n
dreadfully ill, and all but one died. Either he hadn't had so much of
the gopher as the rest had, or else he was stronger; he lingered along
in misery for a month, as thin, wretched-looking a little beast as ever
was seen; then he began to pick up his flesh, and finally got to be as
strong a cat as there was in the whole pack.

He was most curiously marked: in addition to the black and white of his
mother's skin, he had gray and yellow mottled in all over him. Jim
thought it looked as if his skin had been painted, so he named him
Fresco.

Jim had names for all the best cats; there were ten that were named.
The other seven, Jim called "the rabble;" but of the ten he had named,
Jim grew to be very proud. He thought they were remarkable cats.

First there was Mexican, the original first-comer in the colony. Then
there was Big Tom, and another Tom called China Tom, because he would
stay all the time he could with the Chinamen. He was dark-gray, with
black stripes on him.

Next in size and beauty was a huge black cat, called Snowball. He was
given to Mr. Connor by a miner's wife, who lived in a cabin high up on
the mountain. She said she would let him have the cat on the condition
that he would continue to call him Snowball, as she had done. She named
him Snowball, she said, to make herself laugh every time she called him,
he being black as coal; and there was so little to laugh at where she
lived, she liked a joke whenever she could contrive one.

Then there was Skipper, the one who nearly ate up Fairy that first
morning; he also was as black as coal, and fierce as a wolf; all the
cats were more or less afraid of him. Jim named him Skipper, because he
used to race about in trees like a squirrel. Way up to the very top of
the biggest sycamore trees in the canon back of the house, Skipper would
go, and leap from one bough to another. He was especially fond of birds,
and in this way he caught many. He thought birds were much better
eating than gophers.

Mexican, Big Tom, China Tom, Snowball, Skipper, and Fresco,--these are
six of the names; the other four were not remarkable; they did not mean
anything in especial; only to distinguish their owners from the rest,
who had no names at all.

Oh, yes; I am forgetting the drollest of all: that was Humbug. Jim gave
her that name because she was so artful and sly about getting more than
her share of the meat. She would watch for the biggest pieces, and
pounce on them right