mining-camp of Borealis.




CHAPTER II

JIM MAKES DISCOVERIES

It was dark and there were five miles of boot-tracks and seven miles of
pup-tracks left in the sand of the road when Jim, Tintoretto, and
Aborigineezer came at length to a point above the small constellation
of lights that marked the spot where threescore of men had builded a
town.

From the top of the ridge they had climbed, the man and the pup alone
looked down on the camp, for the weary little "Injun" had fallen
asleep. Had he been awake, the all to be seen would have been of
little promise. Great, sombre mountains towered darkly up on every
side, roofed over by an arch of sky amazingly brilliant with stars.
Below, the darkness was the denser for the depth of the hollow in the
hills. Vaguely the one straight street of Borealis was indicated by
the lamps, like a thin Milky Way in a meagre universe of lesser lights,
dimly glowing and sparsely scattered on the rock-strewn acclivities.

From down there came the sounds of life. Half-muffled music, raucous
singing, blows of a hammer, yelpings of a dog, hissing of steam
escaping somewhere from a boiler--all these and many other disturbances
of the night furnished a microcosmic medley of the toiling, playing,
hoping, and fearing, where men abide, creating that frailest and yet