the child turned, and, in a spasm of pain, caught at his groping finger, and held it fast for a moment.  Kentuck looked foolish and embarrassed.  Something like a blush tried to assert itself in his weather-beaten cheek.  “The damned little cuss!” he said, as he extricated his finger, with perhaps more tenderness and care than he might have been deemed capable of showing.  He held that finger a little apart from its fellows as he went out, and examined it curiously.  The examination provoked the same original remark in regard to the child.  In fact, he seemed to enjoy repeating it.  “He rastled with my finger,” he remarked to Tipton, holding up the member, “the damned little cuss!”

It was four o’clock before the camp sought repose.  A light burnt in the cabin where the watchers sat, for Stumpy did not go to bed that night.  Nor did Kentuck.  He drank quite freely, and related with great gusto his experience, invariably ending with his characteristic condemnation of the newcomer.  It seemed to relieve him of any unjust implication of sentiment, and Kentuck had the weaknesses of the nobler sex.  When everybody else had gone to bed, he walked down to the river and whistled reflectingly.  Then he walked up the gulch past the cabin, still whistling with demonstrative unconcern.  At a large redwood-tree he paused and retraced his steps, and again passed the cabin.  Halfway down to the river’s bank he again paused, and then returned and knocked at the door.  It was opened by Stumpy.  “How goes it?” said Kentuck, looking past Stumpy toward the candle-box.  “All serene!” replied Stumpy.  “Anything up?” “Nothing.”  There was a pause—­an embarrassing one—­Stumpy still holding the door.  Then Kentuck had recourse to his finger, which he held up to Stumpy.  “Rastled with it,—­the damned little cuss,” he said, and retired.

The next day Cherokee Sal had such rude sepulture as Roaring Camp afforded.  After her body had been committed to the hillside, there was a formal meeting of the camp to discuss what should be done with her infant.  A resolution to adopt it was unanimous and enthusiastic.  But an animated discussion in regard to the manner and feasibility of providing for its wants at once sprang up.  It was remarkable that the argument partook of none of those fierce personalities with which discussions were usually conducted at Roaring Camp.  Tipton proposed that they should send the child to Red Dog,—­a distance of forty miles,—­where female attention could be procured.  But the unlucky suggestion met with fierce and unanimous opposition.  It was evident that no plan which entailed parting from their new acquisition would for a moment be entertained.  “Besides,” said Tom Ryder, “them fellows at Red Dog would swap it, and ring in somebody else on us.”  A disbelief in the honesty of other camps prevailed at Roaring Camp, as in other places.