"But they ought to play with one thing at a time, and not drop one after another," said the mild Mrs. Stowe, blushing girlishly.

"I like to see them practise at changin' their minds," drawled the miner, philosophically. "I'd be afraid of a little gal that didn't begin to show the symptoms."

But all three of the bright-eyed embryos of motherhood had united on a plan. They sat the grave little Carson in the red-painted wagon, with his doll held tightly to his heart, and began to haul him about.

Tintoretto, who had dragged off an alphabetical block, was engrossed in the task of eating off and absorbing the paint and elements of education, with a gusto that savored of something that might and might not have been ambition. He abandoned this at once, however, to race beside or behind or before the wagon, and to help in the pulling by laying hold of any of the children's dresses that came most readily within reach of his jaws.

The ride became a romp, for the pup was barking, the wheels were creaking, and the three small girls were crying out and laughing at the tops of their voices. They drew their royal coach through every room in the house--which rooms were five in number--and then began anew.

Back and forth and up and down they hastened, the pup and tiny Skeezucks growing more and more delighted as their lively little friends alternately rearranged him, kissed him, crept on all fours beside him, and otherwise added adornments to the pageant. In an outburst of enthusiasm, Tintoretto made a gulp at the off hind-wheel of the wagon, and, sinking his teeth in the wood thereof, not only prevented its revolutions, but braced so hard that the smallest girl, who was pulling at the moment, found herself suddenly stalled. To her aid her two st.u.r.dy little sisters darted, and the three gave a mighty tug, to haul the pup and all.

But the unexpected happened. The wheel came off. The pup let out a yell of consternation and turned a back somersault; the three little Stowes went down in a heap of legs and heads, while the wagon lurched abruptly and gave the tiny pa.s.senger a jolt that astonished him mightily. The three small girls scrambled to their feet, awed into silence by their breaking of the wagon.

For a moment the hush was impressive. Then the gravity began to go from the face of little Carson. Something was dancing in his eyes.

His quaint little face wrinkled oddly in mirth. His head went back, and the sweetest conceivable chuckle of baby laughter came from his lips. Like joy of bubbling water in a brook, it rippled in music never before awakened. Old Jim and Miss Doc looked at each other in complete amazement, but the little fellow laughed and laughed and laughed. His heart was overflowing, suddenly, with all the laughing and joy that had never before been invited to his heart. The other youngsters joined him in his merriment, and so did the preacher and pretty Mrs. Stowe; and so did Jim and Miss Doc, but these two laughed with tears warmly welling from their eyes.

It seemed as if the fatherless and motherless little foundling laughed for all the days and weeks and months of sadness gone beyond his baby recall. And this was the opening only of his frolic and fun with the children. They kissed him in fondness, and planted him promptly in a second of the wagons. They knew a hundred devices for bringing him joy and merriment, not the least important of which was the irresistible march of destruction on the rough-made Christmas treasures.

That evening a dozen rough and awkward men of the camp came casually in to visit Miss Doc, whose old-time set of thoughts and ideas had been shattered, till in sheer despair of getting them all in proper order once again she let them go and joined in the general outbreak of amus.e.m.e.nt.

There were games of hide-and-seek, in which the four happy children and the men all joined with equal irresponsibility, and games of blind-man's-buff, that threatened the breaking to pieces of the house.

Through it all, old Jim and the preacher, Mrs. Stowe and Miss Doc were becoming more and more friendly.

At last the day and the evening, too, were gone. The tired youngsters, all but little Skeezucks, fell asleep, and were tucked into bed. Even the pup was exhausted. Field and the blacksmith, Lufkins, Bone, Keno, and the others thought eagerly of the morrow, which would come so soon, and go so swiftly, and leave them with no little trio of girls romping with their finally joyous bit of a boy.

When at length they were ready to say good-night to tiny Carson, he was sitting again on the knee of the gray old miner. To every one he gave a sweet little smile, as they took his soft, baby hand for a shake.

And when they were gone, and sleep was coming to hover him softly in her wings, he held out both his little arms in a gesture of longing that seemed to embrace the three red caps and all this happier world he began to understand.

"Somebody--wants 'ittle--Nu-thans," he sighed, and his tiny mouth was smiling when his eyes had closed.

CHAPTER XVIII

WHEN THE PARSON DEPARTED

In the morning the preacher rolled up his sleeves and a.s.sisted Jim in preparing breakfast in the cabin on the hill, where he and Doc, in addition to Keno and the miner, had spent the night. Doc had departed at an early hour to take his morning meal at home. Keno was out in the brush securing additional fuel, the supply of which was low.

"Jim," said Stowe, in the easy way so quickly adopted in the mines, "how does the camp happen to have this one little child? There seem to be no families, and that I can understand, for Bullionville is much the same; but where did you get the pretty little boy?"

"I found him out in the brush, way over to Coyote Valley," Jim replied.

"He was painted up to look like a little Piute, and the Injuns must have lost him when they went through the valley hunting rabbits."

"Found him--out in the brush?" repeated the preacher. "Was he all alone?"

"Not quite. He had several dead rabbits for company," Jim drawled in reply, and he told all that was known, and all that the camp had conjectured, concerning the finding of the grave little chap, and his brief and none too happy sojourn in Borealis.

