CHAPTER XI
TROUBLES AND DISCOVERIES
For the next ten days the talk of the camp was the coming celebration.Moreover, man after man was surrounding himself with mysteryimpenetrable, as he drew away in his shell, so to speak, to undergocertain throes of invention and secret manufacture of presents for thetiny boy at the cabin on the hill. Knowing nods, sly winks, andjealous guarding of their cleverness marked the big, rough fellows oneby one. And yet some of the most secretive felt a necessity forconsulting Jim as to what was appropriate, what would please littleSkeezucks, and what was worthy to be tied upon the tree.
That each and every individual thus laboring to produce his offeringshould be eager to excel his neighbor, and to win the greatestappreciation from the all-unknowing little pilgrim for his ownparticular toy or trinket, was a natural outcome of the Christmasspirit actuating the manoeuvres. And all the things they could givewould have to be made, since there was not a shop in a radius of ahundred miles where baubles for youngsters could be purchased, whileBorealis, having never had a baby boy before in all its sudden annalsof being, had neglected all provision for the advent of tiny Skeezucks.
The carpenter came to the cabin first, with a barley-sack filled withthe blocks he had made for the small foundling's Christmas ecstasy.Before he would show them, however, Keno was obliged to leave the houseand the tiny pilgrim himself was placed in a bunk from which he couldnot see.
"I want to surprise him," explained the carpenter.
He then dumped out his blocks.
As lumber was a luxury in Borealis, he had been obliged to make whatshift he could. In consequence of this the blocks were of severalsizes, a number were constructed of several pieces of board nailedtogether--and split in the process--no two were shaped alike, exceptfor generalities, and no one was straight. However, they were largerthan a man's two fists, they were gaudily painted, and the alphabet wassprinkled upon them with prodigal generosity. There were evenhieroglyphics upon them, which the carpenter described as birds andanimals. They were certainly more than any timid child could ever havedemanded.
"Them's it," said Dunn, watching the face of Jim with what modest pridethe situation would permit. "Now, what I want you to do is to give mea genuine, candid opinion of the work."
"Wal, I'll tell you," drawled the miner, "whenever a man asks you for acandid opinion, that's the time to fill your shovel with guff. It'sthe only safe proceedin'. So I won't fool around with candid opinions,Dunn, I'll just admit they are jewels. Cut my diamonds if they ain't!"
"I kind of thought so myself," confessed the carpenter. "But I thoughtas you was a first-class critic, why, I'd like to hear what you'd say."
"No, I ain't no critic," Jim replied. "A critic is a feller who cansay nastier things than anybody else about things that anybody else cando a heap sight better than he can himself."
"Well, I do reckon, as who shouldn't say so, that nobody livin' intoBorealis but me could 'a' made them blocks," agreed Dunn, returning thelot to his sack. "But I jest wanted to hear you say so, Jim, fer youand me has had an eddication which lots of cusses into camp 'ain'tnever got. Not that it's anything agin 'em, but--you know how it is.I'll bet the little shaver will like them better'n anything else he'llgit."
"Oh, he'll like 'em in a different way," agreed the miner. "No doubtabout that."
And when the carpenter had gone old Jim took his little foundling fromthe berth and sat him on his knee.
In the tiny chap's arms the powder-flask-and-potato doll was firmlyheld. The face of the lady had wrinkled with a premature descent ofage upon her being. One of her eyes had disappeared, while hersoot-made mouth had been wiped across her entire countenance.
The quaint bit of a boy was dressed, as usual, in the funny littletrousers that came to his heels, while his old fur cap had been kept inrequisition for the warmth it afforded his ears. He cuddledconfidingly against his big, rough protector, but he made no sound ofspeaking, nor did anything suggestive of a smile come to play upon hisgrave little features.
Jim had told him of Christmas by the hour--all the beauty of the story,so old, so appealing to the race of man, who yearns towards everythingaffording a brightness of hope and a faith in anything human.
"What would little Skeezucks like for his Christmas?" the man inquired,for the twentieth time.
The little fellow pressed closer against him, in baby shyness andslowly answered:
"Bruv-ver--Jim."
