After his day of toil in Pleasant Valley, Uncle Dick Siddon sprawled at ease on the porch, smoking his pipe, and watching with mildly sentimental eyes the rosy hues of the cloud masses that crowned Stone Mountain. His mood was tranquilly amorous. The vial in his pocket was full of golden grains. Presently, he would fashion a ring. Then, heigh-ho for the parson! He smiled contentedly over his vision of the buxom Widow Brown. Her placid charms would soothe his declining years. A tempestuous passion would be unbecoming at his age. But the companionship of this gentle and agreeable woman would be both fitting and pleasant. Really, Uncle Dick mused, it was time he settled down. One should be sedate at eighty. But he sighed.

A horseman appeared over the brow of the hill. The horse traveled slowly, as if wearied by many miles. A single glance at the erect, soldierly figure made known to Uncle Dick that this was a stranger, and he watched intently. As the rider came nearer, he hesitated, then guided his mount toward the 145 clearing. Uncle Dick perceived, of a sudden, that the left sleeve of the stranger’s coat, which was pinned across the breast, was empty. At the sight, a great sadness fell on him. He guessed the identity of the horseman. His soul was filled with mourning over a shattered romance. He fairly winced as the rider drew rein before him, with a cheery, “Howdy?”

There was a curious constraint in Uncle Dick’s voice, as he made hospitable answer.

“Howdy, yerse’f, Stranger? ’Light, an’ come in.”

“I hain’t time to ’light,” the traveler declared. “Jones is my name. What mout your’n be?”

Uncle Dick descended the steps, regarding the visitor intently. There was a perceptible aloofness in his manner, though no lack of courtesy.

“My name passes fer Siddon. I ’low ye hain’t familiar round these-hyar parts?”

“I’m right-smart strange, I reckon,” was the admission. “But I was borned forty-mile south o’ here, on the Yadkin. My father owned the place Daniel Boone lived when he sickened o’ this-hyar kentry, kase it wa’n’t wild ’nough. I’m kin ter Boone’s woman—Bryant strain—raised ’twixt this-hyar creek an’ Air Bellows.”

“Wall, say ye so!” Uncle Dick exclaimed, heartily. “Why, I knowed ye when ye was a boy. You-all’s 146 pap used to buy wool, an’ my pap tuk me with ’im to the Boone place with ’is Spring shearin’. Thet makes we-uns some sort o’ kin. Ye’d better ’light an’ take a leetle breathin’ spell. A drink o’ my ole brandy might cheer ye. An’ ye know,” he concluded, with a quick hardening of his tones, “hit’s customary to know a stranger’s business up in these-hyar mountings.”

The horseman took no offense.

“I rid up to the balcony jest to make inquiry ’bout a friend what I hain’t seed in a right-smart bit, an’ who I learnt was a-livin’ a lonely widder’s life on Guarding Creek. Could you-all direct me to the abode o’ one Widder Brown? I hev some private an’ pussonal business with the widder. Hit’s a kind what don’t consarn nary human critter but me an’ her.”

Uncle Dick sought no further for information, but issued the requested direction, and moodily watched the horseman out of sight. Then, with a sigh that was very like a groan, he moved away toward a small outbuilding, in which was a forge. Here when he had set the forge glowing, he took from his pocket the vial of gold dust, and emptied the contents into a ladle. When the metal was melted, he poured off the dross, and proceeded to hammer the ingot into a broad band. Eventually, he succeeded in forming a massive ring of the virgin 147 gold. But, throughout the prosecution of the task, there was none of that fond elation which had upborne him during the hours while he gathered the material. On the contrary, his shaggy brows were drawn in a frown of disappointment. He cursed below his breath from time to time, with pointed references to one-armed veterans, who dast come back when they hadn’t orter. He was still in a saddened and rebellious mood, when he returned to the porch, where he found his granddaughters seated at some sewing. His face lightened a little at sight of them.

“Guess I got my han’s full ’nough o’ women-folks, anyhow,” he muttered. “Fine gals they be, too!” He regarded them attentively, with a new pride of possession. “I ’low I hain’t a-kickin’ much of any. I reckon like ’nough I be settled down right now, only I didn’t know ’nough to know it.” He chuckled over this conceit, as he seated himself, and became uncommonly sociable, somewhat to the distress of Plutina, who found it difficult to conceal her anxiety.

Dusk was falling when the horseman reappeared. This time there was no hesitation, as he turned from the road into the clearing. Uncle Dick rose, and shouted greeting, with labored facetiousness.

“Wall, Mister Jones, I ’lowed as how ye mout be the tax-collector, arter the widder’s mite, seein’ 148 how long ye was a-hangin’ on up thar. Me an’ the gals’d feel a right-smart consarn to lose Fanny Brown fer a neighbor, if she was pushed too hard fer her debts.”