The preacher listened with sympathetic attention.

"Poor little fellow," he said, at the end. "It someway makes me think of a thing that occurred near Bullionville. I was called to Giant-Powder Gulch to give a man a decent burial. He had been on a three-days' spree, and then had lain all night in the wet where the horse-trough overflowed, and he died of quick pneumonia. Well, a man there told me the fellow was a stranger to the Gulch. He said the dissolute creature had appeared, on the first occasion, with a very small child, a little boy, who he said had belonged to his sister, who was dead. My informant said that just as soon as the fellow could learn the location of a near-by Indian camp he had carried the little boy away. The man who told me of it never heard of the child again, and, in fact, had not been aware of the drunkard's return to the Gulch, till he heard the man had died, in the rear of a highly notorious saloon. I wonder if it's possible this quiet little chap is the same little boy."

"It don't seem possible a livin' man--a white man--could have done a thing like that," said Jim.

"No--it doesn't," Stowe agreed.

"And yet, it must have been in some such way little Skeezucks came to be among the Injuns," Jim reflected, aloud. Then in a moment he added; "I'm glad you told me, parson. I know now the low-down brute that sent him off with the Piute hunters can't never come to Borealis and take him away."

And yet, all through their homely breakfast old Jim was silently thinking. A newer tenderness for the innocent, deserted little pilgrim was welling in his heart.

Keno, having declared his intention of shovelling off the snow and opening up a trench to uncover the gold-ledge of the miner's claim, departed briskly when the meal was presently finished. Jim and the preacher, with the pup, however, went at once to the home of Miss Dennihan, where the children were all thus early engaged in starting off the day of romping and fun.

The lunch that came along at noon, and the dinner that the happy Miss Doc prepared at dusk, were mere interruptions in the play of the tiny Carson and the lively little girls.

There never has been, and there never can be, a measure of childish happiness, but surely never was a child in the world more happy than the quaint little waif who had sat all alone that bright November afternoon in the brush where the Indian pony had dropped him. All the games they had tried on the previous day were repeated anew by the youngsters, and many freshly invented were enjoyed, including a romp in the snow, with the sled that one of the miners had fashioned for the Christmas-tree.

That evening a larger contingent of the men who hungered for the atmosphere of home came early to the little house and joined in the games. Laughter made them all one human family, and songs were sung that took them back to farms and clearings and villages, far away in the Eastern States, where sweethearts, mothers, wives, and sisters ofttimes waited and waited for news of a wanderer, lured far away by the glint of silver and gold. The notes of birds, the chatter of brooks, the tinkle of cow-bells came again, with the dreams of a barefoot boy.

Something of calm and a newer hope and fresher resolution was vouchsafed to them all when the wholesome young preacher held a homely service, in response to their earnest request.

"Life is a mining for gold," said he, "and every human breast is a mother-lode of the precious metal--if only some one can find the out-croppings, locate a claim, and come upon the ledge. There are toils, privations, and sufferings, which the search for gold brings forever in its train. There are pains and miseries and woe in the search for the gold in men, but, boys, it's a glorious life! There is something so honest, so splendid, in taking the metal from the earth!

No one is injured, every one is helped. And when the gold in a man is found, think what a gift it is to the world and to G.o.d! I am a miner myself, but I make no gold. It is there, in the hill, or in the man, where G.o.d has put it away, and all that you and I can do is to work, though our hands be blistered and our hearts be sore, until we come upon the treasure at the last. We hasten here, and we scramble there, wheresoever the glint seems brightest, the field most promising; but the gold I seek is everywhere, and, boys, there is gold on gold in Borealis!

"In the depth of the tunnel or the shaft you need a candle, throwing out its welcome rays, to show you how to work the best and where to dig, as you follow the lead. In the search for gold the way is very often dark, so we'll sing a hymn that I think you will like, and then we'll conclude with a prayer.

"Children--girls--we will all start it off together, you and your mother and me."

The three little, bright-faced girls, the pretty mother, and the father of the little flock stood there together to sing. They sang the hymn old Jim had attempted to recall at his own little service that Sunday, weeks before:

"Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on.

The night is dark and I am far from home.

Lead Thou me on.

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me."

The fresh, sweet voices of the three little girls sent a thrill of pleasure through the hearts of the big, rough men, and the lumps arose in their throats. One after another they joined in the singing, those who knew no words as well as those who were quick to catch a line or more.

Then at last the preacher held up his hand in his earnest supplication.

"Father," he said, in his simple way, "we are only a few of Thy children, here in the hollow of Thy mountains, but we wish to share in the beauty of Thy smile. We want to hear the comfort of Thy voice.

Away out here in the sage-brush we pray that Thou wilt find us and take us home to Thy heart and love. Father, when Thou sendest Thy blessing for this little child, send enough for all the boys. Amen."

And so the evening ended, and the night moved in majesty across the mountains.

In the morning, soon after breakfasts were eaten, and Jim and the preacher had come again to the home of the Dennihans, Webber, the blacksmith, and Lufkins, the teamster, presently arrived with the horses and carriage.

A large group of men swiftly gathered to bid good-bye to the children, the shy little mother, and the fine young preacher.

"I'm sorry to go," he told them, honestly. "I like your little camp."