The miner clasped him tenderly against his heart. Yet he had butscanty intimation of the all the tiny pilgrim meant.
He sat with him throughout that day, however, as he had so many ofthese fleeting days. The larder was neglected; the money contributedat "church" had gone at once, to score against a bill at the store, aslarge as the cabin itself, and only the labors of Keno, chopping brushfor fuel, kept the home supplied even with a fire. Jim had been bornbeneath the weight of some star too slow to move along.
When Keno came back to the cabin from his work in the brush it was wellalong in the afternoon. Jim decided to go below and stock up thepantry with food. On arriving at the store, however, he met a newmanner of reception.
The gambler, Parky, was in charge, as a recent purchaser of the wholeconcern.
"You can't git no more grub-stake here without the cash," he said toJim. "And now you've come, you can pony up on the bill you 'ain't yetsquared."
"So?" said Jim.
"You bet your boots it's so, and you can't begin to pungle up a minutetoo soon!" was the answer.
"I reckon you'd ask a chicken to pungle up the gravel in his gizzard ifyou thought he'd picked up a sliver of gold," Jim drawled, in his lazyutterance. "And an ordinary chicken, with the pip thrown in, couldpungle twice to my once."
"Ain't got the stuff, hey?" said Parky. "Broke, I s'pose? Then maybeyou'll git to work, you old galoot, and stop playin' parson andgoody-goody games. You don't git nothing here without the chink. Soperhaps you'll git to work at last."
A red-nosed henchman of the gambler's put in a word.
"I don't see why you 'ain't gone to work," he said.
"Don't you?" drawled Jim, leaning on the counter to survey the speaker."Well, it looks to me as if you found out, long ago, that all work andno play makes a man a Yankee."
"I ain't no Yankee, you kin bet on that!" said the man.
"That's pretty near incredible," drawled Jim.
"And I ain't neither," declared the gambler, who boasted of beingCanadian. "Don't you forget that, old boy."
"No," Jim slowly replied, "I've often noticed that all that glittersain't American."
"Well, you can clear out of here and notice how things look outside,"retorted Parky.
Jim was slowly straightening up when the blacksmith and the teamsterentered the place. They had heard the gambler's order and werethoroughly astounded. No man, howsoever poor and unprepared to pay awretched bill, had ever been treated thus in Borealis before.
"What's the matter?" said Webber.
"Nuthin', particularly," answered Jim, in his slow, monotonous way,"only a difference of opinion. Parky thinks he's brainy, and agentleman--that's all."
"I can see you don't git another snack of grub in here, my friend,"retorted Parky, adding a number of oaths. "And for just two cents I'dbreak your jaw and pitch you out in the street."
"Not with your present flow of language," answered Jim.
The teamster inquired, "Why don't Jim git any more grub?"
"Because I'm running this joint and he 'ain't got the cash," saidParky. "You got anything to say about the biz?"
"Jim's got a call on me and my cash," replied the brawny Webber. "Jim,you tell him what you need, and I'll foot the bill."
"I'll settle half, myself," added Lufkins.
"Thanks, boys, not this evenin'," said Jim, whose pride had singularmoments for coming to the surface. "There's only one time of day whenit's safe to deal with a gambler, and that's thirteen o'clock."
"
I wouldn't sell you nothing, anyway," said Parky, with a swagger. "Hecouldn't git grub here now for no money--savvy?"
"I wonder why you call it grub, now that it's come into your greasyhands!" drawled the miner, as he slowly started to leave the store."I'd be afraid you'd deal me a dirty ace of spades instead of a decentslice of bacon." And, hands in pockets, he sauntered away, vaguelywondering what he should do.
The blacksmith hung for a moment in the balance of indecision, rapidlythinking. Then he followed where the gray old Jim had gone, andpresently overtook him in the road.
"Jim," he said, "what about poor little Skeezucks? Say, I'll tell youwhat we'll do: I'll wait a little, and then send Field to the store andhave him git whatever you need, and pretend it's all for himself. Thenwe'll lug it up the hill and slide it into the cabin slick as a leadtwo-bits."
"Can't let you do it," said Jim.
"Why not?" demanded Webber.
Jim hesitated before he drawled his reply.
