But the camp regretted on the whole that, instead of being shelved at his house, the gambler had not been slain.

For nearly a week the wan little foundling, emerging from the vale of shadows at the home of Miss Dennihan, lay as if debating, in his grave, baby way, the pros and cons of existence. And even when, at last, he was well on the road to recovery, he somehow seemed more quiet than ever before.

The rough old "boys" of the town could not, by any process of their fertile brains, find an adequate means of expressing their relief and delight when they knew at last the quaint little fellow was again himself.

They came to Miss Dennihan's in groups, with brand-new presents and with wonderful spirits. They played on the floor like so many well-meaning bears; they threatened to fetch their poor, neglected Christmas-tree from the blacksmith-shop; they urged Miss Doc to start a candy-pull, a night-school, a dancing-class, and a game of blindman's-buff forthwith. Moreover, not a few discovered traces of beauty and sweetness in the face of the formerly plain, severe old maid, and slyly one or two began a species of courtship.

On all their manoeuvres the little convalescent looked with grave curiosity. Such antics he had surely never seen. Pale and silent, as he sat on Jim's big knee one evening, he watched the men intently, their crude attempts at his entertainment furnishing an obvious puzzle to his tiny mind. Then presently he looked with wonder and awe at the presents, unable to understand that all this wealth of bottles, cubes, tops, balls, and wagons was his own.

The carpenter was spelling "cat" and "dog" and "Jim" with the blocks, while Field was rolling the balls on the floor and others were demonstrating the beauties and functions of kaleidoscopes and endless other offerings; but through it all the pale little guest of the camp still held with undiminished fervor to the doll that Jim had made when first he came to Borealis.

"We'd ought to git up another big Christmas," said the blacksmith, standing with his arms akimbo. "He didn't have no holidays worth a cent."

"We could roll 'em all into one," suggested Field—"Christmas, New Year's, St. Valentine's, and Fourth of July."

"What's the matter with Washington's birthday?" Bone inquired.

"And mine?" added Keno, pulling down his sleeves. "By jinks! it comes next week."

"Aw, you never had a birthday," answered the teamster. "You was jest mixed up and baked, like gingerbread."

"Or a lemon pie," said the carpenter, with obvious sarcasm.

"Wal, holidays are awful hard for some little folks to digest," said Jim. "I'm kind of scared to see another come along."

"I should think to-night is pretty near holiday enough," said the altered Miss Doc. "Our little boy has come 'round delightful."

"Kerrect," said Bone. "But if us old cusses could see him sort of laughin' and crowin' it would do us heaps of good."

"Give him time," said the teamster. "Some of the sickenest crowin' I ever heard was let out too soon."

The carpenter said, "You jest leave him alone with these here blocks for a day or two, if you want to hear him laugh."

"'Ain't we all laughed at them things enough to suit you yit?" inquired Bone. "Some people would want you to laugh at their funeral, I reckon."

"Wal, laughin' ain't everything there is worth the havin'," Jim drawled. "Some people's laughin' has made me ashamed, and some has made me walk with a limp, and some has made me fightin' mad. When little Skeezucks starts it off—I reckon it's goin' to make me a boy again, goin' in swimmin' and eatin' bread-and-molasses."

For the next few days, however, Jim and the others were content to see the signs of returning baby strength that came to little Skeezucks. That the clearing away of the leaden clouds, and the coming of beauty and sunshine, pure and dazzling, had a magical effect upon the tiny chap, as well as on themselves, the men were all convinced. And the camp, one afternoon, underwent a wholly novel and unexpected sensation of delight.

A man, with his sweet, young wife and three small, bright-faced children, came driving to Borealis. With two big horses steaming in the crystal air and blowing great, white clouds of mist from their nostrils, with wheels rimmed deeply by the snow between the spokes, with colored wraps and mittened hands, and three red worsted caps upon the children's heads, the vision coming up the one straight street was quite enough to warm up every heart in town.

The rig drew up in front of the blacksmith-shop, and twenty men came walking there to give it welcome.

"Howdy, stranger?" said the blacksmith, as he came from his forge, bareheaded, his leathern apron tied about his waist, his sleeves rolled up, and his big, hairy arms akimbo. "Pleasant day. You're needin' somethin' fixed, I see," and he nodded quietly towards a road-side job of mending at the doubletree, which was roughly wrapped about with rope.