“Mister Siddon, suh,” the stranger answered promptly. “I opine you-all hain’t half-bad at a guess. I be a tax-collector, so to speak, a debt-collector. Hit’s a debt contracted fifty-year agone. Fanny Brown done tole me as how you-all been good neighbors o’ her’n, so I don’t mind tellin’ ye she’s willin’ fer me to collect thet-thar debt o’ mine.” There was an expression of vast complacency on the veteran’s face, as he stroked the tuft of whisker on his chin, and he smiled on his three auditors half-triumphantly, half-shamefacedly. “I got cheated o’ her oncet by being too slow. I hain’t goin’ to do no sech foolishness ag’in. T’-morrer, if the clerk’s office is open, I’ll git the satisfaction piece an’ Preacher Roberts’ll tie the knot good and proper—amen!”

Uncle Dick sighed audibly at the announcement, but his chagrin was given no further expression as he invited the victorious rival to dismount and partake of his hospitality. Alvira received the news with bubbling delight, which showed gaily in her sparkling black eyes and dimpling cheeks. Even Plutina was heartened by the discovery that her grandfather’s folly, as she deemed it, must end, 149 though there could be no gladness in her by reason of the fear.

It was after the supper was done, when the visitor’s horse stood at the door, that Uncle Dick took a sudden resolve.

“Alviry,” he ordered, “you-all come hold this-hyar hoss, a leetle minute, whilst me an’ ’im has a confab.”

He led the puzzled veteran to a bench beneath a locust, out of earshot of his granddaughters, who regarded the proceeding curiously, and not without apprehension since they knew the violent temper of the old man when thwarted. They were relieved to perceive that his demeanor remained altogether peaceable.

“Hit’s jest this-away, Seth Jones,” Uncle Dick began at once, after the two were seated side by side on the bench. “Ye see, I knew you-all, an’ yer name an’ yer business, soon’s I sot eyes on ye. Hit were thet-thar danglin’ sleeve o’ your’n as ye rid up the path what done hit. I knowed then as how my fate was sealed, s’ fur’s the Widder Brown’s consarned. Fanny done told me about you-all an’ yer disapp’intment. She allers said, arter her man died, as how ye’d be a-comin’ ’long, though I was hopin’ ye wouldn’t—cuss ye! Excuse me—no offense intended. The widder an’ me has been clost friends, an’ I told her from the first as how I respected the 150 claims of this-hyar Jones galoot, if so be he turned up afore we got hitched. An’ now hyar ye be—dang hit!”

The veteran cleared his throat apologetically. His own happiness made him exaggerate the injury thus wrought by his reappearance. He ventured no remark, however. He could not say that the woman in the case was hardly worth troubling over, and, for the life of him, he could think of nothing else in the way of consolation. He discreetly cleared his throat a second time, and maintained a masterly silence. But the garrulous old man at his side needed no encouragement. He quickly resumed his discourse, with a certain unctuous enjoyment, distinctly inconsistent with his love-lorn pose.

“Seth Jones,” he announced solemnly, “if you-all an’ me was young ag’in, an’ fired by the passion o’ youth, thar wouldn’t be no love-feast hyar jest now like this un. No, sirree! Hit’d shore be war a-twixt we-uns—with hell a-poppin’ at the end on’t fer one, mebby both. But my blood don’t git het up now the way hit use’ to did. I’m thinkin’ fer the widder’s sake hit’s good ye’re younger ner me, an’ got more years to give ’er. So, Mr. Jones, when all’s said an’ done, I’m glad ye come to Guarding Creek.”

Then, Uncle Dick, in his turn, displayed some 151 slight symptoms of embarrassment, and cleared his throat in a manner to shock a drawing-room.

“An’ now I got jest one leetle favor to ax o’ ye, Seth Jones. You-all knows as how the gals in this-hyar kentry air partic’lar proud to have a weddin’ ring made from the gold washed out o’ the soil in Pleasant Valley by their sweetheart. Wall, I talked a heap ’bout hit to Fanny, an’, when she showed signs like she’d give in to me, I went an’ panned the gold fer the ring. Fanny’d be right-smart disapp’inted not to have a lover-made ring, I reckon. So, bein’ as you-all only got one arm, I wants ye to take this-hyar ring, an’ wed her proper with the blessin’ an’ best wishes o’ Uncle Dick Siddon.”

He offered the ring, which was gratefully accepted, and the two old men parted on excellent terms.

At eleven o’clock the next morning, Uncle Dick was sitting on the porch, when he saw a horse passing over the trail toward the south. In the saddle was the erect, spruce figure of the one-armed veteran, Seth Jones. And, on a blanket strapped behind the saddle to serve as pillion, rode a woman, with her arms clasped around the man’s waist. It was the Widow Brown, dressed all in gala white.

It was, indeed, heigh-ho for the parson!

Uncle Dick stared fixedly until the two had vanished 152 beyond the brow of the hill. Then, at last, he stirred, and his eyes roved over his home and its surroundings wistfully. He sighed heavily. But he himself would have been hard put to it to tell whether that sigh held more of regret, or of relief.