CHAPTER XIV
"IF ONLY I HAD THE RESOLUTION"
For the next three or four days the tiny bit of a man at Miss Doc'sseemed neither to be worse nor better of his ailment. The hand oflethargy lay with dulling weight upon him. Old Jim and Miss Dennihanwere baffled, though their tenderness increased and their old animositydisappeared, forgotten in the stress of care.
That the sister of Doc could develop such a spirit of motherhoodastounded nearly every man in the camp. Accustomed to acerbities ofcriticism for their many shortcomings from her ever-pointed tongue,they marvelled the more at her semi-partnership with Jim, whom of allthe population of the town she had scorned and verbally castigated mostfrequently.
Resupplying their tree with candles, the patient fellows had kept alivetheir hope of a great day of joy and celebration, only to see itsteadily receding from their view. At length they decided to carrytheir presents to the house where the wan little foundling lay,trusting the sight of their labors of love might cheer him to recovery.
To the utter amazement of her brother, Miss Doc not only permitted thebig, rough men to track the snow through her house, when they came withtheir gifts, but she gave them kindly welcome. In her face that daythey readily saw some faint, illusive sign of beauty heretoforeunnoticed, or perhaps concealed.
"He'll come along all right," she told them, with a smile they found tobe singularly sweet, "for Jim do seem a comfort to the poor littlething."
Old Jim would surely have been glad to believe that he or anythingsupplied a comfort to the grave little sick man lying so quietly inbed. The miner sat by him all day long, and far into every night, onlyclimbing to his cabin on the hill when necessity drove him away. Thenhe was back there in the morning by daylight, eager, but cheerfulalways.
The presents were heaped on the floor in sight of the pale littleSkeezucks, who clung unfailingly, through it all, to the funnymakeshift of a doll that "Bruvver Jim" had placed in his keeping. Heappeared not at all to comprehend the meaning of the gifts the men hadbrought, or to know their purpose. That never a genuinely happyChristmas had brightened his little, mysterious life, Miss Dennihanknew by a swift, keen process of womanly intuition.
"I wisht he wasn't so sad," she said, from time to time. "I expecthe's maybe pinin'."
On the following day there came a change. The little fellow tossed inhis bed with a fever that rose with every hour. With eyes now burningbright, he scanned the face of the gray old miner and begged for"Bruvver Jim."
"This is Bruvver Jim," the man assured him repeatedly. "What does babywant old Jim to do?"
"Bruv-ver--Jim," came the half-sobbed little answer. "Bruv-ver--Jim."
Jim took him up and held him fast in his arms. The weary little mindhad gone to some tragic baby past.
"No-body--wants me--anywhere," he said.
The heart in old Jim was breaking. He crooned a hundred tenderdeclarations of his foster-parenthood, of his care, of his wish to be acomfort and a "pard."
But something of the fever now had come between the tiny ears and anyvoice of tenderness.
"Bruv-ver--Jim; Bruv-ver--Jim," the little fellow called, time and timeagain.
With the countless remedies which her lore embraced, the almostdespairing Miss Doc attempted to allay the rising fever. She madelittle drinks, she studied all the bottles in her case of simples withunremitting attention.
Keno, the always-faithful, was sent to every house in camp, seeking foranything and everything that might be called a medicine. It was all ofno avail. By the time another day had dawned little Skeezucks wasflaming hot with the fever. He rolled his tiny body in baby delirium,his feeble little call for "Bruvver Jim" endlessly repeated, with hissad little cry that no one wanted him anywhere in the world.
In his desperation, Jim was undergoing changes. His face was haggard;his eyes were ablaze with parental anguish.
"I know a shrub the Injuns sometimes use for fever," he said to MissDoc, at last, when he suddenly thought of the aboriginal medicine. "Itgrows in the mountains. Perhaps it would do him good."
"I don't know," she answered, at the end of her resources, and sheclasped her hands. "I don't know."
"If only I can git a horse," said Jim, "I might be able to find theshrub."
He waited, however, by the side of the moaning little pilgrim.
Then, half an hour later, Bone, the bar-keep, came up to see him, inhaste and excitement. They stood outside, where the visitor had calledhim for a talk.
"Jim," said Bone, "you're in fer trouble. Parky is goin' to jump yourclaim to-night--it bein' New Year's eve, you know--at twelve o'clock.He told me so himself. He says you 'ain't done assessment, nor youcan't--not now--and you 'ain't got no more right than anybody else tohold the ground. And so he's meanin' to slap a new location on theclaim the minute this here year is up."
