CHAPTER XXI
A BED IN THE SNOW
The great stout ore-wagons stood in the snow that lay on the Borealisstreet, with never a horse or a mule to keep them company. Not ananimal fit to bear a man had been left in the camp. But the twenty menwho rode far off in the white desolation out beyond were losing hope asthey searched and searched in the drifts and mounds that lay so deepupon the earth.
By feeble lantern glows at first, and later by the cold, gray light ofdawn, they scanned the road and the country for miles and miles. Itwas five o'clock, and six in the morning, and still the scatteredcompany of men and horses pushed onward through the snow.
The quest became one of dread. They almost feared to find the littlegroup. The wind had ceased to blow, but the air was cold. Grayribbons of cloud were stretched across the sky. Desolation waseverywhere--in the heavens, on the plain, on the distant mountains.All the world was snow, dotted only where the mounted men madeinsignificant spots against the waste of white.
Aching with the cold, aching more in their hearts, the men fromBorealis knew a hundred ways to fear the worst.
Then at last a shout, and a shot from a pistol, sped to the farthestlimits of the line of searching riders and prodded every drop ofsluggish blood within them to a swift activity.
The shout and signal had come from Webber, the blacksmith, riding abig, bay mare. Instantly Field, Bone, and Lufkins galloped to where hewas swinging out of his saddle.
There in the snow, where at last he had floundered down after making aneffort truly heroic to return to Borealis, lay the gray old Jim, withtiny Skeezucks strapped to his breast and hovered by his motionlessarms. 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. AndTintoretto, the pup, whom nature had made to be joyous and glad, wasprostrate at the miner's feet, with flakes of white all blown throughthe hair of his coat. A narrow little track around the two he loved sowell was beaten in the snow, where time after time the worried littleanimal had circled and circled about the silent forms, in some brave,puppy-wise service of watching and guarding, faithfully maintained tillhe could move no more.
For a moment after Bone and Lufkins joined him at the spot, theblacksmith stood looking at the half-buried three. The whole tale ofstruggle with the chill, of toiling onward through the heavy snow, offalling over hidden shrubs, of battling for their lives, was somehowrevealed 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 thoughthis heart had lost all hope.
It was Field, however, who thought to feel for a pulse. The eagersearchers from farther away had come to the place. A dozen pair ofeyes or more were focussed on the man as he held his breath and feltfor 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 everysaddle a rolled-up blanket was swiftly cut, and rough but tender handsswept off the snow that clung to the forms of the miner, the child, andthe pup.
CHAPTER XXII
CLEANING THEIR SLATE
Never could castle or mansion contain more of gladness and joy of theheart than was crowded into the modest little home of Miss Doc when atlast 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 littleSkeezucks and a wholly subdued little pup lay helpless still in thecare of the awkward squad of nurses.
And then a council of citizens got together at the dingy shop of Webberfor a talk. "We mustn't fergit," said the smith, "that Jim was atakin' the poor little feller to Fremont 'cause he thought he waspinin' away fer children's company; and I guess Jim knowed. Now, thequestion 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 anddie of loneliness, after all. Do you fellers think we'd ought to gitup a party and take 'em all to Fremont, as soon as they're able tostand the trip?"
Bone, the bar-keep answered: "What's the matter with gittin' thepreacher and his wife and three little gals to come back here andsettle 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 befixed all up fer a church; and I reckon we kin support Parson Stowe asslick 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 kinbuild 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 neverwant to budge," added Lufkins.
Field and half a dozen more concurred.
"I'll be one to go myself," said the blacksmith, promptly. "Two orthree others can come along, and we'll git him if we have to stealhim--wife, little gals, and all!"
But the party was yet unformed for the trip when the news of thecouncil's intentions was spread throughout the camp, and an uglyfeature of the life in the mines was revealed.
The gambler, Parky, sufficiently recovered from the wound in his arm tobe out of his house, and planning a secret revenge against old Jim andhis friends, was more than merely opposed to the plan which had comefrom the shop of Webber.
"It don't go down," said he to a crowd, with a sneer at the parson andwith oaths for Bone. "I own some Borealis property myself, and don'tyou fergit I'll make things too hot for any preacher to settle in thecamp. And I 'ain't yet finished with the gang that thought they wassmart 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 beestimated lightly. Many citizens feared to incur his wrath; many wereweak, and therefore as likely to gather to his side as not, under thepressure he could put upon them.
The camp was suddenly ripe for a struggle. Right and decency, orlawlessness and violence would speedily conquer. There could be nohalf-way measures. If Webber and his following had been persuadedbefore that Parson Stowe should have a place in the town, they weregrimly determined on the project now.
The blacksmith it was who strung up once again a bar of steel beforehis shop and rang it with his hammer.
There were forty men who answered to the summons. And when they hadfinished the council of war within the shop, the work of an upward lifthad been accomplished. A supplement was added to the work of signing ashort petition requesting Parson Stowe to come among them, and thislatter took the form of a mandate addressed to the gambler and hisbacking of outlaws, thieves, and roughs. It was brief, but the weightof 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 thenGod have mercy on your souls if any one of the gang is found inBorealis!"
This was all there was, except for a fearful drawing of a coffin and askull. And such an array of inky names, scrawled with obvious painsand distinctness, was on the paper that argument itself was plainlyhand in hand with a noose of rope.
Opposition to an army of forty wrathful and determined men would havebeen but suicide. Parky nodded when he read the note. He knew thegame was closed. He sold all his interests in the camp for what theywould bring and bought a pair of horses and a carriage.
In groups and pairs his henchmen--suddenly thrown over by their leaderto hustle for themselves--sneaked away from the town, many of themleaving immediately
in their dread of the grim reign of law now comeupon the camp. Parky, for his part, waited in some deliberation, andthen drove away with a sneer upon his lips when at last his time wasgrowing 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 ofBorealis--when, to the ringing of the bar of steel, Parson Stowe, withhis pretty little wife and the three little red-capped youngsters, rodeonce more into town to make their home with their big, rough friends.
Fifty awkward men of the mines roared lustily with cheering. Fiftygreat voices then combined in a sweet, old song that rang through thesnow-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 wereconducted in the "church" that Bone had given to the town when thehappy little Skeezucks was christened "Carson Boone" and the drawlingold 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," theminer drawled. "But, boys, it's never too late to pray for sense."
The moment of it all, however, which the men would remember till thefinal call of the trumpet was that in which the three little girls, intheir bright-red caps, came in at the door of the Dennihan home. Theywould never forget the look on the face of their motherless, quaintlittle waif as he held forth both his tiny arms to the vision and criedout:
"Bruvver Jim!"
THE END
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