The man with the
limp arm was Ben Caffey. Such was Brown's story. People had not paid
much attention to it, nor to the murdered man's lonely grave by the
river. Henry Francis, evidently, gave Brown full credence, but others
present regarded "Bed-bug Brown" as a joke. True, he was an intelligent
little man. He had taught school at Graniteville several winters, and
had succeeded better at this business than at placer mining on the bars
of the Middle Yuba. But "Bed-bug Brown," perennial picnicker, was not a
scientific sleuth.
So when the council of war broke up, a feeling of skepticism prevailed.
Mat Bailey saw more possibilities in his own suggestion than in the
$10,000 reward. Dr. Mason saw more possibilities, however slight, in the
reward than in the proposed detective. And Henry Francis, though he had
known Cummins from boyhood, and was even now settling up his estate,
pretended to see more possibilities in a stranger than in honest John
Keeler--or himself.
CHAPTER V
Old Man Palmer
Robert Palmer, tall, thin, bent with toil, had lived in California
thirty years. In May, 1849, when the snow drifts were still deep in the
canons of the Sierras, he had crossed the mountains, past Donner Lake
and the graves of the Donner party, through Emigrant's Gap, to the
valley of the Sacramento.
Pages:
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48