It was all of
no avail. By the time another day had dawned little Skeezucks was
flaming hot with the fever. He rolled his tiny body in baby delirium,
his feeble little call for "Bruvver Jim" endlessly repeated, with his
sad little cry that no one wanted him anywhere in the world.
In his desperation, Jim was undergoing changes. His face was haggard;
his eyes were ablaze with parental anguish.
"I know a shrub the Injuns sometimes use for fever," he said to Miss
Doc, at last, when he suddenly thought of the aboriginal medicine. "It
grows in the mountains. Perhaps it would do him good."
"I don't know," she answered, at the end of her resources, and she
clasped her hands. "I don't know."
"If only I can git a horse," said Jim, "I might be able to find the
shrub."
He waited, however, by the side of the moaning little pilgrim.
Then, half an hour later, Bone, the bar-keep, came up to see him, in
haste and excitement. They stood outside, where the visitor had called
him for a talk.
"Jim," said Bone, "you're in fer trouble. Parky is goin' to jump your
claim to-night--it bein' New Year's eve, you know--at twelve o'clock.
He told me so himself. He says you 'ain't done assessment, nor you
can't--not now--and you 'ain't got no more right than anybody else to
hold the ground.
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