"Yes. Good-morning," said the driver of the rig, a clear-eyed, wholesome-looking man of clerical appearance. "We had a little accident. We've come from Bullionville. How long do you think it will take you to put us in shape?"

The smith was looking at the children.

Such a trio of blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked, unalarmed little girls had never before been seen in Borealis; and they all looked back at him and the others with the most engaging frankness.

"Well, about how far you goin'?" said the smith, by way of answer.

"To Fremont," replied the stranger. "I'm a preacher, but they thought they couldn't support a church at Bullionville," he added, with a look, half mirth, half worry, in his eyes. "However, a man from Fremont loaned us the horses and carriage, so we thought we'd move before the snow fell any deeper. I'd like to go on without great delay, if the mending can be hastened."

"Your off horse needs shoein'," said Webber, quickly scanning every detail of the animals and vehicle with his practised eye. "It's a long pull to Fremont. I reckon you can't git started before the day after tomorrow."

To a preacher who had found himself superfluous, the thought of the bill of expenses that would heap up so swiftly here in Borealis was distressing. He was poor; he was worried. Like many of the miners, he had worked at a claim that proved to be worthless in the end.

"I—hoped it wouldn't take so long," he answered, slowly, "but then I suppose we shall be obliged to make the best of the situation. There are stables where I can put up the horses, of course?"

"You kin use two stalls of mine," said the teamster, who liked the looks of the three little girls as well as those of the somewhat shy little mother and the preacher himself. "Boys, unhitch his stock."

Field, Bone, and the carpenter, recently made tender over all of youngster-kind, proceeded at once to unfasten the harness.

"But—where are we likely to find accommodations?" faltered the preacher, doubtfully. "Is there any hotel or boarding-house in camp?"

"Well, not exactly—is there, Webber?" replied the teamster. "The boardin'-house is over to the mill—the quartz-mill, ten miles down the canon."

"But I reckon they could stop at Doc's," replied the smith, who had instantly determined that three bright-eyed little girls in red worsted caps should not be permitted to leave Borealis without a visit first to Jim and tiny Skeezucks. "Miss Doc could sure make room, even if Doc had to bunk up at Jim's. One of you fellers jest run up and ask her, quick! And, anyway," he added, "Mr. Preacher, you and the three little girls ought to see our little boy."

Field, who had recently developed a tender admiration for the heretofore repellent Miss Doc, started immediately.

He found old Jim and the pup already at the house where the tiny, pale little Skeezucks still had domicile. Quickly relating the news of the hour, the messenger delivered his query as to room to be had, in one long gasp of breath.

Miss Doc flushed prettily, to think of entertaining a preacher and his family. The thought of the three little girls set her heart to beating in a way she could not take the time to analyze.

"Of course, they kin come, and welcome," she said. "I'll give 'em all a bite to eat directly, but I don't jest see where I'll put so many. If John and the preacher could both go up on the hill with you, Jim, I 'low I could manage."

"Room there for six," said Jim, who felt some singular stirring of excitement in his veins at the thought of having the grave little foundling meet three other children here in the camp. "I'd give him a bunk if Keno and me had to take to the floor."

"All right, I'll skedaddle right back there, lickety-split, and let 'em know," said Field. "I knowed you'd do it, Miss Doc," and away he went.

By the time he returned to the blacksmith-shop the horses were gone to the stable, and all the preacher's family and all their bundles were out of the carriage. What plump-legged, healthy, inquisitive youngsters those three small girls appeared as they stood there in the snow.

"All right!" said Field, as he came to the group, where everybody seemed already acquainted and friendly. "Fixed up royal, and ye're all expected right away."

"We couldn't leave the little gals to walk," said the blacksmith. "I'll carry this one myself," and, taking the largest of the children in his big, bare arms, he swung her up with a certain gesture of yearning not wholly under control.

"And I'll—"

"And I'll—" came quickly from the group, while six or eight big fellows suddenly jostled each other in their haste to carry a youngster. There being but two remaining, however, only two of the men got prizes, and Field felt particularly injured because he had earned such an honor, he felt, by running up to Doc's to make arrangements. He and several others were obliged to be contented with the bundles, not a few of which were threatened with destruction in the eagerness of all to be of use.

But presently everything was adjusted, and, deserting the carriage, the shop, and everything else, the whole assemblage moved in procession on the home of the Dennihans.

