They are dead, long ago — Ah Quong, old Sing, Shotgun-Chinaman — and gone to the blessed region of the Five Immortals, I know, but every true Californian will understand the regard the pioneer families had for these faithful Chinese servitors who took as much loving pride in the aristocratic and unblemished names of their “familees” as the white persons who bore them.  Four generations of my family, old Sing lived to serve — but I must get on with my forty-niner’s tale of the hanging of Charlie Price!

“Eh, mon, but the spring is here again,” said Jim “Hutch” (Hutchinson) to Old Man Greeley.

“Is it so, now?” returned the little man, gazing off through the sunny, velvet air to a world which had been painted clean, new green.  His shrewd, blue eyes returned to the ponderous Scotchman.

“And how came you to realize that it was spring?” he asked maliciously.

“How came you to lick Sandy McArthur-r-r?” Hutchinson came back at him.  “Tell me that.”

“Well, but whisper, man,” said old Jimmie plaintively, “what else could a man be after doin’?  Me boots were on, an’ I could not run away an’ climb a tree, so I used them on McArthur.”

“Ye’re a wild fightin’ Irishman with no regard for the Sabbath,” returned Jim Hutch, sternly.  Now Greeley had a fear of what the dour old Scotchman might tell upon him.  It would not pay to lose his Celtic temper.

“It was to church I was goin’.” he growled. “‘Twas why I was wearin’ me red-topped high boots.”

“Where was church that day, whatever?  At the Widow Schmitt’s?”

Jimmie squirmed.  “You mentioned the beautiful spring, I mind,” he countered deftly.  Suddenly Jim Hutch grinned.

“I’ll tell ye why.  I was gaein’ down frae Rattlesnake this afternoon an’ Charlie Price an’ his Leezie were out in his bit garden a-plowin’.  Mon, ye could hear him for miles!”

It was even so.  Old Charlie Price had decided that it was high time to put in his vegetable garden.  He went out to the lean-to in his corral to inform Lizzie, the mare, of his intention.  Lizzie was always the unwilling partner of these agricultural peregrinations, and, now she saw him approaching with the harness, she ran away with much snorting and scattering of sod.

“Hey, you, Liz,” roared Charlie, “you goot-for-not’ing buckskin lummix, you com mit!” He flourished the halter rope at her.  Lizzie flattened her ears, opened her mouth like a yawning snake, and ran at him.  Old Charlie let out a whoop that brought the sheriff from Rattlesnake at full speed, and could be heard (so they say) all the way across the river to Wild Goose Flat, six miles away.

Even Lizzie, accustomed as she was to Charlie’s mannerisms, was frankly startled and meekly allowed herself to be caught.  She did not like to plow.  She was a saddler and a pair of tugs and a collar bored her.  With a cinch one could puff out in true wild-horse fashion while the latigo strap was being pulled, and afterward be fairly comfortable, but a slipping collar was neither off nor on.  She shook herself impatiently and the collar slid down her neck to her ears.