The shepherd made as if to interrupt, but the big man continued; “Don’t you suppose we can see, sir, how you’ve made over the whole neighborhood.  There ain’t a family for ten miles that don’t come to you when they’re in trouble.  An’ there’s Sammy Lane a readin’, an’ talkin’ just about the same as you do yourself, fit to hold up her end with anybody what’s got education, and Jim himself’s changed something wonderful.  Same old Jim in lots of ways, but something more, somehow, though I can’t tell it.  Then there’s my boy, Grant.  I know right well what he’d been if it wasn’t for you to show him what the best kind of a man’s like.  He’d a sure never knowed it from me.  I don’t mean as he’d a ever been a bad man like Wash Gibbs, or a no account triflin’ one, like them Thompsons, but he couldn’t never a been what he is now, through and through, if he hadn’t a known you.  There’s a heap more, too, all over the country that you’ve talked to a Sunday, when the parson wasn’t here.  As for me, you—­you sure been a God’s blessin’ to me and Mollie, Mr. Howitt.”

Again the shepherd moved uneasily, as if to protest, but his big friend made a gesture of silence; “Let me say it while I got a chance, Dad.”  And the other bowed his head while Old Matt continued; “I can’t tell how it is, an’ I don’t reckon you’d understand any way, but stayin’ as you have after our talk that first night you come, an’ livin’ down here on this spot alone, after what you know, it’s—­it’s just like I was a little kid, an’ you was a standin’ big and strong like between me an’ a great blackness that was somethin’ awful.  I reckon it looks foolish, me a talkin’ this way.  Maybe it’s because I’m gettin’ old, but anyhow I wanted you to know.”

The shepherd raised his head and his face was aglow with a glad triumphant light, while his deep voice was full of meaning as he said gently, “It has been more to me, too, than you think, Mr. Matthews.  I ought to tell you—­I—­I will tell you—­” he checked himself and added, “some day.”  Then he changed the topic quickly.

“Are you sure there is no one who can help you over this hard time?  Is there no way?”

The mountaineer shook his head.  “I’ve gone over it all again an’ again.  Williams at the bank is the only man I know who had the money, an’ he’s done for now by this robbery.  You see I can’t go to strangers, Dad; I ain’t got nothin’ left for security.”

“But, could you not sell the sheep for enough to save the homestead?”

“Who could buy? or who would buy, if they could, in this country, without a bit of feed?  And then look at ’em, they’re so poor an’ weak, now, they couldn’t stand the drivin’ to the shippin’ place.  They’d die all along the road.  They’re just skin an’ bones, Dad; ain’t no butcher would pay freight on ’em, even.”

Mr. Howitt sat with knitted brow, staring into the shadows.  Then he said slowly, “There is that old mine.  If this man Dewey were only here, do you suppose—?”