OLD JIM DISTRAUGHT
For a moment Keno failed to comprehend. Then for a second after that
he refused to believe. He ran to the bunk where Jim was desperately
turning down the blankets and made a quick examination of that as well
as of the other beds.
They were empty.
Hastening across the cabin, the two men searched in the berths at the
farther end with parental eagerness, but all in vain, the pup meantime
dodging between their legs and chewing at their trousers.
"Tintoretto!" said Jim, in a flash of deduction. "He must have got out
when somebody opened the door. Somebody's been here and stole my
little boy!"
"By jinks!" said Keno, hauling at his sleeves in excess of emotion.
"But who?"
"Come on," answered Jim, distraught and wild. "Come down to camp!
Somebody's playin' us a trick!"
Again they shut the pup inside, and then they fairly ran down the
trail, through the darkness, to the town below.
A number of men were standing in the street, among them the teamster
and Field, the father of Borealis. They were joking, laughing, wasting
time.
"Boys," cried Jim, as he hastened towards the group, "has any one seen
little Skeezucks? Some one's played a trick and took him off!
Somebody's been to the cabin and stole my little boy!"
"Stole him?" said Field. "Why, where was you and Keno?"
"Down to Doc's to get some milk. He wanted bread and milk," Jim
explained, in evident anguish. "You fellows might have seen, if any
one fetched him down the trail. You're foolin'. Some of you took him
for a joke!"
"It wouldn't be no joke," answered Lufkins, the teamster. "We 'ain't
got him, Jim, on the square."
"Of course we 'ain't got him. We 'ain't took him for no joke," said
Field. "Nobody'd take him away like that."
"Why don't we ring the bar of steel we used for a bell," suggested one
of the miners. "That would fetch the men--all who 'ain't gone back on
shift."
"Good idea," said Field. "But I ought to get back home and eat some
dinner."
He did not, however, depart. That Jim was in a fever of excitement and
despair they could all of them see. He hastened ahead of the group to
the shop of Webber. and taking a short length of iron chain, which he
found on the earth, he slashed and beat at the bar of steel with
frantic strength.
The sharp, metallic notes rang out with every stroke. The bar was
swaying like a pendulum. Blow after blow the man delivered, filling
all the hollows of the hills with wild alarm.
Out of saloons and houses men came sauntering, or running, according to
the tension of their nerves. Many thought some house must be afire.
At least thirty men were presently gathered at the place of summons.
With five or six informers to tell the news of Jim's bereavement, all
were soon aware of what was making the trouble. But none had seen the
tiny foundling since they bade him good-bye in the charge of Jim
himself.
"Are you plum dead sure he's went?" said Webber, the smith. "Did you
look all over the cabin?"
"Everywhere," said Jim. "He's gone!"
"Wal, maybe some mystery got him," suggested Bone. "Jim, you don't
suppose his father, or some one who lost him, come and nabbed him while
you was gone?"
They saw old Jim turn pale in the light that came from across the
street.
Keno broke in with an answer.
"By jinks! Jim was his mother! Jim had more good rights to the little
feller than anybody, livin' or dead!"
"You bet!" agreed a voice.
Jim spoke with difficulty.
"If any one did that"--he faltered--"why, boys, he never should have
let me find him in the brush."
"Are you plum dead sure he's went?" insisted the blacksmith, whom the
news had somewhat stunned.
"I thought perhaps you fellows might have played a joke--taken him off
to see me run around," said Jim, with a faint attempt at a smile.
"'Ain't you got him, boys--all the time?"
"Aw, no, he'd be too scared," said Bone. "We know he'd be scared of
any one of us."
"It ain't so much that," said Field, "but I shouldn't wonder if his
father, or some other feller just as good, came and took him off."
"Of course his father would have the right," said Jim, haltingly,
"but--I wish he hadn't let me find him first. You fellows are sure you
ain't a-foolin'?"
"We couldn't have done it--not on Sunday--after church," said Lufkins.
"No, Jim, we wouldn't fool that way."
"You don't s'pose that Parky might have took him, out of spite?" said
Jim, eager for hope in any direction whatsoever.
"No! He hates kids worse than pizen," said the barkeep, decisively.
"He's been a-gamblin' since four this afternoon, dealin' faro-bank."
"We could go and search every shack in camp," suggested a listener.
"What would be the good of that?" inquired Field. "If the father came
and took the little shaver, do you think he'd hide him 'round here in
somebody's cabin?"
The blacksmith said: "It don't seem as if you could have looked all
over the house. He's such a little bit of a skeezucks."
Keno told him how they had searched in every bunk, and how the milk was
waiting on the table, and how the pup had escaped when some one opened
the door.
The men all volunteered to go up on the hill with torches and lanterns,
to see if the trail of the some one who had done this deed might not be
discovered. Accordingly, the lights were secured and the party climbed
the slope. All of them entered the cabin and heard the explanation of
exactly how old Jim had found that the little chap was gone.
Webber was one of the number. To satisfy his incredulous mind, he
searched every possible and impossible lurking-place where an object as
small as a ball could be concealed.
"I guess he's went," he agreed, at last.
Then out on the hill-side went the crowd, and breaking up in groups,
each with its lanterns and torches, they searched the rock-strewn slope
In every direction. The wavering lights went hither and yon, revealing
now the faces of the anxious men, and then prodigious features of a
clump of granite bowlders, jewelled with mica, sparkling in the light.
Intensely the darkness hedged the groups about. The sounds of their
voices and of rocks that crunched beneath their boots alone disturbed
the great, eternal calm; but the search was vain. The searchers had
known it could be of no avail, for the puny foot of man could have made
no track upon the slanted floor of granite fragments that constituted
the hill-side. It was something to do for Jim, and that was all.
At length, about midnight, it came to an end. They lingered on the
slope, however, to offer their theories, invariably hopeful, and to say
that Monday morning would accomplish miracles in the way of setting
everything aright.
Many were supperless when all save Jim and little Keno had again
returned to Borealis and left the two alone at the cabin.
"We'll save the milk in case he might come home by any chance," said
the gray old miner, and he placed the cup on a shelf against the wall.
In silence he cooked the humble dinner, which he placed on the table in
front of his equally voiceless companion. Keno and the pup went at the
meal with unpoetic vigor, but Jim could do no eating. He went to the
door from time to time to listen. Then he once more searched the
blankets in the bunks.
"Wal, anyway," said he, at last, "he took his doll."