Then Jim said, "Was it all the hair-oil I had?"

"Every drop," said Keno.

"Wal," drawled the miner, sagely, "don't take on too hard. Into each picnic some rain must fall."

"But the boys won't eat it," answered Keno, inconsolably.

"You don't know," replied Jim. "You never can tell what people will eat on Christmas till the follerin' day. They'll take to anything that looks real pretty and smells seasonable. What did I do with my pick?"

"You must have left it behind," said Keno. "You ain't goin' to hit the pie with your pick?"

"Wal, not till Christmas, anyway, Keno, and only then in case we've busted all the knives and saws trying to git it apart," said Jim, rea.s.suringly.

"Would you keep it, sure, and feed it to 'em all the same?" inquired Keno, forlornly, eager for a ray of hope.

"I certainly would," replied the miner. "They won't know the diff between a lemon-pie and a can of tomatoes. So I guess I'll go and git my pick. It may come on to snow, and then I couldn't find it till the spring."

Without the slightest intention of working any more, Jim sauntered back to the place where the pick was lying on the hill and took it up. By chance he thought of the ledge of quartz above in the rain-sluiced channel.

"Might as well hit her a lick," he drawled to himself, and climbing to the spot he drove the point of his implement into a crevice of the rock and broke away a piece of two or three pounds in weight. This he took in his big, red hands, which were numbing in the cold.

For a moment he looked at the fragment of quartz with unbelieving eyes.

He wet it with his tongue. Then a something that answered in Jim to excitement pumped from his heart abruptly.

The rock was flecked all through with tiny specks of metal that the miner knew unerringly.

It was gold.

CHAPTER XII

THE MAKING OF A CHRISTMAS-TREE

Despite the snow that fell that night, despite the near approach of Christmas, old Jim's discovery aroused a great excitement in the camp.

That very evening the news was known throughout all Borealis, and all next day, in the driving storm, the hill was visited, the ledge was viewed, and the topic was discussed at length in all its amazing features.

Teamsters, miners, loiterers--all, even including the gambler--came to pay their homage at the hiding-place of one of Mammon's family. All the mountain-side was taken up in claims. The calmest man in all the hills was Jim himself.

Parky made him an offer without the slightest hesitation.

"I'll square off your bill at the store," he said, "and give you a hundred dollars' worth of grub for the claim and prospect just as she stands."

"Not to-day," old Jim replied. "I never do no swapping at the other's feller's terms when I'm busy. We've got to get ready for Christmas, and you don't look to me like Santy Claus hunting 'round for lovely things to do."

"Anyway, I'll send up a lot of grub," declared the gambler, with a wonderful softening of the heart. "I was foolin'--just havin' a joke--the last time you was down to the store. You know you can have the best we've got in the deck."

"Wal, I 'ain't washed the taste of your joke clean out of my mouth just yet, so I won't bother you to-day," drawled Jim; and with muttered curses the gambler left, determined to have that ledge of gold-bearing rock, let the cost be what it might.

"I guess we'll have to quit on that there Christmas-tree," said the blacksmith, who was present with others at the cabin. "Seems you didn't have time to go to the Pinyon hills and fetch one back."

"If only I hadn't puttered 'round with the work on the claim," said Jim, "we might have had that tree as well as not. But I'll tell you what we can do. We can cut down the alders and willows at the spring, and bind a lot together and tie on some branches of mountain-tea and make a tree. That is, you fellers can, for little Skeezucks ain't a-feelin' right well to-day, and I reckon I'll stay close beside him till he spruces up."

"What about your mine?" inquired Lufkins.

"It ain't agoin' to run away," said the old philosopher, calmly. "I'll let it set there for a few more days, as long as I can't hang it up on the tree. It's just my little present to the boy, anyhow."

If anything had been needed to inject new enthusiasm into the plans for a Christmas celebration or to fire anew the boyhood in the men, the find of gold at Jim's very door would have done the trick a dozen times over.

With hearts new-created for the simple joys of their labor, the big rough fellows cut the meagre growth of leafless trees at the spring in the small ravine, and gathered evergreen mountain-tea that grew in scrawny cl.u.s.ters here and there on the mountains.

Armful after armful of this, their only possible material, they carried to the blacksmith's shop below, and there wrought long and hard and earnestly, tying together the wisps of green and the boughs and trunks of tender saplings.

