ered something to Joanne, and a little later Joanne whispered it to
Aldous.

"They want to know if they can be married with us, John," she said. "That
is, if you haven't grown tired of trying to marry me, dear," she added with
a happy laugh. "Have you?"

His answer satisfied her. And when she told a small part of it to Marie,
the other woman's dark eyes grew as soft as the night, and she whispered
the words to Joe.

The third and last day was the most beautiful of all. Joe's knife wound was
not bad. He had suffered most from a blow on the head. Both he and Aldous
were in condition to travel, and plans were made to begin the homeward
journey on the fourth morning. MacDonald had unearthed another dozen sacks
of the hidden gold, and he explained to Aldous what must be done to secure
legal possession of the little valley. His manner of doing this was
unnatural and strained. His words came haltingly. There was unhappiness in
his eyes. It was in his voice. It was in the odd droop of his shoulders.
And finally, when they were alone, he said to Aldous, with almost a sob in
his voice:

"Johnny--Johnny, if on'y the gold were not here!"

He turned his eyes to the mountain, and Aldous took one of his big gnarled
hands in both his own.

"Say it, Mac," he said gently. "I guess I know what it is."

"It ain't fair to you, Johnny," said old Donald, still with his eyes on the
mountains. "It ain't fair to you. But when you take out the claims down
there it'll start a rush. You know what it means, Johnny. There'll be a
thousand men up here; an' mebby you can't understand--but there's the
cavern an' Jane an' the little cabin here; an' it seems like desecratin'
_her_."

His voice choked, and as Aldous gripped the big hand harder in his own he
laughed.

"It would, Mac," he said. "I've been watching you while we made the plans.
These cabins and the gold have been here for more than forty years without
discovery, Donald--and they won't be discovered again so long as Joe DeBar
and John Aldous and Donald MacDonald have a word to say about it. We'll
take out no claims, Mac. The valley isn't ours. It's Jane's valley and
yours!"

Joanne, coming up just then, wondered what the two men had been saying that
they stood as they did, with hands clasped. Aldous told her. And then old
Donald confessed to them what was in his mind, and what he had kept from
them. At last he had found his home, and he was not going to leave it
again. He was going