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 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 pass 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.