A few minutes later little Skeezucks, Jim, and the pup—all of them looking from the window of the house—saw those three small caps of red, and felt that New-Year's day had really come at last.



CHAPTER XVII

SKEEZUCKS GETS A NAME

When the three small girls, so rosy of cheek and so sparkling of eye, confronted the grave little pilgrim he could only gaze upon them with timid yearning as he clung to his doll and to old "Bruvver Jim." There never had been in all his life a vision so beautiful. Old Jim himself was affected almost as much as the quaint, wee man so quietly standing at his side. Even Tintoretto was experiencing ecstasies heretofore unknown in his youthful career.

Indeed, no one could have determined by any known system of calculation whether Jim or tiny Skeezucks or the pup most enjoyed the coming of the preacher and his family. Old Jim had certainly never before undergone emotions so deeply stirring. Tintoretto had never before beheld four youngsters affording such a wealth of opportunity for puppy-wise manoeuvres; indeed, he had never before seen but one little playfellow since his advent in the world. He was fairly crazed with optimism. As for Skeezucks—starving for even so much as the sight of children, hungering beyond expression for the sound of youngster voices, for the laughter and over-bubblings of the little folk with whom by rights he belonged—nothing in the way of words will ever tell of the almost overpowering excitement and joy that presently leaped in his lonely little heart.

Honesty is the children's policy. There was nothing artificial in the way those little girls fell in love with tiny Skeezucks; and with equally engaging frankness the tiny man instantly revealed his fondness for them all.

They were introduced as Susie and Rachie and Ellie. Their other name was Stowe. This much being soon made known, the three regarded their rights to the house, to little Skeezucks, and to Tintoretto as established. They secured the pup by two of his paws and his tail, and, with him thus in hand, employed him to assist in surrounding tiny Skeezucks, whom they promptly kissed and adopted.

"Girls," said the father, mildly, "don't be rude."

"They're all right," drawled Jim, in a new sort of pleasure. "There are some kinds of rudeness a whole lot nicer than politeness."

"What's his name?" said Susie, lifting her piquant little face up to Jim, whom all the Stowe family had liked at once. "Has he got any name?"

In a desperate groping for his inspiration, Jim thought instantly of all his favorites—Diogenes, Plutarch, Endymion, Socrates, Kit Carson, and Daniel Boone.

"Wal, yes. His name—" and there old Jim halted, while "Di" and "Plu" and "Indy" and "Soc" all clamored in his brain for the honor. "His name—I reckon his name is Carson Boone."

"Little Carson," said Rachie. "Isn't Carson a sweet little boy, mammy? What's he got—a rabbit?"

"That's his doll," said Jim.

"Oh, papa, look!" said Rachie.

"Oh, papa, look!" echoed Susie.

"Papa, yook!" piped Ellie, the youngest, who wanted the dolly for herself, and, therefore, hauled at it lustily.

The others endeavored to prevent her depredations. Between them they tore the precious creation from the hands of the tiny man, and released the pup, who immediately leaped up and fastened a hold on the doll himself, to the horror of the preacher, Miss Doc, old Jim, Mrs. Stowe, and Skeezucks, all of whom, save the newly christened little Carson, pounced upon the children, the doll, and Tintoretto, with one accord. And there is nothing like a pounce upon a lot of children or a pup to make folks well acquainted.

Her "powder-flask" ladyship being duly rescued, her raiment smoothed, and her head readjusted on her body, the three small, healthy girls were perpetually enjoined from another such exhibition of coveting their neighbor's doll, whereupon all conceived that new diversion must be forthwith invented.

"You can have a lot of fun with all them Christmas presents in the corner," Jim informed them, in the great relief he felt himself to see the quaint little foundling once more in undisputed possession of his one beloved toy. "They 'ain't got any feelin's."

Miss Doc had carefully piled the presents in a tidy pyramid against the wall, in the corner designated, after which she had covered the pile with a sheet. This sheet came off in a hurry. The pup filled his mouth with a yard of the white material, and, growling in joy, shook it madly and raced away with it streaming in his wake. Miss Doc and Mrs. Stowe gave chase immediately. Tintoretto tripped at once, but even when the women had caught the sheet in their hands he hung on prodigiously, and shook the thing, and growled and braced his weight against their strength, to the uncontainable delight of all the little Stowe contingent.

