JIM MAKES DISCOVERIES
It was dark and there were five miles of boot-tracks and seven miles of
pup-tracks left in the sand of the road when Jim, Tintoretto, and
Aborigineezer came at length to a point above the small constellation
of lights that marked the spot where threescore of men had builded a
town.
From the top of the ridge they had climbed, the man and the pup alone
looked down on the camp, for the weary little "Injun" had fallen
asleep. Had he been awake, the all to be seen would have been of
little promise. Great, sombre mountains towered darkly up on every
side, roofed over by an arch of sky amazingly brilliant with stars.
Below, the darkness was the denser for the depth of the hollow in the
hills. Vaguely the one straight street of Borealis was indicated by
the 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, raucous
singing, blows of a hammer, yelpings of a dog, hissing of steam
escaping somewhere from a boiler--all these and many other disturbances
of the night furnished a microcosmic medley of the toiling, playing,
hoping, and fearing, where men abide, creating that frailest and yet
most enduring of frailties--a human community.
The sight of his town could furnish no novelties to the miner on top of
the final rise, and feeling somewhat tired by the weight of his small
companion, as well as hungry from his walking, old Jim skirted the
rocky slope as best he might, and so came at length to an isolated
cabin.
This dark little house was built in the brush, quite up on the hill
above the town, and not far away from a shallow ravine where a trickle
of water from a spring had encouraged a straggling growth of willows,
alders, and scrub. Some four or five acres of hill-side about the
place constituted the "Babylonian Glory" mining-claim, which Jim
accounted his, and which had seen about as much of his labor as might
be developed by digging for gold in a barrel.
"Nobody home," said the owner to his dog, as he came to the door and
shouldered it open. "Wal, all the more for us."
That any one might have been at home in the place was accounted for
simply 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 with
Jim for a month at a time, and sometimes left him in solitude for
weeks. One such transient partner he had left at the cabin when he
started off to get the pup now tagging at his heels. This
house-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 shack
afforded, and came to a series of bunks, built like a pantry against
the wall. Into one of these he rolled his tiny foundling, after which
he lighted a candle that stood in a bottle, and revealed the smoky
interior of the place.
Three more of the bunks were built in the eastern end of the room; a
fireplace occupied a portion of the wall against the hill; a table
stood in the centre of the floor, and a number of mining tools littered
a corner. Cooking utensils were strewn on the table liberally, while
others 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 nose
could be thrust. Having snorted in the dusty corners, he trotted to
the bench whereon the water-bucket stood, and, standing on his hind
legs, gratefully lapped up a drink from the pail. His thirst appeased,
he clambered ambitiously into one of the bunks, discovered a nice pair
of boots, and, dragging one out on the floor, proceeded to carry it
under 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 miner
laid bare a section of the table, which he set with cups, plates, and
iron tools for eating. He then dished up two huge supplies of steaming
beans and bacon, two monster cups of coffee, black as tar, and cut a
giant pile of dun-colored bread.
"Aborigineezer," he said, "the banquet waits."
Thereupon he fetched his weary little guest to the board and attempted
to seat him on a stool. The tiny man tried to open his eyes, but the
effort failed. Had he been awake and sitting erect on the seat
provided for his use, his head could hardly have come to the level of
the supper.
"Can't you come to, long enough to eat?" inquired the much-concerned
miner. "No? Wal, that's too bad. Couldn't drink the coffee or go the
beans? H'm, I guess I can't take you down to show you off to the boys
to-night. You'll have to git to your downy couch." He returned the
slumbering child to the bunk, where he tucked him into the blankets.
Tintoretto did ample justice to the meal, however, and filled in so
thoroughly that his round little pod of a stomach was a burden to
carry. He therefore dropped himself down on the floor, breathed out a
sigh of contentment, and shut his two bright eyes.
Old Jim concluded a feast that made those steaming heaps of food
diminish to the point of vanishing. He sat there afterwards, leaning
his grizzled head upon his hand and looking towards the bunk where the
tiny little chap he had found was peacefully sleeping. The fire burned
low in the chimney; the candle sank down in its socket. On the floor
the pup was twitching in his dreams. Outside the peace, too vast to be
ruffled by puny man, had settled on all that tremendous expanse of
mountains.
When his candle was about to expire the miner deliberately prepared
himself for bed, and crawled in the bunk with his tiny guest, where he
slept like the pup and the child, so soundly that nothing could suffice
to disturb his dreams.
The arrows of the sun itself, flung from the ridge of the opposite
hills, alone dispelled the slumbers in the cabin.
The hardy old Jim arose from his blankets, and presently flung the door
wide 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 to
Aborigineezer. To Jim's delight the little man was wide awake and
looking at him gravely from the blankets, his funny old cap still in
place on his head, pulled down over his ears.
"Time to wash for breakfast," announced the miner. "But I don't
guarantee the washin' will be the kind that mother used to give," and
taking his tiny foundling in his arms he carried him out to the basin
by the door.
For a moment he looked in doubt at the only apology for a wash-rag the
shanty afforded.
"Wal, it's an awful dirty cloth that you can't put a little more
blackness on, I reckon," he drawled, and dipping it into the water he
rubbed it vigorously across the gasping little fellow's face.
Then, indeed, the man was astounded. A wide streak, white as milk, had
appeared on the baby countenance.
"Pierce my pearls!" exclaimed the miner, "if ever I saw a rag in my
shack before that would leave a white mark on anything! Say!" And he
took off the youngster's old fur cap.
He was speechless for a moment, for the little fellow's hair was as
brown as a nut.
"I snum!" said Jim, wiping the wondering little face in a sort of fever
of discovery and taking off color at every daub with the rag. "White
kid--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 from
the process of washing and gazed with his big, brown eyes at his
foster-parent, in a way that made the miner weak with surprise. Such a
pretty and wistful little armful of a boy he was certain had never been
seen before in all the world.
"I snum! I certainly snum!" he said again. "I'll have to take you
right straight down to the boys!"
At this the little fellow looked at him appealingly. His lip began to
tremble.
"No-body--wants--me," he said, in baby accents,
"no-body--wants--me--anywhere."