"It's goin' to be a rousin' town pretty soon, by jinks!" said Keno, pulling at his sleeves. "I'm showin' up a great big ledge, on Jim's Baberlonian claim."

"Mebbe you'll some day come back here, parson," said the smith.

"Perhaps I shall," he answered. Then a faint look of worry came on his face as he thrust his hand in his pocket. "Before I forget it, you must let me know what my bill is for board of the horses and also for the work you've done."

Webber flushed crimson.

"There ain't no bill," he said. "What do you take us fellers fer--since little Skeezucks came to camp? All we want is to shake hands all 'round, with you and the missus and the little girls."

Old Jim, little Skeezucks, the pup, and Miss Doc, with Mrs. Stowe, came out through the snow to the road in front of the gate. Not a penny had the preacher been able to force upon the Dennihans for their lodging and care.

The man tried to speak--to thank them all, but he failed. He shook hands "all around," however, and then his shy little wife and the three little girls did the same. Preacher and all, they kissed tiny Carson, sitting on the arm he knew so well, and holding fast to his doll; and he placed his wee bit of a hand on the face of each of his bright-faced little friends. He understood almost nothing of what it meant to have his visitors clamber into the carriage, nevertheless a grave little query came into his eyes.

"Well, Jim, good-bye again," said Stowe, and he shook the old miner's hand a final time. "Good-bye, Miss Dennihan--good-bye, boys."

With all the little youngsters in their bright red caps waving their mittened hands and calling out good-bye, the awkward men, Miss Doc, old Jim, and tiny Skeezucks saw them drive away. Till they came to the bend of the road the children continued to wave, and then the great ravine received them as if to the arms of the mountains.

CHAPTER XIX

OLD JIM'S RESOLUTION

All that day little Skeezucks and the pup were waiting, listening, expecting the door to open and the three small girls to reappear. They went to the window time after time and searched the landscape of mountains and snow, Tintoretto standing on his hind-legs for the purpose, and emitting little sounds of puppy-wise worry at the long delay of their three little friends.

A number of the men of the camp came to visit there again that evening.

"We thought little Skeezucks might be lonesome," they explained.

So often as the door was opened, the pup and the grave little pilgrim--clothed these days in the little white frock Miss Dennihan had made--looked up, ever in the hope, of espying again those three red caps. The men saw the wistfulness increase in the baby's face.

"We've got to keep him amused," said Field.

The awkward fellows, therefore, began the games, and romped about, and rode the lonely little foundling in the wagon, to the great delight of poor Miss Doc, who felt, as much as the pup or Skeezucks, the singular emptiness of her house.

Having learned to laugh, little Carson tried to repeat the delights of a mirthful emotion. The faint baby smile that resulted made the men all quiet and sober.

"He's tired, that's what the matter," the blacksmith explained. "We'd better be goin', boys, and come to see him to-morrow."

"Of course he must be tired," agreed the teamster.

But Jim, sitting silently watching, and the fond Miss Doc, whom nothing concerning the child escaped, knew better. It was not, however, till the boys were gone and silence had settled on the house that even Jim was made aware of the all that the tiny mite of a man was undergoing.

Miss Doc had gone to the kitchen. Jim, Tintoretto, and little Skeezucks were alone. The little fellow and the pup were standing in the centre of the floor, intently listening. Together they went to the door. There little Carson stretched his tiny arms across the panels in baby appeal.

"Bruv-ver--Jim," he begged. "Bruv-ver--Jim."

Then, at last, the gray old miner understood the whole significance of the baby words. "Bruvver Jim" meant more than just himself; it meant the three little girls--a.s.sociates--children--all that is dear to a childish heart--all that is indispensable to baby happiness--all that a lonely little heart must have or starve.

Jim groaned, for the utmost he could do was done when he took the sobbing little fellow in his arms and murmured him words of comfort as he carried him up and down the room.

The day that followed, and the day after that, served only to deepen the longing in the childish breast. The worried men of Borealis played on the floor in desperation. They fashioned new wagons, sleds, and dolls; they exhausted every device their natures prompted; but beyond a sad little smile and the call for "Bruvver Jim" they received no answer from the baby heart,

At the end of a week the little fellow smiled no more, not even in his faint, sweet way of yearning. His heart was starving; his grave, baby thought was far away, with the small red caps and the laughing voices of children.

The fond Miss Doc and the gray old Jim alone knew what the end must be, inevitably, unless some change should speedily come to pa.s.s.

Meantime, Keno had quietly opened up a mighty ledge of gold-bearing ore on the hill. It lay between walls of slate and granite. Its hugeness was a.s.sured. That the camp would boom in the spring was foreordained.

And that ledge all belonged to Jim. But he heard them excitedly tell what the find would do for him and the camp as one in a dream. He could not care while his tiny waif was starving in his lonely little way.

"Boys," he said at last, one night, when the smith and Bone had called to see the tiny man, who had sadly gone to sleep--"boys, he's pinin'.

He's goin' to die if he don't have little kids for company. I've made up my mind. I'm goin' to take him to Fremont right away."

Miss Doc, who was knitting a tiny pair of mittens and planning a tiny red cap and woollen leggings, dropped a st.i.tch and lost a shade of color from her face.

"Ain't there no other way?" inquired the blacksmith, a poignant regret already at his heart. "You don't really think he'd up and die?"

"Children have got to be happy," Jim replied. "If they don't get their fun when they're little, why, when is it ever goin' to come? I know he'll die, all alone with us old cusses, and I ain't a-goin' to wait."

"But the claim is goin' to be a fortune," said Bone. "Couldn't you hold on jest a week or two and see if he won't get over thinkin' 'bout the little gals?"

"If I kept him here and he died, like that--just pinin' away for other little kids--I couldn't look fortune in the face," answered Jim, to which, in a moment, he added, slowly, "Boys, he's more to me than all the claims in Nevada."

"But--you'll bring him back in the spring, of course?" said the blacksmith, with a worried look about his eyes. "We'd miss him, Jim, almost as much as you."

"By that time," supplemented Bone, "the camp's agoin' to be boomin'.

Probably we'll have lots of wimmen and kids and schools and everything, fer the gold up yonder is goin' to make Borealis some consid'rable shakes."

"I'll bring him back in the spring, all right," said the miner; "but none of you boys would want to see me keep him here and have him die."

Miss Doc had been a silent listener to all their conversation. She was knitting again, with doubled speed.

"Jim, how you goin'?" she now inquired.

"I want to get a horse," answered Jim. "We could ride there horseback quicker than any other way. If only I can get the horse."

"It may be stormin' in the mornin'," Webber suggested. "A few clouds is comin' up from the West. What about the horse, Jim, if it starts to snow?"

"Riding in a saddle, I can git through," said the miner. "If it snows at all, it won't storm bad. Storms that come up sudden never last very long, and it's been good and bright all day. I'll start unless it's snowin' feather-beds."

Miss Doc had been feeling, since the subject first was broached, that something in her heart would snap. But she worked on, her emotions, yearnings, and fears all rigorously knitted into the tiny mittens.

"You'll let me wrap him up real warm?" she said.

Jim knew her thoughts were all on little Skeezucks.

"If you didn't do it, who would?" he asked, in a kindness of heart that set her pulse to faster beating.