e old man sent a copy of his will.
Keeler was provided with another copy to deposit at the court-house in
Downieville, county seat of Sierra County. For although Robert Palmer
disliked courts and lawyers, he deemed it wise to file a copy of his
will at the court-house. This he could do without telling Hintzen, so he
instructed Keeler, after having seen that gentleman at Forest City, to
continue over the mountains to Downieville, as if on private business.

Honest John Keeler, after a year spent in tracking criminals, had little
liking for this new mission. It seemed as if his old friend thought all
men rogues. Such a sweeping condemnation would include himself, and he
resented the insinuation. However, the old man was still feeble. So
Keeler set out on foot across the mountains.

It had been some time since he had been as far as Chipp's Flat. There he
sought out the old cannon, long since dismounted, and sitting down upon
it he thought of the changes wrought in that neighborhood within his
recollection. In Civil War times, eighteen years before, miners of
Chipp's Flat and vicinity had enlisted in the Union Army. There had been
a full company of a hundred men, and the cannon had been a part of their
equipment. But the cannon had not left that California mountain-side;
and the soldiers themselves had got no further East than Arizona, for in
those days there was no transcontinental railroad. Now that there was
one, Chipp's Flat had no need of it. Save for two or three scattered
houses the mining town had disappeared. The mountain ridge had been
mined through from Minnesota, and now that the gold-bearing gravel had
been exhausted, Chipp's Flat, except in name, had gone out of existence.

The next thing of interest was the dirty blue water of Kanaka Creek, and
the clatter of the stamping mills on the other side of it; for Keeler
was not much used to quartz mining. The name "quartz mining" seemed
misleading, for the wash from the crushed rock was distinctly blue. It
was evident that these quartz mines were paying well, as Alleghany had
every appearance of a live mining town. Keeler stopped at the hotel
there for dinner. It seemed strange that intelligent men should so lose
their heads. Great quantities of liquor were being consumed at the hotel
bar, poker games were in full blast, and there was a cemetery handy.

Keeler was glad to leave Alleghany to climb over the mountain ridge to
Forest City. Now to the eastward the loft