TROUBLES AND DISCOVERIES
For the next ten days the talk of the camp was the coming celebration.
Moreover, man after man was surrounding himself with mystery
impenetrable, as he drew away in his shell, so to speak, to undergo
certain throes of invention and secret manufacture of presents for the
tiny boy at the cabin on the hill. Knowing nods, sly winks, and
jealous guarding of their cleverness marked the big, rough fellows one
by one. And yet some of the most secretive felt a necessity for
consulting Jim as to what was appropriate, what would please little
Skeezucks, and what was worthy to be tied upon the tree.
That each and every individual thus laboring to produce his offering
should be eager to excel his neighbor, and to win the greatest
appreciation from the all-unknowing little pilgrim for his own
particular toy or trinket, was a natural outcome of the Christmas
spirit actuating the manoeuvres. And all the things they could give
would have to be made, since there was not a shop in a radius of a
hundred miles where baubles for youngsters could be purchased, while
Borealis, having never had a baby boy before in all its sudden annals
of being, had neglected all provision for the advent of tiny Skeezucks.
The carpenter came to the cabin first, with a barley-sack filled with
the blocks he had made for the small foundling's Christmas ecstasy.
Before he would show them, however, Keno was obliged to leave the house
and the tiny pilgrim himself was placed in a bunk from which he could
not see.
"I want to surprise him," explained the carpenter.
He then dumped out his blocks.
As lumber was a luxury in Borealis, he had been obliged to make what
shift he could. In consequence of this the blocks were of several
sizes, a number were constructed of several pieces of board nailed
together--and split in the process--no two were shaped alike, except
for generalities, and no one was straight. However, they were larger
than a man's two fists, they were gaudily painted, and the alphabet was
sprinkled upon them with prodigal generosity. There were even
hieroglyphics upon them, which the carpenter described as birds and
animals. They were certainly more than any timid child could ever have
demanded.
"Them's it," said Dunn, watching the face of Jim with what modest pride
the situation would permit. "Now, what I want you to do is to give me
a genuine, candid opinion of the work."
"Wal, I'll tell you," drawled the miner, "whenever a man asks you for a
candid opinion, that's the time to fill your shovel with guff. It's
the only safe proceedin'. So I won't fool around with candid opinions,
Dunn, I'll just admit they are jewels. Cut my diamonds if they ain't!"
"I kind of thought so myself," confessed the carpenter. "But I thought
as you was a first-class critic, why, I'd like to hear what you'd say."
"No, I ain't no critic," Jim replied. "A critic is a feller who can
say nastier things than anybody else about things that anybody else can
do a heap sight better than he can himself."
"Well, I do reckon, as who shouldn't say so, that nobody livin' into
Borealis but me could 'a' made them blocks," agreed Dunn, returning the
lot to his sack. "But I jest wanted to hear you say so, Jim, fer you
and me has had an eddication which lots of cusses into camp 'ain't
never got. Not that it's anything agin 'em, but--you know how it is.
I'll bet the little shaver will like them better'n anything else he'll
git."
"Oh, he'll like 'em in a different way," agreed the miner. "No doubt
about that."
And when the carpenter had gone old Jim took his little foundling from
the berth and sat him on his knee.
In the tiny chap's arms the powder-flask-and-potato doll was firmly
held. The face of the lady had wrinkled with a premature descent of
age upon her being. One of her eyes had disappeared, while her
soot-made mouth had been wiped across her entire countenance.
The quaint bit of a boy was dressed, as usual, in the funny little
trousers that came to his heels, while his old fur cap had been kept in
requisition for the warmth it afforded his ears. He cuddled
confidingly against his big, rough protector, but he made no sound of
speaking, nor did anything suggestive of a smile come to play upon his
grave little features.
Jim had told him of Christmas by the hour--all the beauty of the story,
so old, so appealing to the race of man, who yearns towards everything
affording a brightness of hope and a faith in anything human.
"What would little Skeezucks like for his Christmas?" the man inquired,
for the twentieth time.
The little fellow pressed closer against him, in baby shyness and
slowly answered:
"Bruv-ver--Jim."
The miner clasped him tenderly against his heart. Yet he had but
scanty intimation of the all the tiny pilgrim meant.
