Then Jim said, "Was it all the hair-oil I had?"
"Every drop," said Keno.
"Wal," drawled the miner, sagely, "don't take on too hard. Into each picnic some rain must fall."
"But the boys won't eat it," answered Keno, inconsolably.
"You don't know," replied Jim. "You never can tell what people will eat on Christmas till the follerin' day. They'll take to anything that looks real pretty and smells seasonable. What did I do with my pick?"
"You must have left it behind," said Keno. "You ain't goin' to hit the pie with your pick?"
"Wal, not till Christmas, anyway, Keno, and only then in case we've busted all the knives and saws trying to git it apart," said Jim, reassuringly.
"Would you keep it, sure, and feed it to 'em all the same?" inquired
Keno, forlornly, eager for a ray of hope.
"I certainly would," replied the miner. "They won't know the diff between a lemon-pie and a can of tomatoes. So I guess I'll go and git my pick. It may come on to snow, and then I couldn't find it till the spring."
Without the slightest intention of working any more, Jim sauntered back to the place where the pick was lying on the hill and took it up. By chance he thought of the ledge of quartz above in the rain-sluiced channel.