CHAPTER IX
THE GUILTY MISS DOC
That Keno and Tintoretto should sleep was inevitable, after the way they had eaten. Old Jim then took his lantern and went out alone. Perhaps his tiny foundling had wandered away by himself, he thought. Searching and searching, up hill and down, lighting his way through the brush, the miner went on and on, to leave no spot unvisited. He was out all night, wandering here and climbing there on the hillside, pausing now and again to listen and to look about, almost expectantly, where naught could be seen save the mighty procession of the stars, and naught could be heard save the ringing of the inter-stellar silence as the earth swung steadily onward in her course.
Hour after hour of the darkness went by and found him searching still. With the coming of the morning he suddenly grasped at a startling thought.
Miss Doc!—Miss Dennihan! She must have stolen his foundling!
Her recent climb to his cabin, her protracted stay, her baffled curiosity—these were ample explanation for the trick she must have played! How easily she might have watched the place, slipped in the moment the cabin was left unguarded, and carried off the little pilgrim!
Jim knew she would glory in such a revenge. She probably cared not a whit for the child, but to score against himself, for defeating her purpose when she called, she would doubtless have gone to any possible length.
The miner was enraged, but a second later a great gush of thankfulness and relief surged upward in his heart. At least, the little man would not have been out all night in the hills! Then growing sick in turn, he thought this explanation would be too good to be true. It was madness—only a hope! He clung to it tenaciously, however, then gave it up, only to snatch it back again in desperation as he hastened home to his cabin.
"Keno, wake up," he cried to his lodger, shaking him briskly by the shoulder. "Keno! Keno!"
"What's the matter? Time for breakfast?" asked Keno, drowsily, risking only half an eye with which to look about. "Why not call me gently?"
"Get up!" commanded Jim. "I have thought of where little Skeezucks has gone!"
"Where?" cried Keno, suddenly aroused. "I'll go and kill the cuss that took him off!"
"Miss Doc!" replied the miner. "Miss Doc!"
"Miss Doc?" repeated Keno, weakly, pausing in the act of pulling on his boots. "By jinks! Say, I couldn't kill no woman, Jim. How do you know?"
"Stands to reason," Jim replied, and explaining his premises rapidly and clearly, he punched poor Keno into something almost as good as activity.
"By jinks! I can't believe it," said Keno, who did believe it with fearful thoroughness. "Jim, she wouldn't dare, an' us two fellers liable to bust her house to pieces."
"Don't you know she'd be dead sure to play a trick like that?" said Jim, who could not bear to listen to a doubt. "Don't you see she couldn't do anything else, bein' a woman?"
"Maybe—maybe," answered Keno, with a sort of acquiescence that is deadlier than an out-and-out denial. "But—I wouldn't want to see you disappointed, Jim—I wouldn't want to see it."
"Wal, you come on, that's all," said Jim. "If it ain't so—I want to know it early in the day!"
"But—what can I do?" still objected Keno. "Wouldn't you rather I'd stay home and git the breakfast?"
"We don't want any breakfast if she 'ain't got the little boy. You come on!"
Keno came; so did Tintoretto. The three went down the slope as the sun looked over the rim of the mountains. The chill and crispness of the air seemed a part of those early rays of light.
In sight of the home of Doc and Miss Dennihan, they paused and stepped behind a fence, for the door of the neat little house was open and the lady herself was sweeping off the steps, with the briskness inseparable from her character.
She presently disappeared, but the door, to Jim's relief, was left standing open. He proceeded boldly on his course.
"Now, I'll stay outside and hold the pup," said Keno.
"If anything goes wrong, you let the pup go loose," instructed Jim.
"He might distract her attention."
Thereupon he went in at the creaking little garden gate, and, leaving it open, knocked on the door and entered the house. He had hardly more than come within the room when Miss Doc appeared from her kitchen.
"Mercy in us, if you ain't up before your breakfast!" she said. "Whatever do you want in my house at this time of mornin', you Jim lazy-joints?"
"You know what I came for," said Jim. "I want my little boy."
"Your little boy?" she echoed. "I never knowed you had no little boy.
You never said nuthin' 'bout no little boy when I was up to your cabin."