Four of the stalks, the size of a lady's wrist, they fastened together with twisted wire to form the main support, or body, of their tree, To this the reconstructed, enlarged, and strengthened branches were likewise wired. Lastly, the long, green spikes of the mountain shrub were tied on, in bunches, like so many worn-out brooms. The tree, when completed and standing in its glory in the shop, was a marvellous creation, fully as much like a fir from the forest as a hair-brush is like a palm.

Then began the scheme of its decoration. One of the geniuses broke up countless bottles, for the red and green gla.s.s they afforded, and, tying the pieces in slings of cord, hung them in great profusion from the tree's peculiar arms. From the ceiling of his place of business, Bone, the barkeep, cut down a fluffy lot of colored paper, stuck there in a great rosette, and with this he added much original beauty to the pile. Out of cigar-boxes came a great heap of bright tin-foil that went on the branches in a way that only men could invent.

The carpenter loaded the structure with his gaudy blocks. The man who had promised to make a "kind of kaliderscope" made four or five instead of one. They were white-gla.s.s bottles filled with painted pebbles, b.u.t.tons, dimes, chopped-up pencils, sc.r.a.ps of shiny tin, and anything or everything that would lend confusion or color to the bottle's interior as the thing was rolled about or shaken in the hands. These were so heavy as to threaten the tree's stability. Therefore, they had to be placed about its base on the floor.

The blacksmith had made a lot of little axes, shovels, picks, and hammers, all of which had been filed and polished with the greatest care and affectionate regard for the tiny man whose tree and Christmas all desired to make the finest in the world.

The teamster had evolved, from the inside lining of his winter coat, a hybrid duck-dog-bear that he called a "woolly sheep."

One of the men had whittled out no less than four fat tops, all ringed with colors and truly beautiful to see, that he said were the best he had ever beheld, despite the fact that something was in them that seemed to prevent them from spinning.

Another old fellow brought a pair of rusty skates which were large enough for a six-foot man. He told of the wonderful feats he had once performed on the ice as he hung them on the tree for little Skeezucks.

The envy of all was awakened, however, by Field, the father of the camp, who fetched a drum that would actually make a noise. He had built this wonder out of genuine sheep-skin, stretched over both of the ends of a bright tin can of exceptional size, from which he had eaten the contents solely with the purpose in view of procuring the metal cylinder.

There were wooden animals, cut-out guns, swords and daggers, wagons--some of them made with spools for wheels--a sled on which the paint was still wet, and dolls suspiciously suggestive of potato-mashers and iron spoons, notwithstanding their clothing. There were b.a.l.l.s of every size and color, coins of gold and silver, and books made up of pasted pictures, culled for the greater part from cans of peaches, oysters, tomatoes, lobsters, and salmon.

Nearly every man had fashioned something, and hardly anything had been left unpainted. The clumsy old "boys" of the town had labored with untold patience to perfect their gifts. Their earnestness over the child and the day was a beautiful thing to see. Never were presents more impressive as to weight. The men had made them splendidly strong.

The gifts had been ticketed variously, many being marked "For Little Skeezucks," but by far the greatest number bore the inscription: "For Bruvver Jim's Baby--Merry Christmas."

The tree, by the time the things had been lashed upon its branches, needed propping and guying in every direction. The placing of big, white candles upon it, however, strained the skill and self-control of the men to the last degree. If a candle prefers one set of antics to another, that set is certainly embodied in the versatile schemes for lopping over, which the wretched thing will develop on the best-behaving tree in the world. On a home-made tree the opportunities for a candle's enjoyment of this, its most diverting of accomplishments, are increased remarkably. The day was cold, but the men perspired from every pore, and even then the night came on before the work was completed.

When at length they ceased their labors for the day, there was still before them the appalling task of preparing the Christmas banquet.

In the general worry incident to all such preparations throughout the world, Parky, the gambler, fired an unexpected shot. He announced his intention of giving the camp a grand celebration of his own. The "Palace" saloon would be thrown wide open for the holiday, and food, drink, music, and dancing would be the order of the memorable occasion.

"It's a game to knock our tree and banquet into a c.o.c.ked hat," said the blacksmith, grimly. "Well--he may get some to come, but none of old Jim's friends or the fellers which likes little Skeezucks is goin' to desert our own little festival."

Nevertheless, the glitter of the home-made tree in the dingy shop was dimmed.