"I can see you're goin' to lose the claim," insisted Bone.

"I'm goin' to git that shrub!" said Jim. "I won't come back till I git that shrub."

He started off through the gate at the back of the house, his long, lank figure darkly cut against the background of the white that lay upon the slope. A flurry of blinding snow came suddenly flying on the wind. It wrapped him all about and hid him in its fury, and when the calmer falling of the flakes commenced he had disappeared around the shoulder of the hill.

CHAPTER XV

THE GOLD IN BOREALIS

The men to whom the bar-keep told the story of Jim and his start into the mountains smiled again. The light in their eyes was half of affection and half of concern. They could not believe the shiftless old miner would long remain away in the snow and wind, where more than simple resolution was required to keep a man afoot. They would see him back before the darkness settled on the world, perhaps with something in his hand by way of a weed, if not precisely the "Injun" thing he sought.

But the darkness came and Jim was not at hand. The night and the snow seemed swirling down together in the gorge, from every lofty uprise of the hills. It was not so cold as the previous storm, yet it stung with its biting force.

At six o'clock the blacksmith called at the Dennihans', in some anxiety. Doc himself threw open the door, in response to the knock.

How small and quiet he appeared, here at home!

"No, he 'ain't showed up," he said of Jim. "I don't know when he'll come."

Webber reported to the boys.

"Well, mebbe he's gone, after all," said Field.

"He looked kind of funny 'round the eyes when he started," Bone informed them. "I hope he'll git his stuff," and they wandered down the street again.

At eight o'clock the bar-keep returned once more to Miss Doc's.

No Jim was there. The sick little foundling was feebly calling in his baby way for "Bruvver Jim."

The fever had him in its furnace. Restlessly, but now more weakly weaving, the tiny bit of a man continued as ever to cling to his doll, which he held to his breast with all that remained of his strength. It seemed as if his tired baby brain was somehow aware that Jim was gone, for he begged to have him back in a sweet little way of entreaty, infinitely sad.

"Bruvver Jim?" he would say, in his questioning little voice--"Bruvver Jim?" And at last he added, "Bruvver Jim--do--yike--'ittle Nu--thans."

At this Miss Doc felt her heart give a stroke of pain, for something that was almost divination of things desolate in the little fellow's short years of babyhood was granted to her woman's understanding.

"Bruvver Jim will come," she said, as she knelt beside the bed. "He'll come back home to the baby."

But nine o'clock and ten went by, and only the storm outside came down from the hills to the house.

Hour after hour the lamp was burning in the window as a beacon for the traveller; hour after hour Miss Dennihan watched the fever and the weary little fellow in its toils. At half-past ten the blacksmith, the carpenter, and Kew came, Tintoretto, the pup, coldly trembling, at their heels. Jim was not yet back, and the rough men made no concealment of their worry.

"Not home?" said Webber. "Out in the hills--in this?"

"You don't s'pose mebbe he's lost?" inquired the carpenter.

"No, Jim knows his mountains," replied the smith, "but any man could fall and break his leg or somethin'."

"I wisht he'd come," said Miss Doc. "I wisht that he was home."

The three men waited near the house for half an hour more, but in vain.

It was then within an hour of midnight. Slowly, at last, they turned away, but had gone no more than half a dozen rods when they met the bar-keep, Doc Dennihan, Lufkins the teamster, and four other men of the camp, who were coming to see if Jim had yet returned.

"I thought he mebbe hadn't come," said Bone, when Webber gave his report, "but Parky's goin' to try to jump his claim at twelve o'clock, and we ain't goin' fer to stand it! Come on down to my saloon fer extry guns and ammunition. We're soon goin' up on the hill to hold the ledge fer Jim and the poor little kid."

With ominous coupling of the gambler's name with rough and emphatic language, the ten men marched in a body down the street.

The wind was howling, a door of some deserted shed was dully, incessantly slamming.

Helplessly Miss Dennihan sat by the bed whereon the tiny pilgrim lay, now absolutely motionless. The fever had come to its final stage. Dry of skin, burning through and through, his little mouth parched despite the touch of cooling water on his lips, the wee mite of a man without a name, without a home, or a mother, or a single one of the baby things that make the little folks so joyous, had ceased to struggle, and ceased at last to call for "Bruvver Jim."

Then, at a quarter-past eleven, the outside door was suddenly thrown open, and in there staggered Jim, a haggard, wild-eyed being, ghastly white, utterly exhausted, and holding in his hand a wretched, scrawny branch of the mountain shrub he had gone to seek.

"Oh, Jim! Jim!" cried Miss Doc, and, running forward, she threw her arm around his waist to keep him up, for she thought he must fall at every step,

"He's--alive?" he asked her, hoa.r.s.ely. "He's alive? I only asked to have him wait! Hot water!--get the stuff in water--quick!" and he thrust the branch into her hand.

Beside the bed, on his great, rough knees, he fairly fell, crooning incoherently, and by a mighty effort keeping his stiff, cold hands from the tiny form.

Miss Doc had kept a plate of biscuit warm in the stove. One of these and a piece of meat she gave to the man, bidding him eat it for the warmth his body required.

"Fix the shrub in the water," he begged.

"It's nearly ready now," she answered. "Take a bite to eat."

Then, presently, she came again to his side. "I've got the stuff," she said, awed by the look of anguish on the miner's face, and into his hands she placed a steaming pitcher, a cup, and a spoon, after which she threw across his shoulders a warm, thick blanket, dry and comforting.

Already the shrub had formed a dark, pungent liquor of the water poured upon it. Turning out a cupful in his haste, old Jim flowed the scalding stuff across his hands. It burned, but he felt no pain. The spoonful that he dipped from the cup he placed to his own cold lips, to test. He blew upon it as a mother might, and tried it again.

Then tenderly he fed the tea through the dry little lips. Dully the tiny man's unseeing eyes were fixed on his face.

"Take it, for old Bruvver Jim," the man gently coaxed, and spoonful after spoonful, touched every time to his own mouth first, to try its heat, he urged upon the little patient.

Then Miss Doc did a singular thing. She put on a shawl and, abruptly leaving the house, ran with all her might down the street, through the snow, to Bone's saloon. For the very first time in her life she entered this detested place, a blazing light of joy in her eyes. Six of the men, about to join the four already gone to the hill above, where Jim had found the gold, were about to leave for the claim.

"He's come!" cried Miss Doc. "He's home--and got the weed! I thought you boys would like to know!"

Then backing out, with a singular smile upon her face, she hastened to return to her home with all the speed the snow would permit.

Alone in the house with the silent little pilgrim, who seemed beyond all human aid, the gray old miner knew not what he should do. The shrub tea was failing, it seemed to him. The sight of the drooping child was too much to be borne. The man threw back his head as he knelt there on the floor, and his stiffened arms were appealingly uplifted in prayer.

"G.o.d Almighty," he said, in his broken voice of entreaty, "don't take this little boy away from me! Let him stay. Let him stay with me and the boys. You've got so many little youngsters there. For Christ's sake, let me have this one!"

When Miss Doc came quietly in, old Jim had not apparently moved. He was once more dipping the pungent liquor from the cup and murmuring words of endearment and coaxing, to the all-unhearing little patient.

The eager woman took off her shawl and stood behind him, watching intently.

"Oh, Jim!" she said, from time to time--"oh, Jim!"