confesses his identity to Old Matt and tells him that the betrayer of his daughter is still alive, but dying and desires to be forgiven. After The Shepherd's confession Old Matt, although angry, finds it within himself to forgive both father and son, and he and the Shepherd (along with his wife and Pete) go to Mad Howard's bedside. With the doctor and family present, Mad Howard looks at the painting of the Matthews girl. He speaks to her of their life together, saying, "I loved her, I--LOVED--HER. She was my natural mate. My other self. I belonged to her, she to me." For a time he lies exhausted; then he rises on his arms and says, "Do you hear her? She is calling. She is calling again! Yes, sweetheart. Yes, dear, I am coming!" With that, Mad Howard dies and is buried in an unmarked section of a cave on Dewey Bald. Shortly thereafter, Pete also dies and was buried next to his mother. A backdrop storyline surrounds the pretty Samantha "Sammy" Lane and her love of Grant "Young Matt" Matthews, Jr. Young Matt is in love with Sammy, who is also being courted by two other men: Ollie Stewart (a "city slicker" who at the outset appears to have the inside track, but Sammy decides that she doesn't want to move to the city) and Wash Gibbs (leader of the Baldknobbers, a gang who terrorize the countryside wearing frightening masks with horns at their top and who rob banks and settlers as they see fit). Gibbs (whose father and Sammy's father Jim were involved with the Baldknobbers in the past) is jealous of Young Matt, and during the story kills Jim after he refuses to go along with one of the Baldknobbers schemes (it is during this episode that Mad Howard is shot by a posse mistaking him for one of the Baldknobbers). Eventually Sammy and Young Matt marry and have children of their own. The last chapter of the story skips ahead many years to an artist wandering through the mountains, looking for inspiration. He meets The Shepherd, and the two men converse casually for a time. The Shepherd notes that the mountains will eventually become "the haunt of curious idlers" once the railroad comes, but he will not be alive by then. For a few days they see one another regularly, conversing, and one day The