Suddenly, above all the noise, they heard a cracked soprano voice singing with some unauthorized flatting and sharping:

"Another six days' work is done, Another Sabbath is begun.

Return, my soul, enjoy thy rest, Improve the day thy God has blessed."

Redwing stopped, and dropped his head to one side, as if expecting more; Flipp stopped; everybody did. Arkansas Bill, whose good habits had been laid aside late Saturday afternoon, exclaimed:

"Well, I'll be blowed!"

Bill didn't mean anything of the sort, but the tone in which he said it expressed precisely the feeling of the crowd. The voice was again heard:

"Oh, that our thoughts and thanks may rise, As grateful incense to the skies; And draw from heaven that sweet repose Which none but he that feels it knows."

Redwing turned abruptly on his heel.

"Keep the ounces," said he. "Ther's an old woman to hum that thinks a sight o' me--I reckon, myself, I'm good fur somethin' besides fillin' a hole in the ground."

That night Sim Ripson complained that it had been the poorest Sunday he had ever had at Tough Case; the boys drank, but it was a sort of nerveless, unbusinesslike way that Sim Ripson greatly regretted; and very few bets were settled in Sim Ripson's principal stock in trade.

When Sim finally learned the cause of his trouble, he promptly announced his intention of converting Mrs. Blizzer to common sense, and as he had argued Uncle Ben, first into a perfect frenzy and then into silence, the crowd considered Mrs. Blizzer's faith doomed.

Monday morning, bright and early, as men with aching heads were taking their morning bitters, Mrs. Blizzer appeared at Sim Ripson's store, and purchased a bar of soap.

"Boys heard ye singin' yesterday," said Sim.

"Yes?" inquired Mrs. Blizzer.

"Yes--all of 'em delighted," said Sim, gallantly. "But ye don't believe in no sich stuff, I s'pose, do ye?"

"What stuff?" asked Mrs. Blizzer.

"Why, 'bout heaven an' hell, an' the Bible, an' all them things. Do ye know what the Greek fur hell meant? An' do ye know the Bible's all the time contradictin' itself?" I can show ye--"

"I tell you what I _do_ know, Mr. Ripson," said the woman; "I know some things in my heart that no mortal bein' never told me, an' they couldn't be skeered out by all the dictionaries an' commentators a-goin; that's what I know."

And Mrs. Blizzer departed, while the astonished theologian sheepishly admitted that he owed drinks to the crowd.

While the ex-deacon, Uncle Ben, was trying to determine to go home, he found quite a pretty nugget that settled his mind, and he announced that same night, at the store, that all his mining property was for sale, as he was going back East.

"I'll go with you, Uncle Ben," said Fourteenth Street.

The crowd was astounded; men of Fourteenth Street's calibre seldom had pluck enough to go to the mines, and their getting away, or their doing _any_ thing that required manliness, was of still more unfrequent occurrence.

"I know it," said the young man, translating the glances which met his eye. "You fellows think I don't amount to much, anyway. Perhaps I don't.

I came out here because I fell out with a girl I thought I loved. She acted like a fool, and I made up my mind _all_ women were fools. But that wife of Blizzer's has shown me more about true womanliness than all the girls I ever knew, and I'm going back to try it over again."

One morning a small crowd of early drinkers at Sim Ripson's dropped their glasses, yet did not go briskly out to work as usual. In fact, they even hung aloof, in a most ungentlemanly manner, from Jerry Miller, who had just stood treat, and both these departures from the usual custom indicated that something unusual was the matter. Finally, Topjack remarked:

"He's a stranger, an' typhus is a bad thing to hev aroun', but _somethin'_ 'ort to be done for him. 'Taint the thing to ax fur volunteers, fur it's danger without no chance of pleasin' excitement. We might throw keerds aroun', one to each feller in the camp, and him as gets ace of spades is to tend to the poor cuss."

"I think Jerry ought to go himself," argued Flipp.

"He's been exposed already, by lookin' in to the feller's shanty, an's prob'bly hurt ez bad as he's goin' to be."

"I might go," said Sim Ripson, who, in his character of barkeeper, had to sustain a reputation for bravery and public spirit, "but 'twouldn't do to shut up the store, ye know, an' specially the bar--nobody'd stan'

it."

"Needn't trouble yerselves," said Arkansas Bill, who had entered during the conversation; "_she's_ thar."

