“Or the dad,” added Lufkins.

“Shoot the dad!” answered Bone.  “A dad which would let a little feller small as him git lost in the brush don’t deserve to git him back.”

“Mysterious case, sure as lizards is insects,” said an individual heretofore silent.  “I guess I’ll go and tell Miss Doc Dennihan.”

“’Ain’t Miss Doc bin told—­and her the only decent woman in the camp?” inquired Field.  “I’ll go along and see you git it right.”

“No Miss Doc in mine,” said the smith.

“I’ll git back and blow my fire up before she’s plump dead out.  Fearful vinegar Miss Doc would make if ever she melted.”

Miss Dennihan, sister of “Doc” Dennihan, was undeniably If-only Jim’s exact antithesis—­a scrupulously tidy, exacting lady, so severe in her virtues and so acrid in denunciations of the lack of down-east circumspection that nearly every man in camp shied off from her abode as he might have shied from a bath in nitric acid.  Six months prior to this time she had come to Borealis from the East, unexpectedly plumping down upon her brother “Doc” with all her moral fixity of purpose, not only to his great distress of mind, but also to that of all his acquaintances as well.  She had raided the ethical standing of miners, teamsters, and men-about-town; she had outwardly and inwardly condemned the loose and indecorous practices of the camp; she had made herself an accusing hand, as it were, pointing out the road to perdition which all and sundry of the citizens of Borealis, including “Doc,” were travelling.  If-only Jim had promptly responded to her natural antipathy to all that he represented, and the strained relations between the pair had furnished much amusement for the male population of the place.

It was now to this lady that Field and his friend proposed a visit.  The group of men broke up, and the news that each one had to tell of the doings of Jim was widely spread; and the wonder increased till it stretched to the farthest confines of the place.  Then as fast as the miners and other laborers, who were busy with work, could get away for a time sufficiently long, they made the pilgrimage up the slope to the cabin where the tiny foundling had domicile.  They found the timid little man seated, with his doll, on the floor, from which he watched them gravely, in his baby way.

Half the honors of receiving the groups and showing off the quaint little Skeezucks were assumed by Keno, with a grace that might have been easy had he not been obliged to pull down his shirt-sleeves with such exasperating frequency.

But Jim was the hero of the hour, as he very well knew.  Time after time, and ever with thrilling new detail and added incident, he recounted the story of his find, gradually robbing even Tintoretto, the pup, of such of the glory as he really had earned.