is 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