He sat with him throughout that day, however, as he had so many of
these fleeting days. The larder was neglected; the money contributed
at "church" had gone at once, to score against a bill at the store, as
large as the cabin itself, and only the labors of Keno, chopping brush
for fuel, kept the home supplied even with a fire. Jim had been born
beneath the weight of some star too slow to move along.
When Keno came back to the cabin from his work in the brush it was well
along in the afternoon. Jim decided to go below and stock up the
pantry with food. On arriving at the store, however, he met a new
manner of reception.
The gambler, Parky, was in charge, as a recent purchaser of the whole
concern.
"You can't git no more grub-stake here without the cash," he said to
Jim. "And now you've come, you can pony up on the bill you 'ain't yet
squared."
"So?" said Jim.
"You bet your boots it's so, and you can't begin to pungle up a minute
too soon!" was the answer.
"I reckon you'd ask a chicken to pungle up the gravel in his gizzard if
you thought he'd picked up a sliver of gold," Jim drawled, in his lazy
utterance. "And an ordinary chicken, with the pip thrown in, could
pungle twice to my once."
"Ain't got the stuff, hey?" said Parky. "Broke, I s'pose? Then maybe
you'll git to work, you old galoot, and stop playin' parson and
goody-goody games. You don't git nothing here without the chink. So
perhaps you'll git to work at last."
A red-nosed henchman of the gambler's put in a word.
"I don't see why you 'ain't gone to work," he said.
"Don't you?" drawled Jim, leaning on the counter to survey the speaker.
"Well, it looks to me as if you found out, long ago, that all work and
no play makes a man a Yankee."
"I ain't no Yankee, you kin bet on that!" said the man.
"That's pretty near incredible," drawled Jim.
"And I ain't neither," declared the gambler, who boasted of being
Canadian. "Don't you forget that, old boy."
"No," Jim slowly replied, "I've often noticed that all that glitters
ain't American."
"Well, you can clear out of here and notice how things look outside,"
retorted Parky.
Jim was slowly straightening up when the blacksmith and the teamster
entered the place. They had heard the gambler's order and were
thoroughly astounded. No man, howsoever poor and unprepared to pay a
wretched bill, had ever been treated thus in Borealis before.
"What's the matter?" said Webber.
"Nuthin', particularly," answered Jim, in his slow, monotonous way,
"only a difference of opinion. Parky thinks he's brainy, and a
gentleman--that's all."
"I can see you don't git another snack of grub in here, my friend,"
retorted Parky, adding a number of oaths. "And for just two cents I'd
break your jaw and pitch you out in the street."
"Not with your present flow of language," answered Jim.
The teamster inquired, "Why don't Jim git any more grub?"
"Because I'm running this joint and he 'ain't got the cash," said
Parky. "You got anything to say about the biz?"
"Jim's got a call on me and my cash," replied the brawny Webber. "Jim,
you tell him what you need, and I'll foot the bill."
"I'll settle half, myself," added Lufkins.
"Thanks, boys, not this evenin'," said Jim, whose pride had singular
moments for coming to the surface. "There's only one time of day when
it's safe to deal with a gambler, and that's thirteen o'clock."
"I wouldn't sell you nothing, anyway," said Parky, with a swagger. "He
couldn't git grub here now for no money--savvy?"
"I wonder why you call it grub, now that it's come into your greasy
hands!" drawled the miner, as he slowly started to leave the store.
"I'd be afraid you'd deal me a dirty ace of spades instead of a decent
slice of bacon." And, hands in pockets, he sauntered away, vaguely
wondering what he should do.
The blacksmith hung for a moment in the balance of indecision, rapidly
thinking. Then he followed where the gray old Jim had gone, and
presently overtook him in the road.
"Jim," he said, "what about poor little Skeezucks? Say, I'll tell you
what we'll do: I'll wait a little, and then send Field to the store and
have him git whatever you need, and pretend it's all for himself. Then
we'll lug it up the hill and slide it into the cabin slick as a lead
two-bits."
"Can't let you do it," said Jim.
"Why not?" demanded Webber.
Jim hesitated before he drawled his reply.
"If only I had the resolution," said he, "I wouldn't take nothing that
Parky could sell."
"When we git you once talkin' 'if-only,' the bluff is called," replied
the smith, with a grin. "Now what are you needin' at the shack?"