"If only I had the resolution," said he, "I wouldn't take nothing thatParky could sell."
"When we git you once talkin' 'if-only,' the bluff is called," repliedthe smith, with a grin. "Now what are you needin' at the shack?"
"You rich fellers want to run the whole shebang," objected Jim, by wayof an easy capitulation. "There never yet was a feller born with asilver spoon in his mouth that didn't want to put it in every otherfeller's puddin'. . . . I was goin' to buy a can or two of condensedmilk and a slab of bacon and a sack of flour and a bean or two and alittle 'baccy, and a few things about like that."
"All right," said the blacksmith, tabulating all these items on hisfingers. "And Field kin look around and see if there ain't some extrysfor little Skeezucks."
"If only I had the determination I wouldn't accept a thing from Parky'sstock," drawled the miner, as before. "I'll go to work on the claimand pay you back right off."
"Kerrect," answered Webber, as gravely as possible, thinking of thehundred gaudy promises old Jim had made concerning his undeveloped andso far worthless claim. "I hope you'll strike it good and rich."
"Wal," drawled Jim; "bad luck has to associate with a little good luckonce in a while, to appear sort of half-way respectable. And myluck--same as any tired feller's--'ain't been right good Sunday-schoolcompany for several years."
So he climbed back up the hill once more, and, coming to his cabin, hada long, earnest look at the picks, bars, drills, and other implementsof mining, heavy with dust, in the corner.
"If only the day wasn't practically gone," said he, "I'd start to workon the claim this afternoon."
But he touched no tools, and presently instead he took the grave littlefoundling on his knee and told him, all over, the tales the littlefellow seemed most to enjoy.
When the stock of provisions was finally fetched to the house by Webberhimself, the worthy smith was obliged to explain that part of the moneysupplied to Field for the purchase of the food had been confiscated fordebt at the store. In consequence of this the quantity had been cut toa half its intended dimensions.
"And the worst of it is," said the blacksmith, in conclusion, "we allowe a little at the store, and Parky's got suspicious that we'resneakin' things to you."
Indeed, as he left the house, he saw that certain red-nosed microbe ofa human being attached to the gambler, spying on his visit to the hill.Stopping for a moment to reflect upon the nearness of Christmas and theneedless worry that he might inflict by informing Jim of his discovery,Webber shook his head and went his way, keeping the matter to himself.
But with food in the house old Jim was again at ease, so much so,indeed, that he quite forgot to begin that promised work upon hisclaim. He had never worked except when dire necessity made resting nolonger possible, and then only long enough to secure the wherewithalfor sufficient food to last him through another period of sittingaround to think. If thinking upon subjects of no importance whatsoeverhad been a lucrative employment, Jim would certainly have accumulatedthe wealth of the whole wide world.
He took his pick in his hands the following day, but placed it again inits corner, slowly, after a moment's examination of its blunted steel.
Three days went by. The weather was colder. Bitter winds and frowningclouds were hastening somewhere to a conclave of the wintry elements.It was four days only to Christmas. Neither the promised Noah's ark topresent to tiny Skeezucks nor the Christmas-tree on which the men hadplanned to hang their gifts was one whit nearer to realization than asif they had never been suggested.
Meantime, once again the food-supply was nearly gone. Keno kept thepile of fuel reasonably high, but cheer was not so prevalent in thecabin as to ask for further room. The grave little pilgrim was just atrifle quieter and less inclined to eat. He caught a cold, as tiny ashimself, but bore its miseries uncomplainingly. In fact, he had nevercried so much as once since his coming to the cabin; and neither had hesmiled.
In sheer concern old Jim went forth that cold and windy afternoon ofthe day but four removed from Christmas, to make at least a show ofworking on his claim. Keno, Skeezucks, and the pup remained behind,the little red-headed man being busily engaged in some great culinarymystery from which he said his lemon-pie for Christmas should evolve.
When presently Jim stood beside the meagre post-hole he had made onceupon a time, as a starter for a mining-shaft, he looked at it ruefully.How horridly hard that rock appeared! What a wretched little scar itwas he had made with all that labor he remembered so vividly! What wasthe good of digging here? Nothing!
