highway between the two rows of tents and rough buildings. Later they
would come. But now Yellowhammer was but a mountain camp, and nowhere
in it were the roguish, expectant eyes, opening wide at dawn of the
enchanting day; the eager, small hands to reach for Santa's
bewildering hoard; the elated, childish voicings of the season's joy,
such as the coming good things of the warm-hearted Cherokee deserved.

Of women there were five in Yellowhammer. The assayer's wife, the
proprietress of the Lucky Strike Hotel, and a laundress whose washtub
panned out an ounce of dust a day. These were the permanent feminines;
the remaining two were the Spangler Sisters, Misses Fanchon and Erma,
of the Transcontinental Comedy Company, then playing in repertoire at
the (improvised) Empire Theatre. But of children there were none.
Sometimes Miss Fanchon enacted with spirit and address the part of
robustious childhood; but between her delineation and the visions of
adolescence that the fancy offered as eligible recipients of
Cherokee's holiday stores there seemed to be fixed a gulf.

Christmas would come on Thursday. On Tuesday morning Trinidad, instead
of going to work, sought the Judge at the Lucky Strike Hotel.

"It'll be a disgrace to Yellowhammer," said Trinidad, "if it throws
Cherokee down on his Christmas tree blowout. You might say that that
man made this town. For one, I'm goin' to see what can be done to give
Santa Claus a square deal."

"My co-operation," said the Judge, "would be gladly forthcoming. I am
indebted to Cherokee for past favours. But, I do not see--I have
heretofore regarded the absence of children rather as a luxury--but in
this instance--still, I do not see--"