Part 2

“Cash talks,” he said tersely, as he produced his belt, and entirely unconscious of the amazed grins of two or three other spectators in the lobby, jerked the belt loose and proceeded to tuck his shirt tails back into a more conventional shape. “I don’t know what a theodolite costs; but there’s nigh on to a thousand dollars in this leather, and if that ain’t enough, I reckon Tom here’ll lend me some till I can get to the bank to-morrer mornin’.”

The engineers, amused, named prices far more modest than David had expected, and he breathed a huge grunt of relief.

“Well,” he said, “that’s mighty nice of you. You won’t lose nothin’ by bein’ good fellers, if ever you come my way. I’m off now. Got to get back to-night, so’s to try to persuade Uncle Bill not to shoot up anybody else. It’s gol-darned expensive, shootin’ up folks is.”

And despite their urgent dissuasions he departed, considerably relieved in mind; but it was nearly dawn when he awoke Goliath in their cabin to tell him of his success.

Very diplomaticaly the partners decided that the best time to visit Old Harmless would be in the evening, lest he be alarmed or be rendered suspicious by their appearance at an unusual hour. They trudged into his clearing, with David in advance carrying two or three phonograph records they had been waiting to present. They discovered that the windows of the cabin had been barred with heavy saplings, and then, as they rounded the cabin, found the defiant Uncle Bill sound asleep on a bench in front of his door, with his patriarchal beard sweeping over his chest, and his rifle resting across his lap. He looked pathetically old and tired. When aroused by their hail he sprang to his feet, peered at them and made certain who they were before he laid his rifle aside, after which he told them of his distress. They listened patiently until he had talked himself to a mournful and dejected silence, and Goliath watched David, wondering what decision his partner would make, and what he might say.

“Well, Uncle Bill,” David said at last, “it’s tough luck. You say the sheriff told you that old Newport owns this land and----”

“Claims it! Drat him! Claims it! But that there don’t make him own it, do it?” roared the patriarch, shaking his fists upward in exasperation.

“So,” David went on calmly, and paying no heed to Uncle Bill’s anger, “I reckon it’ll have to be decided by the courts.”

“Courts be damned!” roared Old Harmless. “Let ’em try to take it away from me and drive me out of here. Me, that found this place first, before any other white man ever come here! That diskivered the diggin’s, and worked ’em, and saw this when she was a camp and----”

In vain the partners discussed the question with him. In vain they assured him that he could not fight the law with a rifle. In vain David told him that the sheriff was compelled, however reluctantly, to do his duty. And so at last, after a long silence, he said, “Well, Uncle Bill, if you’re bound to have a war, of course you’ll get the worst of it. First they’ll send sheriffs. Then if you fight all them off--never can tell!--why, Uncle Bill, I reckon they’ll call out the whole United States army, and bring cannons and rifles and batterin’-rams and all them things, and just naturally wipe you and the whole dinged valley off the map. But--just the same, whipped for sure before you start, bound to get shot all to smithereens, if you’ll do what Goliath and me tell you to do, we’ll be with you when it comes to a finish, won’t we, Goliath? We’ll just oil up our rifles and guns, Uncle Bill, and come right up here and fight with you.”

The old man gasped, and then tearfully seized and wrung their hands. He was speechless and helpless with gratitude. David let him subside and winked slyly at Goliath before he went on.

“But,” he said impressively, “there ain’t to be no shootin’ of any kind till the court’s had its say. Maybe that old leech Newport won’t do nothin’ at all, Uncle Bill.”

“Then--then--what’d you do if you was me?” queried Old Harmless bewildered.

“Do? I’d just keep right on workin’ as if nothin’ had happened. And if anybody comes around, let ’em alone, or tell ’em it’s your land, and they’re welcome to look at it. Tell ’em what nice trees you got, and let ’em hear you play the phonygraft, and if old Newport comes tell him you’re puttin’ it up to the court to say who owns this gulch, and that you’ll not have any truck with him till it does say, and that Goliath and me’s on your side, and goin’ to fight it clean through with you? Will you do that?”

