Trinidad and the Judge vainly exhausted more than half their list
before twilight set in among the hills. They spent the night at a
stage road hostelry, and set out again early the next morning. The
wagon had not acquired a single passenger.

"It's creepin' upon my faculties," remarked Trinidad, "that borrowin'
kids at Christmas is somethin' like tryin' to steal butter from a man
that's got hot pancakes a-comin'."

"It is undoubtedly an indisputable fact," said the Judge, "that the--
ah--family ties seem to be more coherent and assertive at that period
of the year."

On the day before Christmas they drove thirty miles, making four
fruitless halts and appeals. Everywhere they found "kids" at a
premium.

The sun was low when the wife of a section boss on a lonely railroad
huddled her unavailable progeny behind her and said:

"There's a woman that's just took charge of the railroad eatin' house
down at Granite Junction. I hear she's got a little boy. Maybe she
might let him go."

Trinidad pulled up his mules at Granite Junction at five o'clock in
the afternoon. The train had just departed with its load of fed and
appeased passengers.

On the steps of the eating house they found a thin and glowering boy
of ten smoking a cigarette. The dining-room had been left in chaos by