TROUBLES AND DISCOVERIES

For the next ten days the talk of the camp was the coming celebration.

Moreover, man after man was surrounding himself with mystery impenetrable, as he drew away in his sh.e.l.l, so to speak, to undergo certain throes of invention and secret manufacture of presents for the tiny boy at the cabin on the hill. Knowing nods, sly winks, and jealous guarding of their cleverness marked the big, rough fellows one by one. And yet some of the most secretive felt a necessity for consulting Jim as to what was appropriate, what would please little Skeezucks, and what was worthy to be tied upon the tree.

That each and every individual thus laboring to produce his offering should be eager to excel his neighbor, and to win the greatest appreciation from the all-unknowing little pilgrim for his own particular toy or trinket, was a natural outcome of the Christmas spirit actuating the manoeuvres. And all the things they could give would have to be made, since there was not a shop in a radius of a hundred miles where baubles for youngsters could be purchased, while Borealis, having never had a baby boy before in all its sudden annals of being, had neglected all provision for the advent of tiny Skeezucks.

The carpenter came to the cabin first, with a barley-sack filled with the blocks he had made for the small foundling's Christmas ecstasy.

Before he would show them, however, Keno was obliged to leave the house and the tiny pilgrim himself was placed in a bunk from which he could not see.

"I want to surprise him," explained the carpenter.

He then dumped out his blocks.

As lumber was a luxury in Borealis, he had been obliged to make what shift he could. In consequence of this the blocks were of several sizes, a number were constructed of several pieces of board nailed together--and split in the process--no two were shaped alike, except for generalities, and no one was straight. However, they were larger than a man's two fists, they were gaudily painted, and the alphabet was sprinkled upon them with prodigal generosity. There were even hieroglyphics upon them, which the carpenter described as birds and animals. They were certainly more than any timid child could ever have demanded.

"Them's it," said Dunn, watching the face of Jim with what modest pride the situation would permit. "Now, what I want you to do is to give me a genuine, candid opinion of the work."

"Wal, I'll tell you," drawled the miner, "whenever a man asks you for a candid opinion, that's the time to fill your shovel with guff. It's the only safe proceedin'. So I won't fool around with candid opinions, Dunn, I'll just admit they are jewels. Cut my diamonds if they ain't!"

"I kind of thought so myself," confessed the carpenter. "But I thought as you was a first-cla.s.s critic, why, I'd like to hear what you'd say."

"No, I ain't no critic," Jim replied. "A critic is a feller who can say nastier things than anybody else about things that anybody else can do a heap sight better than he can himself."

"Well, I do reckon, as who shouldn't say so, that n.o.body livin' into Borealis but me could 'a' made them blocks," agreed Dunn, returning the lot to his sack. "But I jest wanted to hear you say so, Jim, fer you and me has had an eddication which lots of cusses into camp 'ain't never got. Not that it's anything agin 'em, but--you know how it is.

I'll bet the little shaver will like them better'n anything else he'll git."

"Oh, he'll like 'em in a different way," agreed the miner. "No doubt about that."

And when the carpenter had gone old Jim took his little foundling from the berth and sat him on his knee.

In the tiny chap's arms the powder-flask-and-potato doll was firmly held. The face of the lady had wrinkled with a premature descent of age upon her being. One of her eyes had disappeared, while her soot-made mouth had been wiped across her entire countenance.

The quaint bit of a boy was dressed, as usual, in the funny little trousers that came to his heels, while his old fur cap had been kept in requisition for the warmth it afforded his ears. He cuddled confidingly against his big, rough protector, but he made no sound of speaking, nor did anything suggestive of a smile come to play upon his grave little features.

Jim had told him of Christmas by the hour--all the beauty of the story, so old, so appealing to the race of man, who yearns towards everything affording a brightness of hope and a faith in anything human.

"What would little Skeezucks like for his Christmas?" the man inquired, for the twentieth time.

The little fellow pressed closer against him, in baby shyness and slowly answered:

"Bruv-ver--Jim."

The miner clasped him tenderly against his heart. Yet he had but scanty intimation of the all the tiny pilgrim meant.

He sat with him throughout that day, however, as he had so many of these fleeting days. The larder was neglected; the money contributed at "church" had gone at once, to score against a bill at the store, as large as the cabin itself, and only the labors of Keno, chopping brush for fuel, kept the home supplied even with a fire. Jim had been born beneath the weight of some star too slow to move along.

When Keno came back to the cabin from his work in the brush it was well along in the afternoon. Jim decided to go below and stock up the pantry with food. On arriving at the store, however, he met a new manner of reception.

The gambler, Parky, was in charge, as a recent purchaser of the whole concern.

"You can't git no more grub-stake here without the cash," he said to Jim. "And now you've come, you can pony up on the bill you 'ain't yet squared."

"So?" said Jim.

"You bet your boots it's so, and you can't begin to pungle up a minute too soon!" was the answer.

"I reckon you'd ask a chicken to pungle up the gravel in his gizzard if you thought he'd picked up a sliver of gold," Jim drawled, in his lazy utterance. "And an ordinary chicken, with the pip thrown in, could pungle twice to my once."

"Ain't got the stuff, hey?" said Parky. "Broke, I s'pose? Then maybe you'll git to work, you old galoot, and stop playin' parson and goody-goody games. You don't git nothing here without the c.h.i.n.k. So perhaps you'll git to work at last."

A red-nosed henchman of the gambler's put in a word.

"I don't see why you 'ain't gone to work," he said.

"Don't you?" drawled Jim, leaning on the counter to survey the speaker.

"Well, it looks to me as if you found out, long ago, that all work and no play makes a man a Yankee."

"I ain't no Yankee, you kin bet on that!" said the man.

"That's pretty near incredible," drawled Jim.

"And I ain't neither," declared the gambler, who boasted of being Canadian. "Don't you forget that, old boy."

"No," Jim slowly replied, "I've often noticed that all that glitters ain't American."

"Well, you can clear out of here and notice how things look outside,"

retorted Parky.

Jim was slowly straightening up when the blacksmith and the teamster entered the place. They had heard the gambler's order and were thoroughly astounded. No man, howsoever poor and unprepared to pay a wretched bill, had ever been treated thus in Borealis before.

"What's the matter?" said Webber.

"Nuthin', particularly," answered Jim, in his slow, monotonous way, "only a difference of opinion. Parky thinks he's brainy, and a gentleman--that's all."

"I can see you don't git another snack of grub in here, my friend,"

retorted Parky, adding a number of oaths. "And for just two cents I'd break your jaw and pitch you out in the street."

"Not with your present flow of language," answered Jim.

The teamster inquired, "Why don't Jim git any more grub?"

"Because I'm running this joint and he 'ain't got the cash," said Parky. "You got anything to say about the biz?"

"Jim's got a call on me and my cash," replied the brawny Webber. "Jim, you tell him what you need, and I'll foot the bill."

"I'll settle half, myself," added Lufkins.

"Thanks, boys, not this evenin'," said Jim, whose pride had singular moments for coming to the surface. "There's only one time of day when it's safe to deal with a gambler, and that's thirteen o'clock."