was indeed a plentiful supply of yuletide trees up the gulch, but to fourteen-year-old orphan Martha and her little brother Ed, and the still-younger twins, Cap and Kitty, all of whom Prospector Jecklin had adopted last summer when their parents were drowned in a mountain torrent—to them, the frost-festooned spruces had come to be but a dismal evidence of a snowbound winter, and, like enough, no candy for Christmas.
Not that they whimpered about it at all, for they were game, loyal little tads, every one of them. Their “pop,” Jecklin, had laid in a good-enough supply of plain food, and they were neither cold nor hungry during the chill days when he pecked away with a pick in his prospect tunnel; but he had promised them, if the snow did not get too deep, to go over the divide and down to Vallecitos to make certain arrangements with one Santa Claus for a sack full of candy and toys to be delivered in their stockings Christmas morning. And, with every new snow, the prospect of his going seemed less and less. Middle-aged, gray-haired, leathery-faced Cuth Jecklin comforted them jokingly, though his own heart was heavy for more reasons than one.
“Never you mind, Cap,” he told the little four-year-old boy, “there’s still some sugar in the sack, and if the snow keeps on, me and Marthy’ll make you candy.”
“And a popgun, pop?” asked little Cap. “And a dolly for Kitty?”
Pop Jecklin’s heart ached for his little charges, as every week brought another snow to deepen the drifts on the divide, and as the little supply of his gold ore, which was rich enough to be turned into money, stayed pitifully small.
Jecklin knew where the gold was. The slant of the vein he worked in told him that. But it was on old Joe McGillis’ claim, not his. And old Joe, himself too skinny, and starved, and old, and weak to work it, would snarl like a wolf at anyone who even suggested a partnership that might mean wealth for both of them. Already he had promised to shoot Jecklin if he came nosing around, anymore, talking partnership. So there they were: Jecklin, able-bodied and intelligent enough to get in and work out the tunnel into old Joe’s mother lode, but old Joe too miserly, and distrustful, and hateful, to permit a partner to do what his own strength could not accomplish.
So long as he had been alone, Cuth Jecklin had not minded prospector’s poverty; but now he had the kids to think about, and, as often as not, his nights were sleepless with worry. If only old Joe would be reasonable, plenty would soon be theirs.
A week before Christmas, it cleared, and the sun came out. Flaky snowdrifts melted enough to pack down into grainy banks that would hold a man’s weight. In two days, the spruce trees were beginning to lose their burden of snow.
With all he could carry of nugget chunks of gold-bearing ore in the sack on his back, Pop Jecklin kissed Martha and Ed, and Cap, and Kitty good-by, warned them again not to venture too far out from the cabin, and to take care of each other. Then he set out eastward over the divide toward Vallecitos.
“Your pop, together with Mister Santa Claus, is goin’ to be back here Christmas Eve, little fellers, with an old sack, plumb full of Christmas,” he told them, as he set out.
“A popgun, pop?” Cap called after him. “And a dolly for Kitty?”
“Sure, Mike!” he called back over his shoulder, as he disappeared into the forest of firs and spruces.
Once over the snowy divide, he would drop down to the Jaquez ranch where he could get a pony to ride on into the little village. With good luck, he should be back easily by noon of the day before Christmas.
A little after he had crossed the summit of the range, he passed the slanty cabin of old Joe
McGillis. He had not intended to stop, but when he saw the old man standing so disconsolate and alone in his crooked doorway, a rush of pity came over him. The spirit of Christmas seemed to warm his veins, driving out all remembrance of old Joe’s stubborn enmity. Puffing from the stiff exertion of plodding through the snow, he came up to McGillis’ doorway.
“Howdy, McGillis! And a merry Christmas to you in advance! I’m on my way out for some Santa Claus for the kids, and what shall I bring you back for a bit of cheer? Some tobaccy? Or a chunk of salt side?”
Old Joe, his skinny, half-starved body showing in spots through the string-tied rags he wore for clothes, stood silent a second; then a sneer curled the parchment-like lips under his beard.
“Christmas, hey? It’s all a lot of bunk! Git on your way!”
“The durned old coot!” snorted Jecklin as he went on. Yet even as old Joe spoke, something wistful shone in his eyes, belying the anger in his words.
The next day it snowed again. In the little cabin up Bobcat Gulch, little noses once more squashed themselves against the windows to watch, lonesomely, while new festoons of white settled like furry robes upon the trees. Cap and Kitty, old enough to realize that the snow would hinder their pop’s return, yet too young to be philosophical about it, questioned Martha querulously for a while, and then gave way to tears.
“Aw, you act like a couple of babies!” jeered eight-year-old Eddie. “I bet pop ain’t a-cryin’, and I’ll bet he’s out in it, too! Come here, and I’ll whittle you out a wooden gun, Cap.”
“Me wanna really one!” Cap protested inconsolably.
“Dolly! Wanna dolly!” sobbed Kitty. “Want my pop!”
“He’ll be here, never worry—anyway, by Christmas Eve!” said Martha cheerily. But in her thorough, if limited, experience of the mountains, she doubted her own hope.
Her doubts were well founded.
Over from Old Mike and the other skyline peaks to the northeast, there whirled a drifting, stinging blizzard, sifting snow, in rapid inches, not only upon the mountains, but out to the mesas and foothills, even down to the village where Cuth Jecklin had, with difficulty, finally managed to get a small advance of money for the ore he carried.
Two days before Christmas, he lashed a big sack of well-wrapped Christmas goods on behind his saddle and headed back into the mountains. But instead of making the Jaquez ranch easily on the first day, he encountered such drifts that the pony, literally, gave out, and he was compelled to leave him at a little Mexican ranch and get another, a fractious, half-broke colt that gave him no end of trouble.
The whispering darkness of a snow-stormy night was upon him before he realized it. Yet he rode on. Then suddenly the colt shied madly from a snow-hooded black stump, slipped on the steep slope, and went down. When the pony got up again, Cuth Jecklin lay stunned for a moment, a twisting pain at one of his ankles. Then, with a stifled groan, he got to his feet, mounted, and forced the horse on until they came to the Jaquez cabins.
There, with hot water and liniment for his swollen ankle, he rested for the night, hoping for the storm to stop. But toward dawn it had not, and with warm food in his stomach and a lunch in his pack, Jecklin got on his snowshoes and started on afoot, despite the protests of the ranchman.
“It’s suicide, Jecklin!” exclaimed Jaquez. “The kids will be all right without you. Wait till the storm is over!”
“Tomorrow’s Christmas, Jack,” replied Jecklin, tapping the sack he had swung to his shoulders, “but it won’t be, for them, unless I get in with this here poke of stuff. I’ll make it all right, don’t worry!”
Jaquez knew the prospector for a strong man and an experienced traveler on snowshoes, yet he shook his head doubtfully as he watched the dark shadow of his bulk fade
