git Shorty Hobb to show up with his fiddle."

"Certain!" assented the barkeep. "You kin leave that part of the game
to me."

"If we've got it all settled, I reckon I'll go back up to the shack,"
said Jim. "The little feller 'ain't had a chance yet to play with his
doll."

"Is that a doll?" inquired the teamster, regarding the grave little
pilgrim's bundle of fur in curiosity. "How does he know it's a doll?"

"He knows a good sight more than lots of older people," answered Jim.
"And if only I've got the gumption I'll make him a whole slough of toys
and things."

"Well, leave us say good-bye to him 'fore you go," said the blacksmith.
"Does he savvy shakin' hands?"

He gave a little grip to the tiny hand that held the doll, and all the
others did the same. Little Skeezucks looked at them gravely, his
quaint baby face playing havoc with their rough hearts.

"Softest little fingers I ever felt," said Webber. "I'd give twenty
dollars if he'd laugh at me once."

"Awful nice little shaver," said another.

"I once had a mighty touchin' story happen to me, myself," said Keno,
solemnly.

"What was it?" inquired a sympathetic miner.

"Couldn't bear to tell it--not this mornin'," said Keno. "Too
touchin'."

"Good-bye fer just at present, little Skeezucks," said Field, and,
suddenly divesting himself of his brazen watch and chain, he offered it
up as a gift, with spontaneous generosity. "Want it, Skeezucks?" said
he. "Don't you want to hear it go?"

The little man would relax neither his clutch on Jim's collar nor his
hold of his doll, wherefore he had no hand with which to accept the
present.

"Do you think he runs a pawn-shop, Field?" said the teamster. "Put it
back."

The men all guffawed in their raucous way.

"Keeps mighty good time, all the same," said Field, and he re-swung the
chain, like a hammock, from the parted wings of his vest, and dropped
the huskily ticking guardian of the minutes back to its place in his
pocket.

"Watches that don't keep perfect time," drawled Jim, "are scarcer than
wimmin who tell their age on the square."

"Better come over, Jim, and have a drink," suggested the barkeep.
"You're sure one of the movin' spirits of Borealis."

"No, I don't think I'll start the little feller off with the drinkin'
example," replied the miller. "You'll often notice that the men who
git the name of bein' movin' spirits is them that move a good deal of
whiskey into their interior depar