CHAPTER II
JIM MAKES DISCOVERIES
It was dark and there were five miles of boot-tracks and seven miles ofpup-tracks left in the sand of the road when Jim, Tintoretto, andAborigineezer came at length to a point above the small constellationof lights that marked the spot where threescore of men had builded atown.
From the top of the ridge they had climbed, the man and the pup alonelooked down on the camp, for the weary little "Injun" had fallenasleep. Had he been awake, the all to be seen would have been oflittle promise. Great, sombre mountains towered darkly up on everyside, roofed over by an arch of sky amazingly brilliant with stars.Below, the darkness was the denser for the depth of the hollow in thehills. Vaguely the one straight street of Borealis was indicated bythe lamps, like a thin Milky Way in a meagre universe of lesser lights,dimly glowing and sparsely scattered on the rock-strewn acclivities.
From down there came the sounds of life. Half-muffled music, raucoussinging, blows of a hammer, yelpings of a dog, hissing of steamescaping somewhere from a boiler--all these and many other disturbancesof the night furnished a microcosmic medley of the toiling, playing,hoping, and fearing, where men abide, creating that frailest and yetmost enduring of frailties--a human community.
The sight of his town could furnish no novelties to the miner on top ofthe final rise, and feeling somewhat tired by the weight of his smallcompanion, as well as hungry from his walking, old Jim skirted therocky slope as best he might, and so came at length to an isolatedcabin.
This dark little house was built in the brush, quite up on the hillabove the town, and not far away from a shallow ravine where a trickleof water from a spring had encouraged a straggling growth of willows,alders, and scrub. Some four or five acres of hill-side about theplace constituted the "Babylonian Glory" mining-claim, which Jimaccounted his, and which had seen about as much of his labor as mightbe developed by digging for gold in a barrel.
"Nobody home," said the owner to his dog, as he came to the door andshouldered it open. "Wal, all the more for us."
That any one might have been at home in the place was accounted forsimply by the fact that certain worthies, playing in and out of luck,as the wheel of fate might turn them down or up, sometimes lived withJim for a month at a time, and sometimes left him in solitude forweeks. One such transient partner he had left at the cabin when hestarted off to get the pup now tagging at his heels. Thishouse-partner, having departed, might and might not return, either now,a week from now, or ever.
The miner felt his way across the one big room which the shackafforded, and came to a series of bunks, built like a pantry againstthe wall. Into one of these he rolled his tiny foundling, after whichhe lighted a candle that stood in a bottle, and revealed the smokyinterior of the place.
Three more of the bunks were built in the eastern end of the room; afireplace occupied a portion of the wall against the hill; a tablestood in the centre of the floor, and a number of mining tools littereda corner. Cooking utensils were strewn on the table liberally, whileothers hung against the wall or depended from hooks in the chimney.This was practically all there was, but the place was home.
Tintoretto, beholding his master preparing a fire to heat up some food,delved at once into everything and every place where a wet little nosecould be thrust. Having snorted in the dusty corners, he trotted tothe bench whereon the water-bucket stood, and, standing on his hindlegs, gratefully lapped up a drink from the pail. His thirst appeased,he clambered ambitiously into one of the bunks, discovered a nice pairof boots, and, dragging one out on the floor, proceeded to carry itunder the table and to chew it as heartily as possible.
There was presently savory smoke, sufficient for an army, in the place,while sounds of things sizzling made music for the hungry. The minerlaid bare a section of the table, which he set with cups, plates, andiron tools for eating. He then dished up two huge supplies of steamingbeans and bacon, two monster cups of coffee, black as tar, and cut agiant pile of dun-colored bread.
"Aborigineezer," he said, "the banquet waits."
Thereupon he fetched his weary little guest to the board and attemptedto seat him on a stool. The tiny man tried to open his eyes, but theeffort failed. Had he been awake and sitting erect on the seatprovided for his use, his head could hardly have come to the level ofthe supper.
"Can't you come to, long enough to eat?" inquired the much-concernedminer. "No? Wal, that's too bad. Couldn't drink the coffee or go thebeans? H'm, I guess I can't take you down to show you off to the boysto-night. You'll have to git to your downy couch." He returned theslumbering child to the bunk, where he tucked him into the blankets.
Tintoretto did ample justice to the meal, however, and filled in sothoroughly that his round little pod of a stomach was a burden tocarry. He therefore dropped himself down on the floor, breathed out asigh of contentment, and shut his two bright eyes.
Old Jim concluded a feast that made those steaming heaps of fooddiminish to the point of vanishing. He sat there afterwards, leaninghis grizzled head upon his hand and looking towards the bunk where thetiny little chap he had found was peacefully sleeping. The fire burnedlow in the chimney; the candle sank down in its socket. On the floorthe pup was twitching in his dreams. Outside the peace, too vast to beruffled by puny man, had settled on all that tremendous expanse ofmountains.
When his candle was about to expire the miner deliberately preparedhimself for bed, and crawled in the bunk with his tiny guest, where heslept like the pup and the child, so soundly that nothing could sufficeto disturb his dreams.
The arrows of the sun itself, flung from the ridge of the oppositehills, alone dispelled the slumbers in the cabin.
The hardy old Jim arose from his blankets, and presently flung the doorwide open.
"Come in," he said to the day. "Come in."
The pup awoke, and, running out, barked in a crazy way of gladness.His master washed his face and hands at a basin just outside the door,and soon had breakfast piping hot. By then it was time to look toAborigineezer. To Jim's delight the little man was wide awake andlooking at him gravely from the blankets, his funny old cap still inplace on his head, pulled down over his ears.
"Time to wash for breakfast," announced the miner. "But I don'tguarantee the washin' will be the kind that mother used to give," andtaking his tiny foundling in his arms he carried him out to the basinby the door.
For a moment he looked in doubt at the only apology for a wash-rag theshanty afforded.
"Wal, it's an awful dirty cloth that you can't put a little moreblackness on, I reckon," he drawled, and dipping it into the water herubbed it vigorously across the gasping little fellow's face.
Then, indeed, the man was astounded. A wide streak, white as milk, hadappeared on the baby countenance.
"Pierce my pearls!" exclaimed the miner, "if ever I saw a rag in myshack before that would leave a white mark on anything! Say!" And hetook off the youngster's old fur cap.
He was speechless for a moment, for the little fellow's hair was asbrown as a nut.
"I snum!" said Jim, wiping the wondering little face in a sort of feverof discovery and taking off color at every daub with the rag. "Whitekid--painted! Ain't an Injun by a thousand miles!"
And this was the truth. A timid little paleface, fair as dawn itself,but smeared with color that was coming away in blotches, emerged fromthe process of washing and gazed with his big, brown eyes at hisfoster-parent, in a way that made the miner weak with surprise. Such apretty and wistful little armful of a boy he was certain had never beenseen before in all the world.
"I snum! I certainly snum!" he said again. "I'll have to take youright straight down to the boys!"
At this the little fellow looked at him appealingly. His lip began totremble.
"No-body--wants--me," he said, in baby accents,"no-body--wants--me--anywhere."