Read "Old Harmless" by Roy Norton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Uncle Bill loved his gulch, and David and Goliath loved / Uncle Bill. When trouble came they promised to stick by / him to the bitter end -- which wasn't so bitter, after all.
It was a long distance from the beaten roads to where "Old Harmless" had / his cabin; quite over the top of ridges, down across intervening / valleys, around mountain shelves where a pack burro might not slip with / impunity, and with now and then a gurgling little stream to ford that / became a dangerous place when spring freshets ran high and filled a / gulch. It was not a place that any one other than a recluse might have / chosen for permanent domicile, but to Old Harmless it was Heaven. He was / convinced that somewhere within its borders there was wealth.