Jim, in his bunk, was beginning to sweat.  He held his little foundling by the hand and piled up a barrier of blankets before them.  That many another of the male residents of Borealis had been honored by similar visitations on the part of Miss Doc was quite the opposite of reassuring.  That the lady generally came as a matter of curiosity, and remained in response to a passion for making things glisten with cleanliness, he had heard from a score of her victims.  He knew she was here to get her eyes on the grave little chap he was cuddling from sight, but he had no intention of sharing the tiny pilgrim with any one whose attentions would, he deemed, afford a trial to the nerves.

“Seems to me the last time I saw old Doc his shirt needed stitchin’ in the sleeve,” he said.  “How about that, Keno?”

Keno was dumb as a clam.

“You never seen nuthin’ of the sort,” corrected Miss Doc, with asperity, and, removing her bonnet, she sat down on a stool, Jim’s overalls in hand and her bag in her lap.  “John’s mended regular, all but his hair, and if soap-suds and bear’s-grease would patch his top he wouldn’t be bald another day.”

“He ain’t exactly bald,” drawled the uncomfortable miner.  “His hair was parted down the middle by a stroke of lightnin’.  Or maybe you combed it yourself.”

“Don’t you try to git comical with me!” she answered.  “I didn’t come here for triflin’.”

Her back being turned towards the end of the room wherein the redheaded Keno was ensconced, that diffident individual furtively put forth his hand and clutched up his boots and trousers from the floor.  The latter he managed to adjust as he wormed about in the berth.  Then silently, stealthily, trembling with excitement, he put out his feet, and suddenly bolting for the door, with his boots in hand, let out a yell and shot from the house like a demon, the pup at his heels, loudly barking.

“Keno!  Keno! come back here and stand your share!” bawled Jim, lustily, but to no avail.

“Mercy in us!” Miss Doc exclaimed.  “That man must be crazy.”

Jim sank back in his bunk hopelessly.

“It’s only his clothes makes him look foolish,” he answered.  “He’s saner than I am, plain as day.”

“Then it’s lucky I came,” decided the visitor, vigorously sewing at the trousers.  “The looks of this house is enough to drive any man insane.  You’re an ornary, shiftless pack of lazy-joints as ever I seen.  Why don’t you git up and cook your breakfast?”

Perspiration oozed from the modest Jim afresh.

“I never eat breakfast in the presence of ladies,” said he.

“Well, you needn’t mind me.  I’m jest a plain, sensible woman,” replied Miss Dennihan.  “I don’t want to see no feller-critter starve.”

Jim writhed in the blankets.  “I didn’t s’pose you could stay all day,” he ventured.

“I kin stay till I mend all your garmints and tidy up this here cabin,” she announced, calmly.  “So let your mind rest easy.”  She meant to see that child if it took till evening to do so.