re good effect than all the funeral sermons that the
little red-faced man had pronounced in the camp. The occasion was a
singular one, and the men's hearts were now as mellow as new-plowed land
that had long lain fallow and waiting for the seed.

"This, my friends," began the little man, standing upon a stump, and
extending his hands towards the baby, "this, my friends, shows us that
the wonderful climate of Californy--" Just then some one poked the fat
little fellow in the stomach with his pipe-stem, and he doubled up like
a jack-knife and quietly got down, as if nothing had happened.

There was a lull then, and things began to look embarrassing. Sandy was
now of course too proud, too happy, too much of a man to carouse, but he
called the cinnamon-headed man to his side by a crook of his finger, and
making the sign so well known in the Sierras, and so well understood by
all who are thirsty, the parties divided--the camp to carouse to the
little stranger in the Howling Wilderness, and Sandy to return to his
"fam'ly."

"Here's to--to--to--here's to it! Here's to the Little Half-a-pint!" The
men were standing in a row, their glasses high up, and dipping in every
angle and to every point of the compass, but they did not know the
baby's name; they did not even know its sex. And so in that moment,
without stopping to think, and without any time to spare, they spoke of
it as "it," and they named it Little Half-a-pint.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE QUESTION NONE COULD ANSWER.

How the Widow's heart had been beating all this time! How she waited,
and waited, and listened, and how often she sent Captain Tommy to the
door to tell her, if possible, how her baby fared among the half-wild
men of the camp.

How glad she was when she saw Sandy enter, all flurry and delight, as if
he had been the central figure in some great triumph. Then a bit of the
old sadness and cast of care swept over her face, and she nestled down
in the pillow and put up her two hands to hide a moment from the light.

The other two were too busy with the little Half-a-pint to notice her
trouble then. They laid it down in a cradle that had been made for
rocking and washing gold, and good little Bunker Hill sat by it, and
crossed her legs and took up her work, and went on sewing and singing to
herself, and swinging her leg that hung over, and rocking the cradle
with her foot in the old fashioned way when babies were born in the
leaves of the woods of the Wa