"Come on," answered Jim, distraught and wild. "Come down to camp!
Somebody's playin' us a trick!"

Again they shut the pup inside, and then they fairly ran down the
trail, through the darkness, to the town below.

A number of men were standing in the street, among them the teamster
and Field, the father of Borealis. They were joking, laughing, wasting
time.

"Boys," cried Jim, as he hastened towards the group, "has any one seen
little Skeezucks? Some one's played a trick and took him off!
Somebody's been to the cabin and stole my little boy!"

"Stole him?" said Field. "Why, where was you and Keno?"

"Down to Doc's to get some milk. He wanted bread and milk," Jim
explained, in evident anguish. "You fellows might have seen, if any
one fetched him down the trail. You're foolin'. Some of you took him
for a joke!"

"It wouldn't be no joke," answered Lufkins, the teamster. "We 'ain't
got him, Jim, on the square."

"Of course we 'ain't got him. We 'ain't took him for no joke," said
Field. "Nobody'd take him away like that."

"Why don't we ring the bar of steel we used for a bell," suggested one
of the miners. "That would fetch the men--all who 'ain't gone back on
shift."