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 tab