The Hunted Woman Part 43

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 to stay with Jane. He was going to bring her from the cavern and bury her near the cabin, and he pointed out the spot, covered with wild hyacinths and asters, where she used to sit on the edge of the stream and watch him while he worked for gold. And they could return each year and dig for gold, and he would dig for gold while they were away, and they could have it all. All that he wanted was enough to eat, and Jane, and the little valley. And Joanne turned from him as he talked, her face streaming with tears, and in John's throat was a great lump, and he looked away from MacDonald to the mountains.

So it came to pa.s.s that on the fourth morning, when they went into the south, they stopped on the last knoll that shut out the little valley from the larger valley, and looked back. And Donald MacDonald stood alone in front of the cabin waving them good-bye.

THE END