"Wal, the little feller's awful sick," said Jim. "I'm thinkin' ofgoin' up in the mountains for some stuff the Injuns sometimes use forfever."
"You can't go and leave your claim unprotected," said Bone.
"How did Parky happen to tell you his intentions?" said Jim.
"He wanted me to go in with him," Bone replied, flushing hotly at thebare suggestion of being involved in a trick so mean. "He made mepromise, first, I wouldn't give the game away, but I've got to tell itto you. I couldn't stand by and see you lose that gold-ledge now."
"To-morrow is New Year's, sure enough," Jim replied, reflectively."That mine belongs to little Skeezucks."
"But Parky's goin' to jump it, and he's got a gang of toughs to backhim up."
"I'd hate to lose it, Bone. It would seem hard," said Jim. "But Iought to go up in the hills to find that shrub. If only I had a horse.I could go and git back in time to watch the claim."
Bone was clearly impatient.
"Don't git down to the old 'if only' racket now," he said, with heat."I busted my word to warn you, Jim, and the claim is worth a fortune toyou and little Skeezucks."
Jim's eyes took on a look of pain.
"But, Bone, if he don't git well," he said--"if he don't git well,think how I'd feel! Couldn't you get me a horse? If only--"
"Hold on," interrupted Bone, "I'll do all I kin for the poor littleshaver, but I don't expect I can git no horse. I'll go and see, butthe teams has all got the extry stock in harness, fer the roads ismighty tough, and snow, down the canon, is up to the hubs of thewheels. You've got to be back before too late or your claim goes up,fer, Jim, you know as well as me that Parky's got the right of law!"
"If only I could git that shrub," said Jim, as his friend departed, andback to the tossing little man he went, worried to the last degree.
Bone was right. The extra horses were all in requisition to haul theore to the quartz-mill through a stretch of ten long miles of driftedsnow. Moreover, Jim had once too often sung his old "if-only" cry.The men of Borealis smiled sadly, as they thought of tiny Skeezucks,but with doubt of Jim, whose resolutions, statements, promises, hadlong before been estimated at their final worth.
"There ain't no horse he could have," said Lufkins, making readyhimself to drive his team of twenty animals through wind and snow tothe mill, "and even if we had a mule, old Jim would never start. It'scomin' on to snow again to-night, and that's too much for Jim."
Bone was not at once discouraged, but in truth he believed, with allthe others, that Jim would no more leave the camp to go forth andbreast the oncoming snow to search the mountains for a shrub than hewould fetch a tree for the Christmas celebration or work good and hardat his claim.
The bar-keep found no horse. He expected none to be offered, and felthis labors were wasted. The afternoon was well advanced when he cameagain to the home of Miss Doc, where Jim was sitting by the bed whereonthe little wanderer was burning out his life.
"Jim," he said, in his way of bluntness, "there ain't no horse you cangit, but I warned you 'bout the claim, and I don't want to see you loseit, all fer nothin'."
"He's
worse," said Jim, his eyes wildly blazing with love for thefatherless, motherless little man. "If only I had the resolution,Bone, I'd go and git that shrub on foot."
"You'd lose yer claim," said Bone.
Miss Doc came out to the door where they stood. She was wringing herhands.
"Jim," she said, "if you think you kin, anyhow, git that Injun stuff,why don't you go and git it?"
Jim looked at her fixedly. Not before had he known that she felt thecase to be so nearly hopeless. Despair took a grip on his vitals. Asomething of sympathy leaped from the woman's heart to his--a somethingcommon to them both--in the yearning that a helpless child had stirred.
"I'll get my hat and go," he said, and he went in the house, to appearalmost instantly, putting on the battered hat, but clothed far toothinly for the rigors of the weather.
"But, Jim, it's beginning to snow, right now," objected Bone.
"I may get back before it's dark," old Jim replied.
"I can see you're goin' to lose the claim," insisted Bone.
"I'm goin' to git that shrub!" said Jim. "I won't come back till I gitthat shrub."
He started off through the gate at the back of the house, his long,lank figure darkly cut against the background of the white that layupon the slope. A flurry of blinding snow came suddenly flying on thewind. It wrapped him all about and hid him in its fury, and when thecalmer falling of the flakes commenced he had disappeared around theshoulder of the hill.