"Robert Palmer." Oct. 12, 1880.
Only one who knows the spirit of early California can understand this
document. Its beginning is modest: "if there is any property left." What
amount was the old man about to distribute? He was too cautious to
mention it; and when his friend John Hintzen of Forest City, in whose
safe the will was deposited, wrote asking for a list of the property,
the old man parried the question.
Another curious feature of this document is that the old man chose two
executors. He did not care to trust any one friend too far, apparently.
Robert Palmer, Democrat, paid his respects to courts and lawyers. His
executors were "to act without bonds, and also to act without
interference of any court of law or any Public Administrator whatever."
He might better have trusted the courts, as we shall see, for his
friends failed him. After thirty years the executors all died; and to
this day the will of Robert Palmer is an unsolved mystery.
CHAPTER XIII
The End of the Trail
The gold that with the sunlight lies
In bursting heaps at dawn,
The silver spilling from the skies
At night to walk upon,
The diamonds gleaming in the dew
He never saw, he never knew.
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