"You rich fellers want to run the whole shebang," objected Jim, by way
of an easy capitulation. "There never yet was a feller born with a
silver spoon in his mouth that didn't want to put it in every other
feller's puddin'. . . . I was goin' to buy a can or two of condensed
milk and a slab of bacon and a sack of flour and a bean or two and a
little 'baccy, and a few things about like that."
"All right," said the blacksmith, tabulating all these items on his
fingers. "And Field kin look around and see if there ain't some extrys
for little Skeezucks."
"If only I had the determination I wouldn't accept a thing from Parky's
stock," drawled the miner, as before. "I'll go to work on the claim
and pay you back right off."
"Kerrect," answered Webber, as gravely as possible, thinking of the
hundred gaudy promises old Jim had made concerning his undeveloped and
so far worthless claim. "I hope you'll strike it good and rich."
"Wal," drawled Jim; "bad luck has to associate with a little good luck
once in a while, to appear sort of half-way respectable. And my
luck--same as any tired feller's--'ain't been right good Sunday-school
company for several years."
So he climbed back up the hill once more, and, coming to his cabin, had
a long, earnest look at the picks, bars, drills, and other implements
of mining, heavy with dust, in the corner.
"If only the day wasn't practically gone," said he, "I'd start to work
on the claim this afternoon."
But he touched no tools, and presently instead he took the grave little
foundling on his knee and told him, all over, the tales the little
fellow seemed most to enjoy.
When the stock of provisions was finally fetched to the house by Webber
himself, the worthy smith was obliged to explain that part of the money
supplied to Field for the purchase of the food had been confiscated for
debt at the store. In consequence of this the quantity had been cut to
a half its intended dimensions.
"And the worst of it is," said the blacksmith, in conclusion, "we all
owe a little at the store, and Parky's got suspicious that we're
sneakin' things to you."
Indeed, as he left the house, he saw that certain red-nosed microbe of
a human being attached to the gambler, spying on his visit to the hill.
Stopping for a moment to reflect upon the nearness of Christmas and the
needless worry that he might inflict by informing Jim of his discovery,
Webber shook his head and went his way, keeping the matter to himself.
But with food in the house old Jim was again at ease, so much so,
indeed, that he quite forgot to begin that promised work upon his
claim. He had never worked except when dire necessity made resting no
longer possible, and then only long enough to secure the wherewithal
for sufficient food to last him through another period of sitting
around to think. If thinking upon subjects of no importance whatsoever
had been a lucrative employment, Jim would certainly have accumulated
the wealth of the whole wide world.
He took his pick in his hands the following day, but placed it again in
its corner, slowly, after a moment's examination of its blunted steel.
Three days went by. The weather was colder. Bitter winds and frowning
clouds were hastening somewhere to a conclave of the wintry elements.
It was four days only to Christmas. Neither the promised Noah's ark to
present to tiny Skeezucks nor the Christmas-tree on which the men had
planned to hang their gifts was one whit nearer to realization than as
if they had never been suggested.
Meantime, once again the food-supply was nearly gone. Keno kept the
pile of fuel reasonably high, but cheer was not so prevalent in the
cabin as to ask for further room. The grave little pilgrim was just a
trifle quieter and less inclined to eat. He caught a cold, as tiny as
himself, but bore its miseries uncomplainingly. In fact, he had never
cried so much as once since his coming to the cabin; and neither had he
smiled.
In sheer concern old Jim went forth that cold and windy afternoon of
the day but four removed from Christmas, to make at least a show of
working on his claim. Keno, Skeezucks, and the pup remained behind,
the little red-headed man being busily engaged in some great culinary
mystery from which he said his lemon-pie for Christmas should evolve.
When presently Jim stood beside the meagre post-hole he had made once
upon a time, as a starter for a mining-shaft, he looked at it ruefully.
How horridly hard that rock appeared! What a wretched little scar it
was he had made with all that labor he remembered so vividly! What was
the good of digging here? Nothing!
Dragging his pick, he looked for a softer spot in which to sink the
steel. There were no softer spots. And the pick helve grew so
intensely cold! Jim dropped it to the ground, and with hands thrust
into his armpits, for the warmth afforded, he hunched himself dismally
and scanned the prospect with doleful eyes. Why couldn't the hill
break open, anyhow, and show whether anything worth the having were
contained in its bulk or not?