Dragging his pick, he looked for a softer spot in which to sink thesteel. There were no softer spots. And the pick helve grew sointensely cold! Jim dropped it to the ground, and with hands thrustinto his armpits, for the warmth afforded, he hunched himself dismallyand scanned the prospect with doleful eyes. Why couldn't the hillbreak open, anyhow, and show whether anything worth the having werecontained in its bulk or not?
A last summer's mullen stock, beating incessantly in the wind, seemedthe only thing alive on all that vast outbulging of the earth. Thestunted brush stiffly carded the breeze that blew so persistently.
From rock to rock the gray old miner's gaze went wandering. Soundisturbed had been the surface of the earth since he had owned theclaim that a shallow channel, sluiced in the earth by a freshet of thespring long past, remained as the waters had cut it. Slowly up thecourse of this insignificant cicatrice old Jim ascended, his handsstill held beneath his arms, his long mustache and his grizzled beardblown awry in the breeze. The pick he left behind.
Coming thus to a deeper gouge in the sand of the hill, he halted andgazed attentively at a thick seam of rock outcropping sharply where thelong-gone freshet had laid it bare. In mining parlance it was"quartzy." To Jim it appeared even more. He stooped above it andattempted to break away a fragment with his fingers. At this hefailed. Rubbing off the dust and sand wherewith old mother nature wasbeginning to cover it anew, he saw little spots, at which he scratchedwith his nails.
"Awful cold it's gittin'," he drawled to himself, and sitting down onthe meagre bank of earth he once more thrust his hands beneath his coatand looked at the outcropping dismally.
He had doubtless been gone from the cabin half an hour, and not astroke had he given with his pick, when, as he sat there looking at theground, the voice of Keno came on the wind from the door of the shack.Arising, Jim started at once towards his home, leaving his pick on thehill-side a rod or two below.
"What is it?" he called, as he neared the house.
"Calamerty!" yelled Keno, and he disappeared within the door.
Jim almost made haste.
"What kind of a calamity?" said he, as he entered the room. "What'swent wrong?"
"The lemon-pie!" said Keno, whose face was a study in the art ofexpressing consternation.
"Oh," said Jim, instantly relieved, "is that all?"
"All?" echoed Keno. "By jinks! I can't make another before it'sChristmas, to save my neck, and I use
d all the sugar and nearly all theflour we had."
"Is it a hopeless case?" inquired Jim.
"Some might not think so," poor Keno replied. "I scoured out the oldDutch oven and I've got her in a-bakin', but--"
"Well, maybe she ain't so worse."
"Jim," answered Keno, tragically, "I didn't find out till I had herbakin' fine. Then I looked at the bottle I thought was the lemonextract, and, by jinks! what do you think?"
"I don't feel up to the arts of creatin' lemon-pies," confessed theminer, warming himself before the fire. "What happened?"
"You have to have lemon extract--you know that?" said Keno.
"All right."
"Well, by jinks, Jim, it wasn't lemon extract after all! It washair-oil!"
A terrible moment of silence ensued.
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 eachpicnic 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 willeat on Christmas till the follerin' day. They'll take to anything thatlooks 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 thepie with your pick?"
"Wal, not till Christmas, anyway, Keno, and only then in case we'vebusted all the knives and saws trying to git it apart," said Jim,reassuringly.
"Would you keep it, sure, and feed it to 'em all the same?" inquiredKeno, forlornly, eager for a ray of hope.
"I certainly would," replied the miner. "They won't know the diffbetween a lemon-pie and a can of tomatoes. So I guess I'll go and gitmy pick. It may come on to snow, and then I couldn't find it till thespring."
Without the slightest intention of working any more, Jim sauntered backto the place where the pick was lying on the hill and took it up. Bychance he thought of the ledge of quartz above in the rain-sluicedchannel.
"Might as well hit her a lick," he drawled to himself, and climbing tothe spot he drove the point of his implement into a crevice of the rockand broke away a piece of two or three pounds in weight. This he tookin 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 toexcitement pumped from his heart abruptly.
The rock was flecked all through with tiny specks of metal that theminer knew unerringly.
It was gold.