“Can’t you come to, long enough to eat?” inquired the much-concerned miner.  “No?  Wal, that’s too bad.  Couldn’t drink the coffee or go the beans?  H’m, I guess I can’t take you down to show you off to the boys to-night.  You’ll have to git to your downy couch.”  He returned the slumbering child to the bunk, where he tucked him into the blankets.

Tintoretto did ample justice to the meal, however, and filled in so thoroughly that his round little pod of a stomach was a burden to carry.  He therefore dropped himself down on the floor, breathed out a sigh of contentment, and shut his two bright eyes.

Old Jim concluded a feast that made those steaming heaps of food diminish to the point of vanishing.  He sat there afterwards, leaning his grizzled head upon his hand and looking towards the bunk where the tiny little chap he had found was peacefully sleeping.  The fire burned low in the chimney; the candle sank down in its socket.  On the floor the pup was twitching in his dreams.  Outside the peace, too vast to be ruffled by puny man, had settled on all that tremendous expanse of mountains.

When his candle was about to expire the miner deliberately prepared himself for bed, and crawled in the bunk with his tiny guest, where he slept like the pup and the child, so soundly that nothing could suffice to disturb his dreams.

The arrows of the sun itself, flung from the ridge of the opposite hills, alone dispelled the slumbers in the cabin.

The hardy old Jim arose from his blankets, and presently flung the door wide open.

“Come in,” he said to the day.  “Come in.”

The pup awoke, and, running out, barked in a crazy way of gladness.  His master washed his face and hands at a basin just outside the door, and soon had breakfast piping hot.  By then it was time to look to Aborigineezer.  To Jim’s delight the little man was wide awake and looking at him gravely from the blankets, his funny old cap still in place on his head, pulled down over his ears.

“Time to wash for breakfast,” announced the miner.  “But I don’t guarantee the washin’ will be the kind that mother used to give,” and taking his tiny foundling in his arms he carried him out to the basin by the door.

For a moment he looked in doubt at the only apology for a wash-rag the shanty afforded.

“Wal, it’s an awful dirty cloth that you can’t put a little more blackness on, I reckon,” he drawled, and dipping it into the water he rubbed it vigorously across the gasping little fellow’s face.

Then, indeed, the man was astounded.  A wide streak, white as milk, had appeared on the baby countenance.

“Pierce my pearls!” exclaimed the miner, “if ever I saw a rag in my shack before that would leave a white mark on anything!  Say!” And he took off the youngster’s old fur cap.

He was speechless for a moment, for the little fellow’s hair was as brown as a nut.