. That girl is as innocent as you are."
"Sure! The judge just sent me up for snatching a purse, you know."
"I tell you that girl knew nothing about the hold-up."
"It must have happened after you left California, or you wouldn't be so sure. I'll tell you about it. Stage comes down from Moore's Flat. Mamie Slocum talks and laughs with Will Cummins. Sees where he stows his old leather grip. Sings out to the robbers, 'That's Mr. Cummins' valise under the seat there.'"
"That's a lie, and you are a fool to believe it!"
"I'm telling you the facts."
"The facts! Why, man, wasn't I there? And don't I know just what happened?"
Astonished at this outburst, O'Leary looked hard at Collins. There was no mistaking his earnestness; and he only leered at the other's astonishment. O'Leary was discreet enough to say no more; and Collins seemed to think his secret safe enough in the keeping of an old pal two thousand miles from the scene of the murder. But that very night O'Leary telegraphed to Sheriff Carter of Nevada City:
"Man who killed Cummins in jail here. Come at once.
Pat O'Leary."
John Keeler and Henry Francis happened to be at the railroad station the next morning, when Carter started for St. Louis; and he showed them the telegram.
"When thieves fall out," remarked Keeler; and Francis winced. Was it because he foresaw that the ten thousand dollar reward would be claimed? or was it for some other reason? Keeler wondered.
