looked from one to another in baby
gravity and sat in his timid way on the arm of "Bruvver Jim."

"I'll tell you what," said the blacksmith, "now that we've found that
we can do the job all right, we'll get up a Christmas for little
Skeezucks that will lift the mountains clean up off the earth!"

"Good suggestion," Jim agreed. "But the little feller feels tired now.
I am goin' to take him home."

And this he did. But after lunch no fewer than twenty of the men of
Borealis climbed up the trail to get another look at the quiet little
man who glorified the cabin.

But the darkness had only begun to creep through the lowermost channels
of the canyons when Skeezucks fell asleep. By then old Jim, the pup,
and Keno were alone with the child.

"Keno, I reckon I'll wander quietly down and see if Doc will let me buy
a little milk," said Jim. "You'd better come along to see that his
sister don't interfere."

Keno expressed his doubts immediately, not only as to the excellence of
goat's milk generally, but likewise as to any good that he could do by
joining Jim in the enterprise suggested.

"Anyway," he concluded, "Doc has maybe went on shift by this time.
He's workin' nights this week again."

Jim, however, prevailed. "You don't get another bite of grub in this
shack, nor another look at the little boy, if you don't come ahead and
do your share."

Therefore they presently departed, shutting Tintoretto in the cabin to
"watch."

In half an hour, having interviewed Doc Dennihan himself on the
hill-side quite removed from his cabin, the two worthies came climbing
up towards their home once again, Jim most carefully holding in his
hands a large tin cup with half an inch of goat's milk at the bottom.

While still a hundred yards from the house, they were suddenly startled
by the mad descent upon them of the pup they had recently left behind.

"Huh! you young galoot," said Jim. "You got out, I see!"

When he entered the cabin it was dark. Keno lighted the candle and Jim
put his cup on the table. Then he went to the berth to awaken the tiny
foundling and give him a supper of bread and milk.

Keno heard him make a sound as of one in terrible pain.

The miner turned a face, deadly white, towards the table.

"Keno," he cried, "he's gone!"

CHAPTER VIII

OLD JIM DISTRAUGHT

For a moment Keno failed to comprehend. Then for a second after that
he refused to believe. He ran to the bunk where Jim was despe