They extracted a very reluctant promise from Old Harmless, but got it nevertheless, and devoted the remainder of the evening to restoring his peace of mind. Indeed, they scorned the idea that there was danger of his being ousted from that wonderful home of his, and at last left him in a more hopeful mood than they themselves enjoyed.

“What did you tell the poor old feller all that stuff for?” Goliath demanded, when they were well clear of the cabin on their homeward way.

“Deeplomacy, pardner!” David explained. “To keep him from killin’ somebody and--to give us time to think up some way of helpin’ him. Time’s what we need now. The sheriff told me that if it comes to court, a lot of things can happen. So you see, if it comes to law, and Hiram gets the title we’ve still got time to--wonder if me and you could buy him off?”

“If we had enough money,” the giant growled. “But if there’s one of these big companies in on the deal, and they want it badly, I reckon all you and me could dig up wouldn’t make ’em do any more’n grin.”

They plodded along in silence for a while, and then David said, “Well, if worst comes to worst, we’ll have to gentle old Uncle Bill down, and get him used to it as best we can, and bring him over to live with us.”

“Of course!” Goliath assented. “That goes without any gab. Poor old feller!”

They were still distressed and perturbed when they bade each other good night and crawled into their bunks. And for the next three or four days they could think of or discuss nothing save their perplexity.

Distraction came unexpectedly, with the arrival of a visitor who was brought to their cabin one afternoon in a hired conveyance, and who shouted a boisterous greeting. They did not recognize him at first, and then David exclaimed, “By the great horn spoon! It’s Heald. Heald that we got out of Mexico with.”

“What? That feller we grabbed out of ---- It is! Sure enough!” Goliath exclaimed as they rushed forward to shake hands with a man whose life they had saved at the imminent risk of their own necks. “What on earth brings you here, Heald? Thought you was in Colorado?”

“Was, the last time I wrote you,” said their visitor with a quiet grin. “Told you men that if ever I came within a thousand miles of you, I’d look you up. I certainly owe you that much, don’t I? And so I’m here. Can you put me up for a week or so? I want to fish a little and maybe shoot at something and--talk over old times. I want to rest.”

Beyond that strange adventure in which they had saved his life, they knew little of him, save that he was a strangely reticent man, evidently capable, courageous, and sometimes a wanderer. They had accepted him as being somewhat like themselves, an adventurer into strange places, accustomed to vicissitude, and well-enduring. That he had remembered them through the years with occasional letters, and once or twice a Christmas gift of a box of cigars or something similar, was merely surprising. The fact that they had imperiled their own lives in his behalf had not impressed them as being any reason for the remembrance; but they were eager to welcome him as an old friend. They were prepared to act as hosts without apologies for the roughness of their hospitality, and he, in return, accepted it as if it were that to which he was entirely habituated.

It was in the dusk of the evening, when they had settled lazily into the crude, homemade and comfortable chairs outside the cabin, and when they had exhausted their reminiscences, that David mentioned the subject uppermost in his mind, and explained how he and his partner had been sympathetically perturbed by the misfortunes of Old Harmless.

“Maybe,” said Heald, “I can help you out on that, some way. I’m--I’m a pretty good lawyer myself, and I’ve had some experience in land titles.”

They had not surmised that he was a lawyer, for never had he told them of his personal activities, or occupations; but now they turned toward him as does a swimming, shipwrecked man to a life raft. He sat and listened as they gave him the details of the situation, sometimes asking a shrewd question, sometimes smoking silently and thoughtfully, a stolid, motionless figure lolling back in his chair. The glow of his pipe alternated with darkness as regularly as the blinking of a lighthouse lamp at a distance.

When they had concluded, they waited for him to speak in a prolonged silence, and hung upon his words as if upon a decision. Ignorant of the complexities of the law, they hoped that he might at once advise them and set their minds at rest, and were annoyed when he said, at last, “Of course, I can’t very well say, offhand, what should be done. I suggest”--he stopped, puffed some more, discovered that his pipe was nearly empty, leaned over and thumped the bowl against the chair leg, refilled it, and by the time the partners were straining with impatience resumed--“I suggest that you take me over so that I can talk with this old man Harmon, and see what he has to say about it. A lawyer can scarcely have a client without consulting him, can he?”

