So now, here they were all together again. And Timmie was with them. What a joyous reunion it was! Even Timmie, who recognized his pal of other days, seemed happy.
CHAPTER XXVII
GREEN GOLD AT LAST
The story of the aged recluse, Timmie, was soon told. After his companion Gordon Duncan had left him, more than twenty years before, the caribou had come and a fresh supply of provisions was at hand. That spring too, other prospectors had come up the river. In return for his services as a guide, they had supplied him with white man’s food.
As the years passed, he had given up hope that Gordon Duncan would return; but even so, he guarded their secret well.
Ever a lover of nature and her solitary haunts, he was content to dwell alone at the foot of the smoking mountains. Every year, as the winter’s snow melted away, as the honking geese passed above the rivers and a million flowers bloomed, he had shouldered pick and pan to begin one more search for the mine of green gold.
“I never found it,” he whispered as, buried deep in warm deer skins, he told his story. “But yonder on the raft, just as I was carrying it, you will find the green gold, every piece. Every piece. Just as we found it so many years ago.
“Take it, Gordon Duncan.” His whisper came from deep in his throat. “For many years I have prized and guarded it. Now it must be entrusted to your hands. I am soon to pass to that happy land where there are no spring torrents, no snow, no cold, no smoking mountains and no night.”
“No! No!” said Faye Duncan, pressing his hand. “You are going to find health in the spring sunshine. We will carry you from this dreary land to the place where yellow roses bloom and the air is heavy with the fragrance of daffodils.”
Timmie read the distress in her tone. He smiled and said no more. Yet he knew what he knew, and was content.
“But why did you run from us?” Gordon Duncan asked.