Part 3

“Nope,” the old man reluctantly admitted, “I reckon you cain’t. It’s when a man is young that he orter be up and movin’. But--by heck!--I’m goin’ ter miss you--I am.” His good will still sounded in their ears when they took the trail; but the partners found Heald strangely disinclined for conversation as they threaded their way over the crests of hills, where all was bright and clear, and then descended into the shadows of the great trees where the paths were dim. It was not until, tired and glad to be in their cabin again, they reached home that the partners learned the results of Heald’s mission. The lamp on the table shielded their faces as they sat on the edges of their bunks, and unlaced their boots preparatory to going to bed. Outside, through the open door the moon still shone, and the trees stood quietly as if asleep. The silences of the open spaces surrounded them--the stillness that pervades untrammeled spots, and corners where all is clean and undefiled. Heald spoke as if impressed with all this, as if he had newly learned a great reverence.

“I’ve found it out! I’ve caught it,” he said. “I knew it would reach me some time, this thing that’s bigger than all else a man may ever learn--the love that passeth understanding. I’ve been blind. Most of us are. Uncle Bill has caught the truth.”

He came across and lifted the shade from the lamp, as if to see the partners’ faces while he talked. He bent over the crude pine table and rested his shoulder weight on the underturned knuckles of his hands, bent forward, staring at them as if challenging dispute. A great respect was in his voice, a softness of finality when he went on.

“Uncle Bill has seen things that are given to but few. He has seen that all else save the love of an invisible but understandable God is worthless; that a man may pile up gold; may achieve ambitions; may lift himself to temporary power, and yet have failed if there is not one place that is all his intimate own. He has found it. It’s his! It shall stay his so long as he lives, by God! Or else I, too, have failed!”

He lifted his right hand, clenched it into a driving fist, and brought it smashing down upon the table top. David and Goliath started from their seats, wondering.

As if their start of surprise had rendered him conscious of his vehemence, Heald paused, swallowed as if choking back unpent emotions, straightened and looked away. As if embarrassed he said, “I’m sort of upset! I’ve thought so much. I’ve learned so much, from Uncle Bill.”

As if by pretext, that he might resume the normal, he walked across to his coat that he had hung upon a peg, took some papers therefrom, scanned them, and, when he spoke again, his voice was placid and undisturbed.

“You chaps helped me out, one time, when otherwise it would have been a finish for me. That’s one point. You brought me up against Bill Harmon, for which I thank you, and that’s point two. Point three is that I’m the one who is behind the big reservoir scheme--the man who puts up the money. Newport brought it to me in New York, and I took an option. I sent my experts to look it over. Uncle Bill made a fool of himself. My experts wired me and I came on, not only to look this project over, but to meet you two men who had befriended me. The two matters fitted into each other and I wished a rest; something to do besides piling up money.”

He tossed the papers in his hand upon the table, and then pointed at them.

“Those,” he said, “are the deeds to all the land in that part of the hills--the land that Hiram Newport pulled together and sold to me. It was to close the deal that I sent through you some letters and checks, which you mailed. The deeds you brought back. The whole of it is mine. But--listen now, and mark it down. It’s my word! It’s a thing I never break.

“So long as Uncle Bill lives, he’s never to know that the land up there isn’t all his own! So long as he lives there’s never a tree in that gulch shall fall by the hand of any man! Never a dam be build across that brook! Never a bird’s nest be pulled down from a bough! Never a trout taken from the stream, without his consent. I don’t want nor need money of the kind that comes from an operation like that. Uncle Bill is to be unmolested as long as he lives--”

He came to a full stop, stared at the table top, then at the amazed partners and said whimsically, “That is--unless I molest him, which, Heaven knows, I hope not to do! I’ve found a new hobby of my own. You two can help me out on that, maybe.”

“What is it?” they blurted out, still mazed in wonderment.

“I’d like to have you persuade him to let me build a big log addition to that cabin of his, up there in his and my gulch, and make it as comfortable as money can do, for Uncle Bill and me; something that he’d like and could enjoy. Some place that I can come to when I want to get away from making money, and meet nothing but a fine and honest, a homely and real old man. I can afford it. The big reservoir can wait. And”--he concluded impetuously--“I don’t care if it waits until both Uncle Bill and I are gone, because that place is ours--his and mine--and what any others may think will not matter to us at all! From now on Uncle Bill and I are partners in this thing --that is--if he’ll let me into a partnership that he is convinced includes at present himself and the Lord Almighty! A partnership like that can’t be beat, after all, and it’s about the only one for which I’m hankering.”

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 7, 1920 issue of The Popular Magazine.]