Monday morning he was up with the sun and ready for his work. His father, who worked down the Gulch, had already gone before the children had finished their breakfast. So now Jim filled his brand-new pipe very leisurely; and with as much calm unconcern as if he had been smoking for forty years, he stopped to scratch a match on the door as he went out. From under his broad hat he saw his little sister watching him, and he fairly swelled with importance as Stumps looked up at him with childish wonder. Leaving Madge to wash the few tin dishes and follow as she could with Little Stumps, he started on up the hill, pipe in mouth. He met several miners, but he puffed away like a tug-boat against the tide, and went on. His bright new boots whetted and creaked together, the warm wind lifted the broad brim of his _sombrero_, and his bright new red shirt was really beautiful, with the green grass and oaks for a background--and so this brave young man climbed the hill to his mine. Ah, he was so happy! [Illustration: HE TOOK THE LIMP YOUNG MINER IN HIS ARMS.] Suddenly, as he approached the claim, his knees began to smite together, and he felt so weak he could hardly drag one foot after the other. He threw down his pick; he began to tremble and spin around. The world seemed to be turning over and over, and he trying in vain to hold on to it. He jerked the pipe from his teeth, and throwing it down on the bank, he tumbled down too, and clutching at the grass with both hands tried hard, oh! so hard, to hold the world from slipping from under him. "O, Jim, you are white as snow," cried Madge as she came up. "White as 'er sunshine, an' blue, an' green too, sisser. Look at brurrer 'all colors,'" piped Little Stumps pitifully. "O, Jim, Jim--brother Jim, what is the matter?" sobbed Madge. "Sunstroke," murmured the young man, smiling grimly, like a true Californian. "No; it is not sunstroke, it's--it's cholera," he added in dismay over his falsehood. Poor boy! he was sorry for this second lie too. He fairly groaned in agony of body and soul. Oh, how he did hate that pipe! How he did want to get up and jump on it and smash it into a thousand pieces! But he could not get up or turn around or move at all without betraying his unmanly secret. A couple of miners came up, but Jim feebly begged them to go. "Sunstroke," whispered the sister. "No; tolera," piped poor Little Stumps. "Get out! Leave me!" groaned the young red-shirted miner of the Sierras. The biggest of the two miners bent over him a moment. "Yas; it's both," he muttered. "Cholera-nicotine-fantum!" Then he looked at his partner and winked wickedly. Without a word, he took the limp young miner up in his arms and bore him down the hill to his father's cabin, while Stumps and Madge ran along at either side, and tenderly and all the time kept asking what was good for "cholera."