Jim hesitated before he drawled his reply.

“If only I had the resolution,” said he, “I wouldn’t take nothing that Parky could sell.”

“When we git you once talkin’ ‘if-only,’ the bluff is called,” replied the smith, with a grin.  “Now what are you needin’ at the shack?”

“You rich fellers want to run the whole shebang,” objected Jim, by way of an easy capitulation.  “There never yet was a feller born with a silver spoon in his mouth that didn’t want to put it in every other feller’s puddin’. . . .  I was goin’ to buy a can or two of condensed milk and a slab of bacon and a sack of flour and a bean or two and a little ’baccy, and a few things about like that.”

“All right,” said the blacksmith, tabulating all these items on his fingers.  “And Field kin look around and see if there ain’t some extrys for little Skeezucks.”

“If only I had the determination I wouldn’t accept a thing from Parky’s stock,” drawled the miner, as before.  “I’ll go to work on the claim and pay you back right off.”

“Kerrect,” answered Webber, as gravely as possible, thinking of the hundred gaudy promises old Jim had made concerning his undeveloped and so far worthless claim.  “I hope you’ll strike it good and rich.”

“Wal,” drawled Jim; “bad luck has to associate with a little good luck once in a while, to appear sort of half-way respectable.  And my luck—­same as any tired feller’s—­’ain’t been right good Sunday-school company for several years.”

So he climbed back up the hill once more, and, coming to his cabin, had a long, earnest look at the picks, bars, drills, and other implements of mining, heavy with dust, in the corner.

“If only the day wasn’t practically gone,” said he, “I’d start to work on the claim this afternoon.”

But he touched no tools, and presently instead he took the grave little foundling on his knee and told him, all over, the tales the little fellow seemed most to enjoy.

When the stock of provisions was finally fetched to the house by Webber himself, the worthy smith was obliged to explain that part of the money supplied to Field for the purchase of the food had been confiscated for debt at the store.  In consequence of this the quantity had been cut to a half its intended dimensions.

“And the worst of it is,” said the blacksmith, in conclusion, “we all owe a little at the store, and Parky’s got suspicious that we’re sneakin’ things to you.”

Indeed, as he left the house, he saw that certain red-nosed microbe of a human being attached to the gambler, spying on his visit to the hill.  Stopping for a moment to reflect upon the nearness of Christmas and the needless worry that he might inflict by informing Jim of his discovery, Webber shook his head and went his way, keeping the matter to himself.

But with food in the house old Jim was again at ease, so much so, indeed, that he quite forgot to begin that promised work upon his claim.  He had never worked except when dire necessity made resting no longer possible, and then only long enough to secure the wherewithal for sufficient food to last him through another period of sitting around to think.  If thinking upon subjects of no importance whatsoever had been a lucrative employment, Jim would certainly have accumulated the wealth of the whole wide world.