Then they fell on the presents, to which they conveyed little Carson, in the intimate way of hugging in transit that only small mothers-to-be have ever been known to develop.

"Oh, papa, look at the funny old bottle!" said Susie, taking up one of the "sort of kaliderscopes" in her hand.

"Papa, mamma, look!" added Rachie.

"Papa—yook!" piped Ellie, as before, laying violent hands of possession on the toy.

"You can have it," said Susie; "I'm goin' to have the red wagon."

"Oh, papa, look at the pretty red wagon!", said Rachie, dropping another of the kaleidoscopes with commendable promptness.

"Me!—yed yaggon!" cried Ellie.

"Children, children!" said the preacher, secretly amused and entertained. "Don't you know the presents all belong to little Carson?"

"Well, we didn't get anything but mittens and caps," said Rachie, in the baldest of candor.

"Go ahead and enjoy the things," instructed Jim. "Skeezucks, do you want the little girls to play with all the things?"

The little fellow nodded. He was happier far than ever he had been in all his life.

"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 sturdy 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 passenger 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 amusement.

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 assisted 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 God! I am a miner myself, but I make no gold. It is there, in the hill, or in the man, where God 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."

"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—associates—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 pass.

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 assured. 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 stitch 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.

"But—s'pose you don't git any job in Fremont," Bone inquired. "Will you let us know?"

"I'll git it, don't you fear," said Jim. "I know there ain't no one so blind as the feller who's always lookin' for a job, but the little kid has fetched me a sort of second sight."

"Well, if anything was goin' hard, we'd like for to know," insisted Bone. "I guess we'd better start along, though, now, if we're goin' to scare up a bronch to-night."

He and the blacksmith departed. Jim and the lorn Miss Doc sat silently together in the warm little house. Jim looked at her quietly, and saw many phases of womanly beauty in her homely face.

"Wal," he drawled, at last, "I'll go up home, on the hill." He hesitated for a moment, and then added, quietly, "Miss Doc, you've been awful kind to the little boy—and me."

"It wasn't nuthin'," she said.

They stood there together, beside the table.

"Yes, it was," said Jim, "and it's set me to thinkin' a heap." He was silent for a moment, as before, and then, somewhat shyly for him, he said, "When we come back home here, in the spring, Miss Doc, I'm thinkin' the little feller ought to have a mother. Do you think you could put up with him—and with me?"

"Jim," she said, in a voice that shook with emotion, "do you think I'm a kind enough woman?"

"Too kind—for such as me," said Jim, thickly. He took her hand in his own, and with something of a courtliness and grace, reminiscent of his youth, he raised it to his lips. "Good-night," he said. "Good-night, Miss Doc."

"Good-night, Jim," she answered, and he saw in her eyes the beauty that God in his wisdom gives alone to mother-kind.

And when he had gone she sat there long, forgetting to keep up the fire, forgetting that Doc himself would come home early in the morning from his night-employment, forgetting everything personal save the words old Jim had spoken, as she knitted and knitted, to finish that tiny pair of mittens.

The night was spent, and her heart was at once glad and sore when, at last, she concluded her labor of love. Nevertheless, in the morning she was up in time to prepare a luncheon for Jim to take along, and to delve in her trunk for precious wraps and woollens in which to bundle the grave little pilgrim, long before old Jim or the horse he would ride had appeared before the house.

Little Skeezucks was early awake and dressed. A score of times Miss Doc caught him up in her hungering arms, to hold him in fervor to her heart and to kiss his baby cheek. If she cried a little, she made it sound and look like laughter to the child. He patted her face with his tiny hand, even as he begged for "Bruvver Jim."

"You're goin' to find Bruvver Jim," she said. "You're goin' away from fussy old me to where you'll be right happy."

At least a dozen men of the camp came plodding along behind the horse, that arrived at the same time Jim, the pup, and Keno appeared at the Dennihan home.

Doc Dennihan had cut off his customary period of rest and sleep, to say good-bye, with the others, to the pilgrims about to depart.

Jim was dressed about as usual for the ride, save that he wore an extra pair of trousers beneath his overalls and a great blanket-coat upon his back. He was hardy, and he looked it, big as he was and solidly planted in his wrinkled boots.

