o
live down a poor name than it is to live up to a fine one, any day, but
we'll name you somethin' else, I reckon, right away. And ain't that
dolly nice?"

The two were in the midst of appreciating the charms of her ladyship
when the cabin door was abruptly opened and in came a coatless, fat,
little, red-headed man, puffing like a bellows and pulling down his
shirtsleeves with a great expenditure of energy, only to have them
immediately crawl back to his elbows.

"Hullo, Keno," drawled the lanky Jim. "I thought you was mad and gone
away and died."

"Me? Not me!" puffed the visitor.

"What's that?" and he nodded himself nearly off his balance towards the
tiny guest he saw upon a stool.

With a somewhat belated bark, Tintoretto suddenly came out from his
boot-chewing contest underneath the table and gave the new-comer an
apoplectic start.

"Hey!" he cried. "Hey! By jinks! a whole menajry!"

"That's the pup," said Jim. "And, Keno, here's a poor little skeezucks
that I found a-sittin' in the brush, 'way over to Coyote Valley. I
fetched him home last night, and I was just about to take him down to
camp and show him to the boys."

"By jinks!" said Keno. "Alive!"

"Alive and smart as mustard," said the suddenly proud possessor of a
genuine surprise. "You bet he's smart! I've often noticed how there
never yet was any other kind of a baby. That's one consolation left to
every fool man livin'--he was once the smartest baby in the world,"

"Alive!" repeated Keno, as before. "I'm goin' right down and tell the
camp!"

He bolted out at the door like a shot, and ran down the hill to
Borealis with all his might.

Aware that the news would be spread like a sprinkle of rain, the lanky
Jim put on his hat with a certain jaunty air of importance, and taking
the grave little man on his arm, with the new-made doll and the pup for
company, he followed, where Keno had just disappeared from view, down
the slope.

A moment later the town was in sight, and groups of flannel-shirted,
dusty-booted, slouchily attired citizens were discernible coming out of
buildings everywhere.

Running up the hill again, puffing with added explosiveness, Keno could
hardly contain his excitement.

"I've told em!" he panted. "They know he's alive and smart as mustard!"

CHAPTER IV

PLANNING A NEW CELEBRATION

The cream, as it were, of the population of the mining-camp were ready
to receive the group from up on the hill. Th