A last summer's mullen stock, beating incessantly in the wind, seemed
the only thing alive on all that vast outbulging of the earth. The
stunted brush stiffly carded the breeze that blew so persistently.
From rock to rock the gray old miner's gaze went wandering. So
undisturbed had been the surface of the earth since he had owned the
claim that a shallow channel, sluiced in the earth by a freshet of the
spring long past, remained as the waters had cut it. Slowly up the
course of this insignificant cicatrice old Jim ascended, his hands
still held beneath his arms, his long mustache and his grizzled beard
blown awry in the breeze. The pick he left behind.
Coming thus to a deeper gouge in the sand of the hill, he halted and
gazed attentively at a thick seam of rock outcropping sharply where the
long-gone freshet had laid it bare. In mining parlance it was
"quartzy." To Jim it appeared even more. He stooped above it and
attempted to break away a fragment with his fingers. At this he
failed. Rubbing off the dust and sand wherewith old mother nature was
beginning to cover it anew, he saw little spots, at which he scratched
with his nails.
"Awful cold it's gittin'," he drawled to himself, and sitting down on
the meagre bank of earth he once more thrust his hands beneath his coat
and looked at the outcropping dismally.
He had doubtless been gone from the cabin half an hour, and not a
stroke had he given with his pick, when, as he sat there looking at the
ground, the voice of Keno came on the wind from the door of the shack.
Arising, Jim started at once towards his home, leaving his pick on the
hill-side a rod or two below.
"What is it?" he called, as he neared the house.
"Calamerty!" yelled Keno, and he disappeared within the door.
Jim almost made haste.
"What kind of a calamity?" said he, as he entered the room. "What's
went wrong?"
"The lemon-pie!" said Keno, whose face was a study in the art of
expressing consternation.
"Oh," said Jim, instantly relieved, "is that all?"
"All?" echoed Keno. "By jinks! I can't make another before it's
Christmas, to save my neck, and I used all the sugar and nearly all the
flour we had."
"Is it a hopeless case?" inquired Jim.
"Some might not think so," poor Keno replied. "I scoured out the old
Dutch oven and I've got her in a-bakin', but--"
"Well, maybe she ain't so worse."
"Jim," answered Keno, tragically, "I didn't find out till I had her
bakin' fine. Then I looked at the bottle I thought was the lemon
extract, and, by jinks! what do you think?"
"I don't feel up to the arts of creatin' lemon-pies," confessed the
miner, warming himself before the fire. "What happened?"
"You have to have lemon extract--you know that?" said Keno.
"All right."
"Well, by jinks, Jim, it wasn't lemon extract after all! It was
hair-oil!"
A terrible moment of silence ensued.
Then Jim said, "Was it all the hair-oil I had?"
"Every drop," said Keno.
"Wal," drawled the miner, sagely, "don't take on too hard. Into each
picnic some rain must fall."
"But the boys won't eat it," answered Keno, inconsolably.
"You don't know," replied Jim. "You never can tell what people will
eat on Christmas till the follerin' day. They'll take to anything that
looks real pretty and smells seasonable. What did I do with my pick?"
"You must have left it behind," said Keno. "You ain't goin' to hit the
pie with your pick?"
"Wal, not till Christmas, anyway, Keno, and only then in case we've
busted all the knives and saws trying to git it apart," said Jim,
reassuringly.
"Would you keep it, sure, and feed it to 'em all the same?" inquired
Keno, forlornly, eager for a ray of hope.
"I certainly would," replied the miner. "They won't know the diff
between a lemon-pie and a can of tomatoes. So I guess I'll go and git
my pick. It may come on to snow, and then I couldn't find it till the
spring."
Without the slightest intention of working any more, Jim sauntered back
to the place where the pick was lying on the hill and took it up. By
chance he thought of the ledge of quartz above in the rain-sluiced
channel.
"Might as well hit her a lick," he drawled to himself, and climbing to
the spot he drove the point of his implement into a crevice of the rock
and broke away a piece of two or three pounds in weight. This he took
in his big, red hands, which were numbing in the cold.
For a moment he looked at the fragment of quartz with unbelieving eyes.
He wet it with his tongue. Then a something that answered in Jim to
excitement pumped from his heart abruptly.
The rock was flecked all through with tiny specks of metal that the
miner knew unerringly.
It was gold.