The sky, despite Webber's predictions of a storm, was practically free from clouds, but a breeze was sweeping through the gorge with increasing strength. It was cold, and the men who stood about in groups kept their hands in their pockets and their feet on the move for the sake of the slight degree of warmth thereby afforded.

As their spokesman, Webber, the blacksmith, took the miner aside.

"Jim," said he, producing a buckskin bag, which he dropped in the miner's pocket, "the boys can't do nuthin' fer little Skeezucks when he's 'way off up to Fremont, so they've chipped in a little and wanted you to have it in case of need."

"But, Webber—" started Jim.

"Ain't no buts," interrupted the smith. "You'll hurt their feelin's if you go to buttin' and gittin' ornary."

Wherefore the heavy little bag of coins remained where Webber had placed it.

There were sober words of caution and advice, modest requests for a line now and then, and many an evidence of the hold old Jim had secured on their hearts before the miner finally received the grave and carefully bundled little Carson from the arms of Miss Doc and came to the gate to mount his horse and ride away.

"Jest buckle this strap around me and the little boy," instructed Jim, as he gave a wide leather belt to the teamster; "then if I happen for to need both hands, he won't be able to git a fall."

The strap was adjusted about the two in the manner suggested.

"Good scheme," commented Field, and the others agreed that it was.

Then all the rough and awkward big fellows soberly shook the pretty little pilgrim's hand in its mitten, and said good-bye to the tiny chap, who was clinging, as always, to his doll.

"What you goin' to do with Tinterretter?" inquired the teamster as he looked at the pup, while Jim, with an active swing, mounted to the saddle.

"Take him along," said Jim. "I'll put him in the sack I've got, and tie him on behind the saddle when he gits too much of runnin' on foot. He wouldn't like it to be left behind and Skeezucks gone."

"Guess that's kerrect," agreed the teamster. "He's a bully pup, you bet."

Poor Miss Doc remained inside the gate. Her one mad impulse was to run to Jim, clasp him and the grave little waif in her arms, and beg to be taken on the horse. But repression had long been her habit of life. She smiled, and did not even speak, though the eyes of the fond little pilgrim were turned upon her in baby affection.

"Well—you'll git there all right," said the blacksmith, voicing the hope that swelled in his heart. "So long, and let us know how the little feller makes it with the children."

"By jinks!—so long," said Keno, striving tremendously to keep down his rising emotions. "So long. I'll stay by the claim."

"And give our love to them three little gals," said Bone. "So long."

One after another they wrung the big, rough hand, and said "So long" in their easy way.

"Bye, Miss Doc," said Jim, at the last. "Skeezucks—say good-bye—to Miss Doc—and all the boys. Say good-bye."

The little fellow had heard "good-bye" when the three little caps of red departed. It came as a word that hurt his tiny heart. But, obediently, he looked about at all his friends.

"Dood-bye," he said, in baby accents. "Dood-bye."



CHAPTER XX

IN THE TOILS OF THE BLIZZARD

Something was tugged and wrenched mighty hard as Jim rode finally around the hill, and so out of sight of the meagre little camp he called his home, but resolution was strong within him. Up and up through the narrow canon, winding tortuously towards the summit, like the trail of a most prodigious serpent channelled in the snow, the horse slowly climbed, with Tintoretto, the joyous, busily visiting each and every portion of the road, behind, before, and at the sides.

What a world of white it was! The wind had increased, and a few scattered specks of snow that sped before it seemed trying to muster the force of a storm, from the sky in which the sun was still shining, between huge rents and spaces that separated scudding clouds.

It was not, however, until an hour had gone that the flakes began to swirl in fitful flurries. By then the travellers were making better time, and Jim was convinced the blotted sun would soon again assert its mastery over clouds so abruptly accumulated in the sky. The wind, however, had veered about. It came directly in their faces, causing the horse to lower his head and the pup to sniff in displeasure.

Little Skeezucks, with his back to the slanting fire of small, hard flakes, nestled in comfort on the big, protecting shoulder, where he felt secure against all manner of attack.

For two more hours they rode ahead, while the snow came down somewhat thicker.

"It can't last," old Jim said, cheerily, to the child and horse and pup. "Just a blowout. Too fierce and sudden to hold."

Yet, when they came to the great level valley beyond the second range of hills, the biting gale appeared to greet them with a fury pent up for the purpose. Unobstructed it swept across the desert of snow, flinging not only the shotlike particles from the sky, but also the loose, roving drift, as dry as salt, that lay four inches deep upon the solider snow that floored the plain. And such miles and miles of the frozen waste were there! The distant mountains looked like huge windrows of snow wearing away in the rush of the gale.