His dry, matter-of-fact tone did not offer the partners as much hope as they craved; but they had to admit his logical attitude.

“We’ll go over there to-morrow night,” said David. “That is, if you can stick such a long walk.”

Heald laughed.

“I’ve walked a few hundred miles in my time,” he said. “I don’t think I’m too old to do a few miles more. It seems you fellows are mightily interested in this man you call Old Harmless, and--I owe you a lot--it strikes me; a lot that I’ve never found any way to repay. Why, if it weren’t for you two, I’d not be here to-night. I’d be dust under a Mexican wall long before now. And so--if I can do anything for you, or a friend of yours---- Yes, I think we must go over to-morrow, so that I may become acquainted with Uncle Bill. I think I’ll like him. There are some real and simple souls left in this world, after all.”

On the following day he proved to be a far more competent pedestrian than the partners had surmised, and when they stopped at the edge of the clearing and looked up the narrow gulch that, bottle-necked, opened out to their view, he stood and for a long time looked at it, his eyes roving from the great stone gates upward to the crests of the hills, to the great snowclad peaks in the background, and thence slowly across to fix themselves on the homely old log cabin from whose stone chimney smoke lazily curled, indicating that Uncle Bill was preparing his evening meal.

“It’s a beautiful place. It does seem almost a pity to spoil it,” he said quite as if soliloquizing, and then slowly trudged forward.

“You’ll maybe have to go slow with Uncle Bill,” David cautioned him, “because he’s sort of sparin’ of talk with strangers. But if----”

“He can talk enough once he knows and likes a man,” Goliath hastened to add, as if fearful that Heald might be discouraged; but Heald merely nodded his head and appeared thoughtful.

“We may have to hang around a long time, or maybe come again before he gets limbered up,” David remarked.

“But he’ll talk after he knows you--that is--if he decides he likes you,” Goliath urged, and this time Heald smiled at the partner’s solicitude.

“Perhaps you’d better leave most of it to me,” he said. “All you need to do is to introduce me as a friend of yours.”

The partners agreed. They had no time for further comment, for the keen ears of the patriarch had made him aware of their coming, and he appeared in the doorway, blinked at them, and then called heartily, “Well, well, well! Ef it ain’t David and Goliath again! And----”

He stopped and stared at Heald as if apprehensive lest the advent of a stranger meant bad news, but was reassured in the warmth of their introduction.

“Anybody who’s a friend of these boys,” he said gravely, “is sure ter be a real man and a friend of mine. So, mister, you’re welcome. Come on in and I’ll hack off some more ham, and hot up some more beans. Baked a new batch of bread ter-day, but she ain’t as good as I could have made her if I’d a-knowed I was goin’ ter have company.”

“Do you feed everybody that comes this way?” inquired Heald.

The old man turned from cutting the ham to stare at him with something like indignation that such a question should be asked.

“All my life,” he declared, not without dignity, “there ain’t never been a man, woman nor child, white or red, tan or yaller, come through my cabin door and gone away hungry. I’ve tried ter be hospiterble ter some I didn’t like. An’ I’ve whacked up my last ounce of grub with a friend, and never felt sorry because my own guts cried for food and there didn’t seem ter be any more on earth.” He stopped with his knife in midair, studied Heald’s face for a moment and abruptly asked, “Young man, I call you that though you might be fifty year old, which is young for me--young man, do you believe in the goodness and kindness of the Lord Almighty? Well, if you do, you’ll know that I ain’t never come ter want. Somehow, when things looked mighty black and hopeless, He always came along and helped me out! Just as if He’d said, ‘Hello. Had so many folks ter look after and think about I’ve had ter overlook old Bill Harmon and it seems he’s havin’ tough luck. Must help him out a little now.’ And, mister, He always did.” He stopped abruptly, made a frantic lunge for the dutch oven, and as he jerked the lid off with his knife and released a cloud of steam said, “Damn it! In a minute more them beans’d been all burned ter hell and gone!”