"Thunder!" exclaimed Topjack, frowning, and then looking sheepish.

"Yes," continued Bill; "she stopped me ez I wuz comin' along, an' sed she'd jist heerd of it, an' was a-goin'. I tol' her ther' wuz men enough in camp to look out fur him, but she said she reckoned she could do it best. Wants some things from 'Frisco, though, an' I'm a-goin' for 'em."

And Arkansas Bill departed, while the men at Sim Ripson's sneaked guiltily down to the creek.

For many days the boys hung about the camp's single street every morning, unwilling to go to work until they had seen Mrs. Blizzer appear in front of the sick man's hut. The boys took turns at carrying water, making fires, and serving Mrs. Blizzer generally, and even paid handsomely for the chance.

One morning Mrs. Blizzer failed to appear at the usual hour. The boys walked about nervously--they smoked many pipes, and took hurried drinks, and yet she did not appear. The boys looked suggestingly at her husband, and he himself appeared to be anxious; but being one of the shiftless kind, he found anxiety far easier than action.

Suddenly Arkansas Bill remarked, "I can't stan' it any longer," and walked rapidly toward the sick man's hut, and knocked lightly on the door, and looked in. There lay the sick man, his eyes partly open, and on the ground, apparently asleep, and with a very purple face, lay Mrs.

Blizzer.

"Do somethin' for her," gasped the sick man; "give her a chance, for God's sake. I don't know how long I've been here, but I kind o' woke up las' night ez ef I'd been asleep; she wuz a-standin' lookin' in my eyes, an' hed a han' on my cheek. 'I b'lieve it's turned,' sez she, still a-lookin'. After a bit she sez: 'It's turned sure,' an' all of a sudden she tumbled. I couldn't holler--I wish to God I could."

[Illustration: ARKANSAS BILL KNOCKED LIGHTLY ON THE DOOR, AND LOOKED IN.

THERE LAY THE SICK MAN, HIS EYES PARTLY OPEN. AND ON THE GROUND, APPARENTLY ASLEEP, AND WITH PURPLE FACE, LAY MRS. BLIZZER.]

Arkansas Bill opened the door, and called Blizzer, and the crowd followed Blizzer, though at a respectful distance. In a moment Blizzer reappeared with his wife, no longer fat, in his arms, and Arkansas Bill hurried on to open Blizzer's door. The crowd halted, and didn't know what to do, until Moosoo, the little Frenchman, lifted his hat, upon, which every man promptly uncovered his head.

A moment later Arkansas Bill was on Sim Ripson's horse, and galloping off for a doctor, and Sim Ripson, who had always threatened sudden death to any one touching his beloved animal, saw him, and refrained even from profanity. The doctor came, and the boys crowded the door to hear what he had to say.

"Hum!" said the doctor, a rough miner himself, "new arrival--been fat--worn out--rainy season just coming on--not much chance. No business to come to California--ought to have had sense enough to stay home."

"Look a' here, doctor," said Arkansas Bill, indignantly; "she's got this way a-nussin' a feller--stranger, too--that ev'ry _man_ in camp wuz afeard to go nigh."

"Is that so?" asked the doctor, in a tone considerably softened; "then she shall get well, if my whole time and attention can bring it about."

The sick woman lay in a burning fever for days, and the boys industriously drank her health, and bet heavy odds on her recovery. No singing was 'allowed anywhere in camp, and when an old feud broke out afresh between two miners, and they drew their pistols, a committee was appointed to conduct them at least two miles from camp, before allowing them to shoot.

The Sundays were allowed to pass in the commonplace quietness peculiar to the rest of the week, and men who were unable to forego their regular weekly spree were compelled to emigrate. Sim Ripson, though admitting that the change was decidedly injurious to his business, declared that he would cheerfully be ruined in business rather than have that woman disturbed; he was ever heard to say that, though of course there was no such place as heaven, there _ought_ to be, for such woman.

One evening, as the crowd were quietly drinking and betting, Arkansas Bill suddenly opened the door of the store, and cried: "She's mendin'!

The fever's broke--'sh-h!"

"My treat, boys," said Sim Ripson, hurrying glasses and favorite bottles on the bar.

The boys were just clinking glasses with Blizzer himself, who, during his wife's absence and illness, had drifted back to the store, when Arkansas Bill again opened the door.

"She's a-sinkin', all of a sudden!" he gasped. "Blizzer, yer wanted."