Confident still it was only a flurry, Jim rode on. The pup by now was trailing behind, his tail less high, his fuzzy coat beginning to fill with snow, his eyes so pelted that he sneezed to keep them clear.

The air was cold and piercing as it drove upon them. Jim felt his feet begin to ache in his hard, leather boots. Beneath his clothing the chill lay thinly against his body, save for the place where little Carson was strapped to his breast.

"It can't last," the man insisted. "Never yet saw a blusterin' storm that didn't blow itself to nothin' in a hurry."

But a darkness was flung about them with the thicker snow that flew. Indeed, the flakes were multiplying tremendously. The wind was becoming a hurricane. With a roar it rushed across the valley. The world of storm suddenly closed in upon them and narrowed down the visible circle of desolation. Like hurrying troops of incalculable units, the dots of frozen stuff went sweeping past in a blinding swarm.

The thing had become a blizzard. Jim halted his horse, convinced that wisdom prompted them to turn their backs upon the fury and flee again to Borealis, to await a calmer day for travelling. A fiercer buffeting of wind puffed from the west, fiercely toothed with shot of snow. As if in fear unnamable, a gaunt coyote suddenly appeared scurrying onward before the hail and snow, and was quickly gone.

The horse shied violently out of the road. The girth of the saddle was loosened. With a superhuman effort old Jim remained in his seat, but he knew he must tighten the cinch. Dismounting, he permitted the horse to face away from the gale. The pup came gladly to the shelter of the miner's boots and clambered stiffly up on his leg, for a word of companionship and comfort.

"All right," said Jim, giving him a pat on the head when the saddle was once more secure in its place; "but I reckon we'll turn back homeward, and I'll walk myself, for a spell, to warm me up. It may let up, and if it does we can head for Fremont again without much loss of time."

With the bridle-rein over his shoulder, he led the horse back the way they had come, his own head low on his breast, to avoid the particles of snow that searched him out persistently.

They had not plodded homeward far when the miner presently discovered they were floundering about in snow-covered brush. He quickly lifted his head to look about. He could see for a distance of less than twenty feet in any direction. Mountains, plain—the world of white—had disappeared in the blinding onrush of snow and wind. A chaos of driving particles comprised the universe. And by the token of the brush underfoot they had wandered from the road. There had been no attempt on the miner's part to follow any tracks they had left on their westward course, for the gale and drift had obliterated every sign, almost as soon as the horse's hoofs had ploughed them in the snow.

Believing that the narrow road across the desolation of the valley lay to the right, he forged ahead in that direction. Soon they came upon smoother walking, which he thought was an indication that the road they sought was underfoot. It was not. He plodded onward for fifteen minutes, however, before he knew he had made a mistake.

The storm was, if possible, more furious. The snow flew thicker; it stung more sharply, and seemed to come from every direction.

"We'll stand right here behind the horse till it quits," he said. "It can't keep up a lick like this."

But turning about, in an effort to face the animal away from the worst of the blizzard, he kicked a clump of sage brush arched fairly over by its burden of snow. Instantly a startled rabbit leaped from beneath the shrub and bounded against the horse's legs, and then away in the storm. In affright the horse jerked madly backward. The bridle was broken. It held for a second, then tore away from the animal's head and fell in a heap in the snow.

"Whoa, boy!—whoa!" said the miner, in a quiet way, but the horse, in his terror, snorted at the brush and galloped away, to be lost from sight on the instant.

For a moment the miner, with his bundled little burden in his arms, started in pursuit of the bronco. But even the animal's tracks in the snow were being already effaced by the sweep of the powdery gale. The utter futility of searching for anything was harshly thrust upon the miner's senses.

They were lost in that valley of snow, cold, and blizzard.

"We'll have to make a shelter the best we can," he said, "and wait here, maybe half an hour, till the storm has quit."

He kicked the snow from a cluster of sagebrush shrubs, and behind this flimsy barrier presently crouched, with the shivering pup, and with the silent little foundling in his arms.

What hours that merciless blizzard raged, no annals of Nevada tell. What struggles the gray old miner made to find his way homeward before its wrath, what a fight it was he waged against the elements till night came on and the worst of the storm had ceased, could never be known in Borealis.

