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Big Hearted Jim
By Lulierte Bryant
(Prom the Scenario bv Frank Lanning)
*
IT was a tiny cabin, perched so close to the edge of the gulch that it
seemed in imminent danger of being blown straight clown into the abyss below. The other cabins and shacks, which constituted the mining camp of Red Dog Gulch, were clustered together in a hollow, further clown the trail. Big Hearted Jim was the subject of much raillery when he chose this isolated spot for his home, but he bore it with characteristic good humor.
"What's the use of cuttin' loose from civilization and takin' to the open, if you're goin' to live huddled up together 'like you did back East?" he demanded, calmly.
"You've sure got a good breathin' place here, Jim," drawled one of his mates, "but I hope you don't take to somnambulatin'. If you drop off that cliff some night, it's a safe bet we'll never find the pieces."
"It would be somethin' of a drop," admitted the disciple of the open wilds, "it's a sheer two thousand feet down there. But don't you worry none about your Uncle Jim, he's not doin' any fancy dives over the edge by moonlight."
So Jim finished the tiny cabin, making it snu£ and trim. In one end was a wide bunk, in the other a deep, cheerful fireplace. Some bearskins adorned the floor and a scarlet curtain swung at the one window. Jim was a natural home-maker, and back of his unfailing good-humor lurked, alwavs, a spirit which made him different from his mates, the silent, insistent, contradictory hunger of a restless soul for a fixed abiding place.
It was a bleak Xovember evening. The sky above the gulch was leaden,
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and fine flakes of snow were sifting silently over the land, as Jim closed the door of the little cabin and started down the trail toward the settlement. The dark pines tossed their branches restlessly, and moaned in the rising wind. Another moan mingled with the pines — a human voice. The sound was weird, almost uncanny, there in the black night of the wilderness. A woman crept from out the shadows and staggered into the cabin, bearing a heavy bundle. Soon she emerged without her burden and ran straight toward the cliff. Was that wild plunge the result of a misstep, or of a nicely calculated distance? There were two white hands flung upward, but only the bending pines saw; there was one long cry, echoing shrilly, but only the moaning pines heard.
Jim whistled cheerfully as he came back down the trail. He shook the snow from his coat as he stepped inside the cabin, and touched a match to the kindlings in the fireplace. The flames shot upward, enwrapping the logs and sending a red glow thru the darkness. Stepping backward, Jim's foot touched something soft and he glanced downward, carelessly, then with a look of surprised interest.
"Hello, who's left a blanket roll for me?" he said, rolling the bundle into the firelight to get a good look at it.
It was a soft, fuzzy bundle, and as it rolled it suddenly began to squirm, and sat upright. The red coverlet fell away and a pair of round blue eyes looked wonder inglv out, from under a fringe of curls, at the astounded Jim.
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