Jim's heart, despite his utmost efforts to be hopeful, was sinking.
"You know I found a little kid," he said, less aggressively. "And some one's taken him off—stole him—that's what they've done, and I'll bet a bit it's you!"
"Wal, if I ever!" cried Miss Doc, her eyes lighting up dangerously. "Did you come down here to tell me right to my face I stole from your dirty little shanty?"
"I want my little boy," said Jim.
"Wal, you git out of my house," commanded Miss Doc. "If John was up you'd never dare to stay here another minute. You clear out! A-callin' me a thief!"
Jim's hope collapsed in his bosom. The taking of the child he could gladly have forgiven. Any excuse would have satisfied his anger—anything was bearable, save to know that he had come on a false belief.
"Miss Doc," he said, "I only want the little kid. Don't say he ain't here."
"Tellin' me I'd steal!" she said, in her indignation. "You shiftless, good-for-nothin'—" But she left her string of epithets incompleted, all on account of an interruption in the shape of Tintoretto.
Keno had made up his mind that everything was going wrong, and he had loosed the pup.
Bounding in at the door, that enthusiastic bit of awkwardness and good intentions jumped on the front of Miss Doc's dress, gave a lick at her hand, scooted back to his master, and wagged himself against the tables, chairs, and walls with clumsy dexterity. Sniffing and bumping his nose on the carpet, he pranced through the door to the kitchen.
Almost immediately Jim heard the sound of something being bowled over on the floor—something being licked—something vainly striving with the over-affectionate pup, and then there came a coo of joy.
"There he is!" cried Jim, and before Miss Doc could lift so much as hand or voice to restrain him, he had followed Tintoretto and fallen on his knees by the side of his lost little foundling, who was helplessly straddled by the pup, and who, for the first time, dropped his doll as he held out his tiny arms to be taken.
"My little boy!" said the miner—"my little boy!" and taking both doll and little man in his arms he held them in passionate tenderness against his heart.
"How da'st you come in my kitchen with your dirty boots?" demanded Miss
Dennihan, in all her unabashed pugnacity.
"It's all right, little Skeezucks," said Jim to the timid little pilgrim, who was clinging to his collar with all the strength of a baby's new confidence and hope. "Did you think old brother Jim was lost? Did you want to go home and get some bread and milk?"
"He ain't a bit hungry. He didn't want nuthin' to eat," said Miss Doc, in self-defence. "And you ain't no more fit to have that there child than a—"
"Goin' to have him all the same," old Jim interrupted, starting for the door. "You stole him—that's what you did!"
"I didn't do no sech thing," said the housewife. "I jest nachelly borrowed him—jest for over night. And now you've got him, I hope you're satisfied. And you kin jest clear out o' my house, do you hear? And I can't scrub and sweep too soon where your lazy, dirty old boots has been on the floor!"
"Wal," drawled Jim, "I can't throw away these boots any too soon, neither. I wouldn't wear a pair of boots which had stepped on any floor of yours."
He therefore left the house at once, even as the lady began her violent sweeping. Interrupting Keno's mad chortles of joy at sight of little Skeezucks, Jim gave him the tiny man for a moment's keeping, and, taking off his boots, threw them down before Miss Dennihan's gate in extravagant pride.
Then once more he took his little man on his arm and started away. But when he had walked a half-dozen rods, on the rocks that indented the tender soles of his stockinged feet, he was stepping with gingerly uncertainty. He presently came to a halt. The ground was not only lumpy, it was cold.
"I'll tell you what," he slowly drawled, "in this little world there's about one chance in a million for a man to make a President of himself, and about nine hundred and ninety-nine chances in a thousand for him to make a fool of himself."
"That's what I thought," said Keno.
"All the same, if only I had the resolution I'd leave them boots there forever!"
"What for?" said Keno.
"Wal," drawled Jim, "a man can't always tell he comes of a proud family by the cut of his clothes. But, Keno, you ain't troubled with pride, so you go back and fetch me the boots."
Then, when he presently drew his cowhide casings on, he sat for a moment enjoying the comfort of those soles beneath his feet. For the time that they halted where they were, he held his rescued little boy to his heart in an ecstasy such as he never had dreamed could be given to a man.