But early that night the teamster, Lufkins, was startled by the neighing of a horse, and when he came to the stable, there was the half-blinded animal on which old Jim and tiny Skeezucks had ridden away in the morning—the empty saddle still upon his back.



CHAPTER XXI

A BED IN THE SNOW

The great stout ore-wagons stood in the snow that lay on the Borealis street, with never a horse or a mule to keep them company. Not an animal fit to bear a man had been left in the camp. But the twenty men who rode far off in the white desolation out beyond were losing hope as they searched and searched in the drifts and mounds that lay so deep upon the earth.

By feeble lantern glows at first, and later by the cold, gray light of dawn, they scanned the road and the country for miles and miles. It was five o'clock, and six in the morning, and still the scattered company of men and horses pushed onward through the snow.

The quest became one of dread. They almost feared to find the little group. The wind had ceased to blow, but the air was cold. Gray ribbons of cloud were stretched across the sky. Desolation was everywhere—in the heavens, on the plain, on the distant mountains. All the world was snow, dotted only where the mounted men made insignificant spots against the waste of white.

Aching with the cold, aching more in their hearts, the men from Borealis knew a hundred ways to fear the worst.

Then at last a shout, and a shot from a pistol, sped to the farthest limits of the line of searching riders and prodded every drop of sluggish blood within them to a swift activity.

The shout and signal had come from Webber, the blacksmith, riding a big, bay mare. Instantly Field, Bone, and Lufkins galloped to where he was swinging out of his saddle.

There in the snow, where at last he had floundered down after making an effort truly heroic to return to Borealis, lay the gray old Jim, with tiny Skeezucks strapped to his breast and hovered by his motionless arms. In his hands the little mite of a pilgrim held his furry doll. On the snow lay the luncheon Miss Doc had so lovingly prepared. And Tintoretto, the pup, whom nature had made to be joyous and glad, was prostrate at the miner's feet, with flakes of white all blown through the hair of his coat. A narrow little track around the two he loved so well was beaten in the snow, where time after time the worried little animal had circled and circled about the silent forms, in some brave, puppy-wise service of watching and guarding, faithfully maintained till he could move no more.

For a moment after Bone and Lufkins joined him at the spot, the blacksmith stood looking at the half-buried three. The whole tale of struggle with the chill, of toiling onward through the heavy snow, of falling over hidden shrubs, of battling for their lives, was somehow revealed to the silent men by the haggard, death-white face of Jim.

"They can't—be dead," said the smith, in a broken voice. "He—couldn't, and—us all—his friends."

But when he knelt and pushed away some of the snow, the others thought his heart had lost all hope.

It was Field, however, who thought to feel for a pulse. The eager searchers from farther away had come to the place. A dozen pair of eyes or more were focussed on the man as he held his breath and felt for a sign of life.

"Alive!—He's alive!" he cried, excitedly. "And little Skeezucks, too! For God's sake, boys, let's get them back to camp!"

In a leap of gladness the men let out a mighty cheer. From every saddle a rolled-up blanket was swiftly cut, and rough but tender hands swept off the snow that clung to the forms of the miner, the child, and the pup.



CHAPTER XXII

CLEANING THEIR SLATE

Never could castle or mansion contain more of gladness and joy of the heart than was crowded into the modest little home of Miss Doc when at last the prayers and ministrations of a score of men and the one "decent" woman of the camp were rewarded by the Father all-pitiful.

"I'm goin' to bawl, and I'll lick any feller that calls me a baby!" said the blacksmith, but he laughed and "bawled" together.

They had saved them all, but a mighty quiet Jim and a quieter little Skeezucks and a wholly subdued little pup lay helpless still in the care of the awkward squad of nurses.

And then a council of citizens got together at the dingy shop of Webber for a talk. "We mustn't fergit," said the smith, "that Jim was a takin' the poor little feller to Fremont 'cause he thought he was pinin' away fer children's company; and I guess Jim knowed. Now, the question is, what we goin' for to do? Little Skeezucks ain't a goin' to be no livelier unless he gits that company—and maybe he'll up and die of loneliness, after all. Do you fellers think we'd ought to git up a party and take 'em all to Fremont, as soon as they're able to stand the trip?"

