“I wish the fleas could say as much for you or your imitation dog,” retorted Jim.  “There’s just three things in Borealis that go around smellin’ thick of perfume, and you and that little two-ounce package of dog-degeneration are maybe some worse than the other.”

Parky made a belligerent motion, but Webber, the blacksmith, caught his arm in a powerful grip.

“Not to-day,” he said.  “The boys don’t want no gun-play here this mornin’.”

“You’re a lot of old women and babies,” said Parky, and pushing through the group he walked away, a certain graceful insolence in his bearing.

“Speakin’ of catfish,” said Field, “we ought to git up some kind of a celebration to welcome Jim’s little skeezucks to the camp.”

“That’s the ticket,” agreed Bone.  “What’s the matter with repeatin’ the programme we had for the Fourth of July?”

“No, we want somethin’ new,” objected the smith.  “It ought to be somethin’ we never had before.”

“Why not wait till Christmas and git good and ready?” said Jim.

The argument was that Christmas was something more than four weeks away.

“We’ve got to have a rousin’ big Christmas fer little Skeezucks, anyhow,” suggested Bone.  “What sort of a celebration is there that we ’ain’t never had in Borealis?”

“Church,” said Keno, promptly.

This caused a silence for a moment.

“Guess that’s so, but—­who wants church?” inquired the teamster.

“We might git up somethin’ worse,” said a voice in the crowd.

“How?” demanded another.

“It wouldn’t be so far off the mark for a little kid like him,” tentatively asserted Field, the father of the camp, “S’pose we give it a shot?”

“Anything suits me,” agreed the carpenter.  “Church might be kind of decent, after all.  Jim, what you got to say ’bout the subject?”

Jim was still patting the timid little foundling on the back with a comforting hand.

“Who’d be preacher?” said he.

They were stumped for a moment.

“Why—­you,” said Keno.  “Didn’t you find little Skeezucks?”

“Kerrect,” said Bone.  “Jim kin talk like a steam fire-engine squirtin’ languages.”

“If only I had the application,” said Jim, modestly, “I might git up somethin’ passable.  Where could we have it?”

This was a stumper again.  No building in the camp had ever been consecrated to the uses of religious worship.

Bone came to the rescue without delay.

“You kin have my saloon, and not a cent of cost,” said he.

“Bully fer Bone!” said several of the men.

“Y-e-s, but would it be just the tip-toppest, tippe-bob-royal of a place?” inquired Field, a little cautiously.

“What’s the matter with it?” said Bone.  “When it’s church it’s church, and I guess it would know the way to behave!  If there’s anything better, trot it out.”