The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1878-02-16
From the New York Herald
j / NJ Q A K s.
How He Found the Gospel.

One Christmas Eve strange tragedy
was enacted in the far northwest. AWAY
up in Montana mining camp was es-
tablished in days when women were as
scarce in that country as they were in
the early days of the settlement of Cali
tornia; there was, in fact, but one woman
IN the camp. She was young, of fine APP
pearance, great physical strength and en-
durance, and indomitable nerve. Two
years before she had left an unhappy
home in Wisconsin to become the wife OF
a reckless daredevil named Jim Oaks,
with whom she shared the vicissitudes
of long, slow journey across the plains.
This man just missed being a ruffian
through his wife's influence. She loved
him with noble devotion, and, although
he was incapable of like attachment,
he loved her, too after fashion of his
own. She was made much of by the
camp; it would have been a sorry day
tor the miner who should have shown
any disrespect to Minerva Oaks.
The day before Christmas dawned
lowering. Toward the middle of the
afternoon huge, numbering clouds began
to loom in the northwest. A mournful
wind soughed through the gulches. The
miners, housing their picks, shovels and
pans, took their axes into the neighbOr-
ing bottoms and set at wood cutting
with vengeance. All signs portended
one of those fierce cold storms that occa-
sionally descend upon the border, ar
resting torrents in chains of ice, and freez-
ing even the shaggy-coated buff;does.
The wagons, heaped with freshly
chopped sticks of cottonwood and aspen.
had hardly distributed their loads at
nightfall when the wind, changing to the
northeast, grew stronger and brought
snow. Higher and higher it rose as
darkness came on; faster and faster fell
the snow. As the cold increased the
snow was condensed into fine particles
that bit like needles into the cheeks OF
5elated miners struggling toward their
cabins. Still swelling in volume the
roar of the tempest appeared to affect
the earth as well as the air; the plains
and distant mountains were shaken, and
tae ground under the camp trembled
like the floors of dwelling in a city
when heavy trucks roll by along the
pavement; the heavens swirled gigan-
tically overhead, and at length the tenn
pest became hurricane The volumes
of pulyerized snow in the atmosphere
were now SO dense and piercing, and the
gusts were SO violent that it was impos-
sible to see even a lighted window at a
a few yards distance.
1t was considerably past Jim Oaks
supper time. But as Oaks was the only
man in the camp who didn't have to cook
his own meals, he had lapsed into habit
Of coming in late to supper, for which
fault his wife, who was rot of a COM
planning or nagging disposition, never
reproached him.
Seven O'Clock. Mrs Oaks fed the fire
from the ample supply of wood which
one OF The wagons had dropped at her
door, then stepped to the pane of glass
which formed the only window in the
dlggings, and essayed to look out into
the night. The glass was caked inside
with frost and covered on the outside by
snowdrift. Signing, the young wife
returned to her seat by the fire. She
snutied the candle with a pair of shutters
which Jim Oaks had ingeniously carved
out OF an antelope's horn for her last
birthday present, and then putting her
hand into the bosom of her dress she
drew out-what2
A well worn copy Of the New Tesla
ment.
There was something covert in the
manner in which she brought this vol
ume into the light, and, thinking she
heard noise at the door, she thrust it
back again. Jim Oaks had somehow
and somewhere acquired so rank de
testation of the Holy Scriptures that he
could not bear 70 hear them quoted from
or even mentioned The sight of a Bible
affected him exactly as the devil was de-
scribed by Pat O'Grady's grandfather to
have been affected by holy water.
Finding that the noise was nothing
but the crunching of a settling drift she
opened the little book and began 10
read
For i ye forgive men their trespasses,
Your Father viii also forgive YOU.
But il We forgive not men their trespasses,
passes.
Come unto me, ali We thar labor and are
heavy laden, and | will give YOU rest.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples. If any
man VIII come after me, let him DENY him
sell and take up his cross and follow me.
an 1tlS resurrection ana the life ne RI az
oeheveth IN ne. though he were dead. vel
snail he live; and whosoever ive1b and he
heyeth IN me shall never die
These passages, on which Minerva
Oaks was accustomed TO dwell. were ali
marked in her New Testament. and
xnderscored with q pencil. Higb
spirited and able to handle a rife or a
revolver on occasion, she was a sincere
Christian in most respects, and .uiet in
her ways.
She sat, with the Testament spread
open on her lap and the CHRISTMAS eve
supper growing browner ia front of the
hre, until nearly eight o clock Then, as
a mighty throe of the storm threatened
to wrench the cabin from It's founda-
tlons, she started UP with the cry:
jim! Why, Jim was to be off at Wild
Swan Gulch this afternoon. He was go
ing TO get Us some feathers for Christ
mas. All, God. Il is eight o'clock.
And the storm How ever can he find
his way home"
Springing to the door, she lifted the
latch and drew it toward her. The mass
OF snow which had been piled against it
Tell IN and streamed across the floor, and
the blast, driving in more snow extin-
gulshed the candle.
Hahp