front of the wondering child, he looked at him pleasantly. "What you
up to, young feller, sittin' here by yourself?" he inquired. "Scared?
Needn't be scared of brother Jim, I reckon. Say, you 'ain't been left
here for good? I saw the gang of Injuns, clean across the country,
from up on the ridge. It must be the last of their drives. That it?
And you got left?"

The little chap looked up at him seriously and winked his big, brown
eyes, but he shut his tiny mouth perhaps a trifle tighter than before.
As a matter of fact, the miner expected some such stoical silence.

The pup, for his part, was making advances of friendship towards the
motionless rabbits.

"Wal, say, Piute," added Jim, after scanning the country with his
kindly eyes, "I reckon you'd better go home with me to Borealis. The
Injuns wouldn't look to find you now, and you can't go on settin' here
a waitin' for pudding and gravy to pass up the road for dinner. What
do you say? Want to come with me and ride on the outside seat to
Borealis?"

Considerably to the man's amazement the youngster nodded a timid
affirmative.

"By honky, Tintoretto, I'll bet he savvies English as well as you,"
said Jim. "All right, Borealis or bust! I reckon a man who travels
twenty miles to git him a pup, and comes back home with you and this
here young Piute, is as good as elected to office. Injun, what's your
name?"

The tiny man apparently had nothing to impart by way of an answer.

"'Ain't got any, maybe," commented Jim. "What's the matter with me
namin' you, hey? Suppose I call you Aborigineezer? All in favor, ay!
Contrary minded? Carried unanimously and the motion prevails."

The child, for some unaccountable reason, seemed appalled.

"We can't freight all them rabbits," decided the miner. "And,
Tintoretto, you are way-billed to do some walkin'."

He took up the child, who continued to cling to the ears of his one
particular hare. As all the jacks were tied together, all were lifted
and were dangling down against the miner's legs.

"Huh! you can tell what some people want by the way they hang right
on," said Jim. "Wal, no harm in lettin' you stick to one. We can eat
him for dinner to-morrow, I guess, and save his hide in the bargain."

He therefore cut the buckskin thong and all but one of the rabbits fell
to the earth, on top of Tintoretto, who thought he was climbed upon by
half a dozen bears. He let out a yowp that scared himself half into
f