Not a few of the citizens of Borealis had succumbed to the gayer attractions of Parky's festival, but the men who had builded a Christmas-tree and loaded its branches with presents waited and waited for tiny Skeezucks in the dingy shop. The evening passed. Night aged in the way that wintry storm and lowering skies compel. Dismally creaked the door on its rusted hinges. Into the chink shot the particles of snow, and formed again that icy mark across the floor of the shop. One by one the candles burned away on the tree, gave a gasp, a flare, and expired. Silently, loyally the group of big, rough miners and toilers sat in the cheerless gloom, hearing that music, in its soullessness, come on the gusts of the storm--waiting, waiting for their tiny guest. At length a single candle alone illumined their pitiful tree, standing with its meagre branches of greenery stiffly upheld on its scrawny frame, while the darkness closed sombrely in upon the glint of the toys they had labored to make. Then finally Keno came, downcast, pale, and worried. "The little feller's awful sick," he said. "I guess he can't come to the tree." His statement was greeted in silence. "Then, maybe he'll see it to-morrow," said the blacksmith, after a moment. "It wouldn't make so very much odds to us old cusses. Christmas is for kids, of course. So we'll leave her standing jest as she is." Slowly they gave up their final hopes. Slowly they all went out in the storm and night, shutting the door on the Christmas celebration now abandoned to darkness, the creak of the hinges, the long line of snow inside that pointed to the tree. One by one they bade good-night to Webber, the smith, and so went home to many a cold little cabin, seemingly hunched like a freezing thing in the driving storm. CHAPTER XIV "IF ONLY I HAD THE RESOLUTION" For the next three or four days the tiny bit of a man at Miss Doc's seemed neither to be worse nor better of his ailment. The hand of lethargy lay with dulling weight upon him. Old Jim and Miss Dennihan were baffled, though their tenderness increased and their old animosity disappeared, forgotten in the stress of care. That the sister of Doc could develop such a spirit of motherhood astounded nearly every man in the camp. Accustomed to acerbities of criticism for their many shortcomings from her ever-pointed tongue, they marvelled the more at her semi-partnership with Jim, whom of all the population of the town she had scorned and verbally castigated most frequently. Resupplying their tree with candles, the patient fellows had kept alive their hope of a great day of joy and celebration, only to see it steadily receding from their view. At length they decided to carry their presents to the house where the wan little foundling lay, trusting the sight of their labors of love might cheer him to recovery.