camp's regeneration. Stumpy advanced nothing. Perhaps he felt a certain
delicacy in interfering with the selection of a possible successor in
office. But when questioned, he averred stoutly that he and "Jinny"--the
mammal before alluded to--could manage to rear the child. There was
something original, independent, and heroic about the plan that pleased
the camp. Stumpy was retained. Certain articles were sent for to
Sacramento. "Mind," said the treasurer, as he pressed a bag of gold-dust
into the expressman's hand, "the best that can be got,--lace, you know,
and filigree-work and frills,--damn the cost!"

Strange to say, the child thrived. Perhaps the invigorating climate of
the mountain camp was compensation for material deficiencies. Nature
took the foundling to her broader breast. In that rare atmosphere of the
Sierra foothills,--that air pungent with balsamic odor, that ethereal
cordial at once bracing and exhilarating,--he may have found food and
nourishment, or a subtle chemistry that transmuted ass's milk to lime
and phosphorus. Stumpy inclined to the belief that it was the latter
and good nursing. "Me and that ass," he would say, "has been father and
mother to him! Don't you," he would add, apostrophizing the helpless
bundle before him, "never go back on us."

By the time he was a month old the necessity of giving him a name became
apparent. He had generally been known as "The Kid," "Stumpy's Boy,"
"The Coyote" (an allusion to his vocal powers), and even by Kentuck's
endearing diminutive of "The damned little cuss." But these were felt
to be vague and unsatisfactory, and were at last dismissed under another
influence. Gamblers and adventurers are generally superstitious, and
Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had brought "the luck" to
Roaring Camp. It was certain that of late they had been successful.
"Luck" was the name agreed upon, with the prefix of Tommy for greater