Meantime, Keno had quietly opened up a mighty ledge of gold-bearing ore
on the hill. It lay between walls of slate and granite. Its hugeness
was assured. That the camp would boom in the spring was foreordained.
And that ledge all belonged to Jim. But he heard them excitedly tell
what the find would do for him and the camp as one in a dream. He
could not care while his tiny waif was starving in his lonely little
way.
"Boys," he said at last, one night, when the smith and Bone had called
to see the tiny man, who had sadly gone to sleep--"boys, he's pinin'.
He's goin' to die if he don't have little kids for company. I've made
up my mind. I'm goin' to take him to Fremont right away."
Miss Doc, who was knitting a tiny pair of mittens and planning a tiny
red cap and woollen leggings, dropped a stitch and lost a shade of
color from her face.
"Ain't there no other way?" inquired the blacksmith, a poignant regret
already at his heart. "You don't really think he'd up and die?"
"Children have got to be happy," Jim replied. "If they don't get their
fun when they're little, why, when is it ever goin' to come? I know
he'll die, all alone with us old cusses, and I ain't a-goin' to wait."
"But the claim is goin' to be a fortune," said Bone.
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