Bruvver Jims Baby | Page 4

He took up the child, who continued to cling to the ears of his one
particular hare. As all the jacks were tied together, all were lifted and
were dangling down against the miner's legs.
"Huh! you can tell what some people want by the way they hang right
on," said Jim. "Wal, no harm in lettin' you stick to one. We can eat him
for dinner to-morrow, I guess, and save his hide in the bargain."
He therefore cut the buckskin thong and all but one of the rabbits fell to
the earth, on top of Tintoretto, who thought he was climbed upon by
half a dozen bears. He let out a yowp that scared himself half into fits,
and, scooting from under the danger, turned about and flung a fearful
challenge of barking at the prostrate enemy.
"Come on, unlettered ignoramus," said his master, and, holding the
wondering little foundling on his arm, with his rabbit still clutched by
the ears, he proceeded down to the roadway, scored like a narrow gray
streak through the brush, and plodded onward towards the
mining-camp of Borealis.
CHAPTER II
JIM MAKES DISCOVERIES
It was dark and there were five miles of boot-tracks and seven miles of
pup-tracks left in the sand of the road when Jim, Tintoretto, and
Aborigineezer came at length to a point above the small constellation

of lights that marked the spot where threescore of men had builded a
town.
From the top of the ridge they had climbed, the man and the pup alone
looked down on the camp, for the weary little "Injun" had fallen asleep.
Had he been awake, the all to be seen would have been of little promise.
Great, sombre mountains towered darkly up on every side, roofed over
by an arch of sky amazingly brilliant with stars. Below, the darkness
was the denser for the depth of the hollow in the hills. Vaguely the one
straight street of Borealis was indicated by the lamps, like a thin Milky
Way in a meagre universe of lesser lights, dimly glowing and sparsely
scattered on the rock-strewn acclivities.
From down there came the sounds of life. Half-muffled music, raucous
singing, blows of a hammer, yelpings of a dog, hissing of steam
escaping somewhere from a boiler--all these and many other
disturbances of the night furnished a microcosmic medley of the toiling,
playing, hoping, and fearing, where men abide, creating that frailest
and yet most enduring of frailties--a human community.
The sight of his town could furnish no novelties to the miner on top of
the final rise, and feeling somewhat tired by the weight of his small
companion, as well as hungry from his walking, old Jim skirted the
rocky slope as best he might, and so came at length to an isolated cabin.
This dark little house was built in the brush, quite up on the hill above
the town, and not far away from a shallow ravine where a trickle of
water from a spring had encouraged a straggling growth of willows,
alders, and scrub. Some four or five acres of hill-side about the place
constituted the "Babylonian Glory" mining-claim, which Jim accounted
his, and which had seen about as much of his labor as might be
developed by digging for gold in a barrel.
"Nobody home," said the owner to his dog, as he came to the door and
shouldered it open. "Wal, all the more for us."
That any one might have been at home in the place was accounted for
simply by the fact that certain worthies, playing in and out of luck, as

the wheel of fate might turn them down or up, sometimes lived with
Jim for a month at a time, and sometimes left him in solitude for weeks.
One such transient partner he had left at the cabin when he started off
to get the pup now tagging at his heels. This house-partner, having
departed, might and might not return, either now, a week from now, or
ever.
The miner felt his way across the one big room which the shack
afforded, and came to a series of bunks, built like a pantry against the
wall. Into one of these he rolled his tiny foundling, after which he
lighted a candle that stood in a bottle, and revealed the smoky interior
of the place.
Three more of the bunks were built in the eastern end of the room; a
fireplace occupied a portion of the wall against the hill; a table stood in
the centre of the floor, and a number of mining tools littered a corner.
Cooking utensils were strewn on the table liberally, while others hung
against the wall or depended from hooks in the chimney. This was
practically all there was, but the place was