And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow--
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be--
This land of Eldorado?"
"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,
"If you seek for Eldorado!"
Edgar Allan Poe.
Robert Palmer's diggings on Fillmore Hill are still plainly seen from
the stage road on the other side of the canon of the Middle Yuba; but he
who has the hardihood to cross the canon will find the mine worked out,
the water-ditch dry, and the old man's house pulled down. The basement
of the house still affords shelter to adventurers who come to dig for
Palmer's hidden treasure. There is no other treasure on that barren
hill-top, for the Woolsey boys, to whom the old man deeded his mine,
worked out the paying gravel long ago.
At the bottom of the canon, and just across the cold, rushing river, is
a clump of rose bushes, which mark the spot where the Woolsey brothers
lived with their mother and old Sherwood, their step-father. Beyond the
rose bushes, in the edge of a meadow, are three lonely graves, covered
by the branches of alders, unmarked save for flat field stones, and
unknown except to a few ranchmen who drive their cattle up the river for
summer pasturage.
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