Then backing out, with a singular smile upon her face, she hastened to return to her home with all the speed the snow would permit.

Alone in the house with the silent little pilgrim, who seemed beyond all human aid, the gray old miner knew not what he should do.  The shrub tea was failing, it seemed to him.  The sight of the drooping child was too much to be borne.  The man threw back his head as he knelt there on the floor, and his stiffened arms were appealingly uplifted in prayer.

“God Almighty,” he said, in his broken voice of entreaty, “don’t take this little boy away from me!  Let him stay.  Let him stay with me and the boys.  You’ve got so many little youngsters there.  For Christ’s sake, let me have this one!”

When Miss Doc came quietly in, old Jim had not apparently moved.  He was once more dipping the pungent liquor from the cup and murmuring words of endearment and coaxing, to the all-unhearing little patient.  The eager woman took off her shawl and stood behind him, watching intently.

“Oh, Jim!” she said, from time to time—­“oh, Jim!”

With a new supply of boiling water, constantly heated on her stove, she kept the steaming concoction fresh and hot.

Midnight came.  The New Year was blown across those mighty peaks in storm and fury.  Presently out of the howling gale came the sound of half a dozen shots, and then of a fusillade.  But Jim, if he heard them, did not guess the all they meant to him.

For an hour he had only moved his hands to take the pitcher, or to put it down, or to feed the drink to the tiny foundling, still so motionless and dull with the fever.

One o’clock was finally gone, and two, and three.  Jim and the yearning Miss Doc still battled on, like two united parents.

Then at last the miner made a half-stifled sound in his throat.

“You—­can go and git a rest,” he said, brokenly.  “The sweat has come.”

All night the wind and the storm continued.  All through the long, long darkness, the bitter cold and snow were searching through the hills.  But when, at last, the morning broke, there on the slope, where old Jim’s claim was staked, stood ten grim figures, white with snow, and scattered here and there around the ledge of gold.  They were Bone and Webber, Keno and Field, Doc Dennihan, the carpenter, the teamster, and other rough but faithful men who had guarded the claim against invasion in the night.

CHAPTER XVI

ARRIVALS IN CAMP

There is something fine in a party of men when no one brags of a fight brought sternly to victory.

Parky, the gambler, was badly shot through the arm; Bone, the bar-keep, had a long, straight track through his hair, cleaned by a ball of lead.  And this was deemed enough of a story when the ten half-frozen men had secured the claim to Jim and his that New-Year’s morning.