Bone, the bar-keep answered: "What's the matter with gittin' the preacher and his wife and three little gals to come back here and settle in Borealis? I'm goin' in for minin', after a while, myself, and I'll—and I'll give my saloon from eight to two on Sundays to be fixed all up fer a church; and I reckon we kin support Parson Stowe as slick as any town in all Navady."

For a moment this astonishing speech was followed by absolute silence. Then, as if with one accord, the men all cheered in admiration.

"Let's git the parson back right off," cried the carpenter. "I kin build the finest steeple ever was!"

"Send a gang to fetch him here to-day!" said Webber.

"I wouldn't lose no time, or he may git stuck on Fremont, and never want to budge," added Lufkins.

Field and half a dozen more concurred.

"I'll be one to go myself," said the blacksmith, promptly. "Two or three others can come along, and we'll git him if we have to steal him—wife, little gals, and all!"

But the party was yet unformed for the trip when the news of the council's intentions was spread throughout the camp, and an ugly feature of the life in the mines was revealed.

The gambler, Parky, sufficiently recovered from the wound in his arm to be out of his house, and planning a secret revenge against old Jim and his friends, was more than merely opposed to the plan which had come from the shop of Webber.

"It don't go down," said he to a crowd, with a sneer at the parson and with oaths for Bone. "I own some Borealis property myself, and don't you fergit I'll make things too hot for any preacher to settle in the camp. And I 'ain't yet finished with the gang that thought they was smart on New-Year's eve—just chew that up with your cud of tobacker!"

With half a dozen ruffians at his back—the scum of prisons, gambling-dens, and low resorts—he summed up a menace not to be estimated lightly. Many citizens feared to incur his wrath; many were weak, and therefore as likely to gather to his side as not, under the pressure he could put upon them.

The camp was suddenly ripe for a struggle. Right and decency, or lawlessness and violence would speedily conquer. There could be no half-way measures. If Webber and his following had been persuaded before that Parson Stowe should have a place in the town, they were grimly determined on the project now.

The blacksmith it was who strung up once again a bar of steel before his shop and rang it with his hammer.

There were forty men who answered to the summons. And when they had finished the council of war within the shop, the work of an upward lift had been accomplished. A supplement was added to the work of signing a short petition requesting Parson Stowe to come among them, and this latter took the form of a mandate addressed to the gambler and his backing of outlaws, thieves, and roughs. It was brief, but the weight of its words was mighty.

"The space you're using in Borealis is wanted for decenter purposes," it read. "We give you twenty-four hours to clear out. Git!—and then God have mercy on your souls if any one of the gang is found in Borealis!"

This was all there was, except for a fearful drawing of a coffin and a skull. And such an array of inky names, scrawled with obvious pains and distinctness, was on the paper that argument itself was plainly hand in hand with a noose of rope.

Opposition to an army of forty wrathful and determined men would have been but suicide. Parky nodded when he read the note. He knew the game was closed. He sold all his interests in the camp for what they would bring and bought a pair of horses and a carriage.

In groups and pairs his henchmen—suddenly thrown over by their leader to hustle for themselves—sneaked away from the town, many of them leaving immediately in their dread of the grim reign of law now come upon the camp. Parky, for his part, waited in some deliberation, and then drove away with a sneer upon his lips when at last his time was growing uncomfortably short.

Decency had won—the moral slate of the camp was clean!



CHAPTER XXIII

A DAY OF JOY

There came a day—never to be forgotten in the annals of Borealis—when, to the ringing of the bar of steel, Parson Stowe, with his pretty little wife and the three little red-capped youngsters, rode once more into town to make their home with their big, rough friends.

Fifty awkward men of the mines roared lustily with cheering. Fifty great voices then combined in a sweet, old song that rang through the snow-clad hills:

"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."

And the first official acts of the wholesome young parson were conducted in the "church" that Bone had given to the town when the happy little Skeezucks was christened "Carson Boone" and the drawling old Jim and the fond Miss Doc were united as man and wife.

"If only I'd known what a heart she's got, I'd asked her before," the miner drawled. "But, boys, it's never too late to pray for sense."

The moment of it all, however, which the men would remember till the final call of the trumpet was that in which the three little girls, in their bright-red caps, came in at the door of the Dennihan home. They would never forget the look on the face of their motherless, quaint little waif as he held forth both his tiny arms to the vision and cried out:

"Bruvver Jim!"

THE END