“Yes,” I agreed; “but it generally takes just about the same length of time to do it, and a man don’t usually last that long.”
“Time!” sez he; “what do you know about time? It may have taken ages to form these hills; and then again, it may have been done in the twinklin’ of an eye. From the way the streaks tilt up, I’m inclined to think it was done sudden.”
I looked at the lines along the faces o’ the hills, and I was inclined to believe it, too; so I dropped that subject, and we sat down close together and looked off down the trail where Olaf had vanished.
We sat in silence a long time, me thinkin’ o’ what sort of a light Olaf had seen to make him know ’at the Friar was honest; and of the way the Friar’s voice had gone through me when he had talked of love.
This was a new idee to me, and one o’ the biggest I had ever tried to grapple with. Before this, my notion o’ love was, for a man to get the girl any way he could; and it took me some time to see the grandness of a man takin’ his own love by the throat for love of a woman. I knew ’at the Friar had done this himself; but it never was clear to me until I heard the heartache moanin’ through his voice as he laid out this law for Olaf, and Olaf bowed his stiff neck and accepted it.
I’m purty sure that if I’d ’a’ known that day, that a few years later I would have to take my own love by the throat for the sake of little Barbie, I wouldn’t ’a’ had the nerve to go on playin’ the game—but this is life. We pick up a stone here, and another there, and build them into our wall until the flood comes; and then if the wall isn’t high enough to turn back the flood, all the sting and bitterness comes from knowin’ that we haven’t made use of all the stones which came rollin’ down to our feet.
That night we had an uncommon fine fire in the cave. I used to enjoy these evenin’ fires with the Friar, as much as a dog likes to have his ears pulled by the hand he loves best. He would tell me tales of all the ages ’at man has lived on the face of the whole earth, and I’d sit and smoke my pipe, and make up what I’d ’a’ done, myself, if I’d been one o’ these big fellers. These chummy little fire-talks used to broaden me out and make me feel related to the whole human race, and it was then ’at I came to know the Friar best—though the’ ain’t no way to put this into a story.
Along about nine o’clock the Friar began to lecture me again’ the use o’ violence, pointin’ out that war nor gunfightin’ nor any other sort o’ violence had ever done any good; and endin’ up with the way he had handled Olaf as illustratin’ how much better effects spiritual methods had.
“Humph,” sez I, “so you’re tryin’ to put that over as an ordinary case, are ya? Did you ever before see such eyes in a man’s head as what Olaf has?”
“Now that you mention it,” sez he, “I did notice they were peculiar.”