s lonely little
way.

"Boys," he said at last, one night, when the smith and Bone had called
to see the tiny man, who had sadly gone to sleep--"boys, he's pinin'.
He's goin' to die if he don't have little kids for company. I've made
up my mind. I'm goin' to take him to Fremont right away."

Miss Doc, who was knitting a tiny pair of mittens and planning a tiny
red cap and woollen leggings, dropped a stitch and lost a shade of
color from her face.

"Ain't there no other way?" inquired the blacksmith, a poignant regret
already at his heart. "You don't really think he'd up and die?"

"Children have got to be happy," Jim replied. "If they don't get their
fun when they're little, why, when is it ever goin' to come? I know
he'll die, all alone with us old cusses, and I ain't a-goin' to wait."

"But the claim is goin' to be a fortune," said Bone. "Couldn't you
hold on jest a week or two and see if he won't get over thinkin' 'bout
the little gals?"

"If I kept him here and he died, like that--just pinin' away for other
little kids--I couldn't look fortune in the face," answered Jim, to
which, in a moment, he added, slowly, "Boys, he's more to me than all
the claims in Nevada."

"But--you'll bring him back in the spring, of course?" said the
blacksmith, with a worried look about his eyes. "We'd miss him, Jim,
almost as much as you."

"By that time," supplemented Bone, "the camp's agoin' to be boomin'.
Probably we'll have lots of wimmen and kids and schools and everything,
fer the gold up yonder is goin' to make Borealis some consid'rable
shakes."

"I'll bring him back in the spring, all right," said the miner; "but
none of you boys would want to see me keep him here and have him die."

Miss Doc had been a silent listener to all their conversation. She was
knitting again, with doubled speed.

"Jim, how you goin'?" she now inquired.

"I want to get a horse," answered Jim. "We could ride there horseback
quicker than any other way. If only I can get the horse."

"It may be stormin' in the mornin'," Webber suggested. "A few clouds
is comin' up from the West. What about the horse, Jim, if it starts to
snow?"

"Riding in a saddle, I can git through," said the miner. "If it snows
at all, it won't storm bad. Storms that come up sudden never last very
long, and it's been good and bright all day. I'll start unless it's
snowin' feather-beds."

Miss Doc had been feeling, since the subject first was broached,