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Updated: May 26, 2025
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.
Palmer ushered him into the house, where, seated comfortably in the kitchen and welcomed by dog and cat, he partook of the old man's hospitality. Palmer was evidently much wrought up; and, as soon as his guest had rested a little, proceeded to business. "You got my letter?" "Yes, Mr. Palmer." "Hintzen has informed you that I've named you as one of my executors?" "Yes."
Hintzen kept the general store at Forest City, a business more certain and profitable than gold-mining; and having a reputation for strict honesty, he had become a sort of agent and business manager for the miners. He was one of the few men Robert Palmer trusted; therefore he received the document from Keeler's hand without surprise.
Mason was summoned, and made his way into the cañon on skis. He found the patient in bad condition, suffering from miner's paralysis in its worst form. Still, the old man rallied, affixed his mark in lieu of signature to a letter ordering medicines and other necessaries from Hintzen, and forbade the writing of alarming letters to his relatives.
Beyond, up the bare valley of a mountain stream, lay the trail to Downieville, nine miles away. His mission to Hintzen performed, he would spend the night at Forest City, and push on to Downieville the next morning.
But don't you think Hintzen and Haggerty ought to have a list of your property? If you should die, and they found on examining your books and papers that you had trusted me but not them, why, naturally, they would feel hurt." "Well, Haggerty's an Irishman, and Hintzen's a Dutchman. You are an American like myself, and, what's more, a Democrat after my own heart. I want you to hold the funds."
Perhaps Francis was not well enough to come through the snow. It was Sunday, and at midnight came the fatal stroke. He did not regain consciousness, and died peacefully on Tuesday afternoon, May 2, 1882. Then strange things happened. Hintzen, a large, heavy man, unused to exercise, appeared on snow-shoes at Sherwood's house and asked if Mr. Palmer had said anything about his property. No!
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. When Thieves Fall Out
Weren't the executors acting "at all times and under all circumstances to the best of their judgment?" If conscience demurred that Hintzen and Haggerty were left in the dark, so that "their judgment" had come to mean simply the judgment of Henry Francis, had he not proved that judgment good? He knew that when he had given the heirs to understand that there was no property, he had prevaricated.
He got some gold, dug from the mud, Some silver, crushed from stones, The gold was red with dead men's blood, The silver black with groans; And when he died he moaned aloud, "There'll be no pocket in my shroud." Joaquin Miller. John Keeler, returned from his travels, became Palmer's trusted messenger to Hintzen, to whom the old man sent a copy of his will.
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