As if his spasm of loquacity had exhausted itself he relapsed into a silence that was maintained throughout the meal that followed, despite Heald’s palpable attempts to draw him out. Heald himself appeared to have given up, and the partners fidgeted restlessly, because he had made no reference to the land dispute, or old Harmless’ side of the controversy. They were surprised when, as they were leaving, Heald turned to the patriarch and said, “Wonder if you’d mind if I came up and bunked with you a night or two, Harmon? It looks to me as if there might be some trout in this stream of yours that runs down the center of your gulch.”

“I’d welcome you, or any friend of David’s and Goliath’s,” the old man said with grave simplicity. “Come right along. There is trout there, but I ain’t never had time ter catch ’em. Come right along. But--but I’d sort of like ter have you promise you won’t catch no more’n what we kin eat, because--well--you see they’re just the same as you an’ me. They like ter live--and--this is a mighty fine place ter live in. It is! And I like ter think that even the fish down there in my stream is friends of mine in their way, and knows me.”

The moon had pulled up across the divide when the visitors returned home; but the partners could not induce Heald to discuss Old Harmless, and almost his sole comment was, “Remarkable old man! Remarkable! I suppose he has to have every ounce of grub he uses teamed up there, doesn’t he?”

“Packed up on an old burro he’s got. Not teamed,” Goliath answered. “Road up there’s all overgrown now.”

“Um-m-mh!” said Heald thoughtfully. “And yet no one goes away hungry, and--when you fellows show me the way up there to-morrow, I think I’d like to take along a pack of grub, if you’ll sell it to me.”

But they indignantly protested against a sale, although the pack of food went with Heald when they made the journey on the next forenoon.

The partners waited three days, then four, before they again visited the homely old cabin over the ridge. They found Heald and Uncle Bill sitting out in the moonlight listening to the phonograph, and smoking industriously. Heald’s pants were tucked into his boots, and they noticed that he had discarded his suspenders for a leather string, and that the collar of his flannel shirt was open as if he had finally discarded neckties. He looked far less tidy and neat, but far more comfortable than when he had arrived.

“Ain’t you comin’ back with us?” David whispered when Uncle Bill left them for a moment, and in the moonlight they saw Heald’s grin.

“No,” he said. “Not to-night. The fact is, I’m getting to be just like Uncle Bill. I like it here!”

“Has he talked yet?” Goliath asked, stretching his neck toward Heald.

“Somewhat! Somewhat!” declared Heald with an even broader grin.

“Anything we can do for you?” asked David.

“No, I’m all right. But--yes, there is! I almost forgot. I’ve some letters I wish you would take down to the nearest rural box and drop in for me to-morrow. And if there’s anything comes for me, it will be dropped in your box, and you might keep them till I come down, or--maybe it will be better to bring them up when you come again. No, I’m going to stay here a while longer. I like this place.” He stopped, and then chuckled as if amused. “For sporting it’s rather a failure. You see Uncle Bill doesn’t like to have me catch more than six trout per day. He doesn’t know it, but I’ve been fly-fishing with a barbless hook for two days now, and throwing some beauties back into the stream rather than hurt his feelings. S-s-sh! Here he comes.”

After the partners left that night Heald and Old Harmless sat for a long time, smoking, and saying never a word, as if quite content with each other’s voiceless company. The moon had lifted upward and the great gulch was still save for the distant crooning sound of the brook that seemed doing an elfin dance over rocks and bowlders.

“The phonygraft is wonderful,” said the old man at last; “but--but somehow I always come back ter that there music you hear out there.” He pointed with the stem of his pipe at the stream. “It’s the only music that I don’t seem ter ever hear twice alike. It’s got tunes that’s always new. Sometimes they’re angry tunes, in the spring time when the snows is meltin’. Then in about a month it’s a busy tune, as if it was sayin’, ‘Got ter git all this extry water off’n my hands, Bill, and hustle it along ter the sea, and after that when things is right again, and summer comes an’ there ain’t nobody here but God and me an’ you, I’ll try ter sing you the same songs you’ve loved for more’n fifty year.’

