in, seemingly hunched like a freezing thing in
the driving storm.

CHAPTER XIV

"IF ONLY I HAD THE RESOLUTION"

For the next three or four days the tiny bit of a man at Miss Doc's
seemed neither to be worse nor better of his ailment. The hand of
lethargy lay with dulling weight upon him. Old Jim and Miss Dennihan
were baffled, though their tenderness increased and their old animosity
disappeared, forgotten in the stress of care.

That the sister of Doc could develop such a spirit of motherhood
astounded nearly every man in the camp. Accustomed to acerbities of
criticism for their many shortcomings from her ever-pointed tongue,
they marvelled the more at her semi-partnership with Jim, whom of all
the population of the town she had scorned and verbally castigated most
frequently.

Resupplying their tree with candles, the patient fellows had kept alive
their hope of a great day of joy and celebration, only to see it
steadily receding from their view. At length they decided to carry
their presents to the house where the wan little foundling lay,
trusting the sight of their labors of love might cheer him to recovery.

To the utter amazement of her brother, Miss Doc not only permitted the
big, rough men to track the snow through her house, when they came with
their gifts, but she gave them kindly welcome. In her face that day
they readily saw some faint, illusive sign of beauty heretofore
unnoticed, or perhaps concealed.

"He'll come along all right," she told them, with a smile they found to
be singularly sweet, "for Jim do seem a comfort to the poor little
thing."

Old Jim would surely have been glad to believe that he or anything
supplied a comfort to the grave little sick man lying so quietly in
bed. The miner sat by him all day long, and far into every night, only
climbing to his cabin on the hill when necessity drove him away. Then
he was back there in the morning by daylight, eager, but cheerful
always.

The presents were heaped on the floor in sight of the pale little
Skeezucks, who clung unfailingly, through it all, to the funny
makeshift of a doll that "Bruvver Jim" had placed in his keeping. He
appeared not at all to comprehend the meaning of the gifts the men had
brought, or to know their purpose. That never a genuinely happy
Christmas had brightened his little, mysterious life, Miss Dennihan
knew by a swift, keen process of womanly intuition.

"I wisht he wasn't so sad," she said, f