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.  There were nearly twenty men in the delegation, representing every shade of inelegance.  Indeed, they demonstrated beyond all argument that the ways of looking rough and unkempt are infinite.  There were tall and short who were rough, bearded and shaved who were rougher, and washed and unwashed who were roughest.  And there were still many denizens of Borealis not then on exhibition.

Webber, the blacksmith; Lufkins, the teamster; Bone, the “barkeep”; Dunn, the carpenter, and Field, who had first discovered precious ore at Borealis, and sold out his claims for a gold watch and chain—­which subsequently proved to be brass—­all these and many another shining light of the camp could be counted in the modest assemblage gathered together to have a look at the “kid” just reported by Keno.

Surprise had been laid on double, in the town, by the news of what had occurred.  In the first place, it was almost incredible that old “If-only” Jim had actually made his long-threatened pilgrimage to fetch his promised pup, but to have him back here, not only with the dog in question, but also with a tiny youngster found at the edge of the wilderness, was far too much to comprehend.

In a single bound, old Jim had been elevated to a starry firmament of importance, from wellnigh the lowest position of insignificance in the camp, attained by his general worthlessness and shiftlessness—­of mind and demeanor—­which qualities had passed into a proverb of the place.  Procrastination, like a cuckoo, had made its nest in his pockets, where the hands of Jim would hatch its progeny.  Labor and he abhorred each other mightily.  He had never been known to strike a lick of work till larder and stomach were both of them empty and credit had taken to the hills.  He drawled in his speech till the opening parts of the good resolutions he frequently uttered were old and forgotten before the remainders were spoken.  He loitered in his walk, said the boys, till he clean forgot whether he was going up hill or down.  “Hurry,” he had always said, by way of a motto, “is an awful waste of time that a feller could go easy in.”

Yet in his shambling, easy-going way, old Jim had drifted into nearly every heart in the camp.  His townsmen knew he had once had a good education, for outcroppings thereof jutted from his personality even as his cheek-bones jutted out of his russet old countenance.