“But—­you’ll bring him back in the spring, of course?” said the blacksmith, with a worried look about his eyes.  “We’d miss him, Jim, almost as much as you.”

“By that time,” supplemented Bone, “the camp’s agoin’ to be boomin’.  Probably we’ll have lots of wimmen and kids and schools and everything, fer the gold up yonder is goin’ to make Borealis some consid’rable shakes.”

“I’ll bring him back in the spring, all right,” said the miner; “but none of you boys would want to see me keep him here and have him die.”

Miss Doc had been a silent listener to all their conversation.  She was knitting again, with doubled speed.

“Jim, how you goin’?” she now inquired.

“I want to get a horse,” answered Jim.  “We could ride there horseback quicker than any other way.  If only I can get the horse.”

“It may be stormin’ in the mornin’,” Webber suggested.  “A few clouds is comin’ up from the West.  What about the horse, Jim, if it starts to snow?”

“Riding in a saddle, I can git through,” said the miner.  “If it snows at all, it won’t storm bad.  Storms that come up sudden never last very long, and it’s been good and bright all day.  I’ll start unless it’s snowin’ feather-beds.”

Miss Doc had been feeling, since the subject first was broached, that something in her heart would snap.  But she worked on, her emotions, yearnings, and fears all rigorously knitted into the tiny mittens.

“You’ll let me wrap him up real warm?” she said.

Jim knew her thoughts were all on little Skeezucks.

“If you didn’t do it, who would?” he asked, in a kindness of heart that set her pulse to faster beating.

“But—­s’pose you don’t git any job in Fremont,” Bone inquired.  “Will you let us know?”

“I’ll git it, don’t you fear,” said Jim.  “I know there ain’t no one so blind as the feller who’s always lookin’ for a job, but the little kid has fetched me a sort of second sight.”

“Well, if anything was goin’ hard, we’d like for to know,” insisted Bone.  “I guess we’d better start along, though, now, if we’re goin’ to scare up a bronch to-night.”

He and the blacksmith departed.  Jim and the lorn Miss Doc sat silently together in the warm little house.  Jim looked at her quietly, and saw many phases of womanly beauty in her homely face.

“Wal,” he drawled, at last, “I’ll go up home, on the hill.”  He hesitated for a moment, and then added, quietly, “Miss Doc, you’ve been awful kind to the little boy—­and me.”

“It wasn’t nuthin’,” she said.

They stood there together, beside the table.

“Yes, it was,” said Jim, “and it’s set me to thinkin’ a heap.”  He was silent for a moment, as before, and then, somewhat shyly for him, he said, “When we come back home here, in the spring, Miss Doc, I’m thinkin’ the little feller ought to have a mother.  Do you think you could put up with him—­and with me?”