“Sometimes that there creek sings things that hurts a little, as if croonin’ for them that’s asleep up on that flat bench over there on the west side of that shoulder you can see. When there was a camp here in this gulch in the early ’sixties we got the smallpox. It was purty bad. Most everybody skipped out, but them that was sick--and me. I stayed on ter nuss ’em, because, you see, if I hadn’t found gold here, nobody would have come, and nobody would have died, and--and--so I felt sort of responsible like and--just stuck it out. There’s eighteen men and one woman--not what I reckon some folks might call a good woman, although I know her heart was all right--that are all asleep on that hill. I buried ’em all myself when there wasn’t no one ter help. And I kept up the place where they was asleep until one time I was away from here four or five year, and when I come back there was a lot of rhododendrons growin’ over ’em, and then I knowed that, although I’d been gone the Lord hadn’t forgotten ’em, and --purty soon the rhododendrons’ll be in bloom again. The patch that grows the biggest and purtiest flowers seems to be over the camp woman’s grave.”

Heald sat staring off at the hillside, wondering at all the unconscious heroism of the tale. He was scarcely aware when Uncle Bill’s voice added, “Sometimes in my dreams it’s all the same as it was; the cabins and the tents with the smoke curlin’ up from ’em; the fellers I knew gassin’ about their clean-ups; the evenin’s in the dance hall. And sometimes I see it about three in the afternoon, with the clink-clink of shovels heavin’ dirt into the sluice boxes, and then I hear the ring of Tim Gray’s hammer and anvil, up there where that tall tree stands, where he had a blacksmith shop; and the stage comes in and some of the boys knocks off work and goes up ter see if there’s any news from home for ’em.

“Harmon’s Camp, they called it then. And I was Bill Harmon--not Uncle Bill. I lifted a pack burro, pack and all, on a bet, one day in them times. Yesterday I had ter rest three times before I could roll a bowlder the size of a barrel out of my way. But--I’m here yet!” He turned toward his guest and said fiercely, in his thin, old voice, “And kin you blame me for fightin’ when they try ter drive me off’n this place that’s mine? I know it ain’t right ter shoot, but---- Good Lord! ain’t it mine? Kin you blame me?”

“I can’t!” said Heald, in a voice that sounded as if subdued by reverence. “But if----”

“There ain’t no buts! There ain’t goin’ to be none! You see how it is, son. I’m here. It’s the only place that’s home ter me. And so I’m goin’ ter stay. If they think they’ve got the best of it, I’ll still have ’em beat, because they wouldn’t cart a poor old cuss like me away from here ter plant him! They’ll just naturally dig a hole off somewhere on the hillside and stick me in the place I love and--here I’ll stay--where I’ve always wanted ter stay--and--and the stream down yonder’ll know I’m there and sing me the same old songs, and I’ll never be lonely in my sleep.”

He could not see that Heald was troubled and perplexed. He could not understand that his mere possession was not title to this place.

“Hope,” said Heald thoughtfully, “that they never put you off. I can’t say any more. But--Uncle Bill, I will do my best, whatever comes.”

“I know that, son! I’m sure of it! But--from all you’ve said ter me--it--it begins to look as if I’ve got ter depend on Somebody higher’n you or the other boys--Somebody that ain’t never failed yet ter see me through!”

And then, with a heavy, weary sigh, he arose and trudged away to his bed.

It was but two days later when the partners brought Heald a bulky package of letters, that he read beneath the lamp in the cabin while the others remained outside, passing broken remarks, and sitting in habitual silences. He came outside with the announcement that the time had come for him to depart.

“But--it’s all so all-fired sudden,” said Old Harmless. “I’ve got--I’ve got sort’o uster you and--the grub’s all right, ain’t it?” he finished with an anxious look toward his guest.

Heald laughed. “The grub’s so good, Uncle Bill, that if there’s any way on earth to eat more of it, I’ll come back. But I’ve got to go to-night, and be in Placerville to-morrow. Can’t loaf forever, can I?”