Year: 1878

I


when women were as scarce in that
country as they were in the early
days Of the settlement Of California ;
there was in fact but one woman in
the camp. She was young, of fine
appearance, great physical strength
and endurance and indomitable nerve.
Two years before she had left an un-
happy home in Wisconsin to become
the wife of a reckless dare devil
named jim Oaks, with whom she
had shared the viciss' tude Of long,
slow journey across tie intervening
plains. This man just missed being
ruffian through bis wife's influence
She loved him with noble devotion,
and, although he was incapable OF 3
like attachment, he loved her, toe,
after fashion of his own. She was
made much of By the camp; it would
have been sorry day for the miner
who should have shown any disre-
spect to Minerva Oaks.


The day before New Years dawn
ed lowering Toward the middle of
the afternoon huge clouds began to
loom in the northwest. A mournful
wind soughed in the gulches. The
miners, housing their picks, shovels
and pans, took their axes into the
neighboring bott om and set to wood
cutting with vengeance. All signs
portended one of those fierce, cold
storms that occasionally descend up
on the border, arresting torrents to
chains of ice and freezing even the
shaggy-coated buffaloes.


The wagons, loaded with freshly
chopped sticks of cottonwood and as
pen, 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 the darkness
came on; faster and faster fell the
snow. As the cold increased the
snow was condensed into fine parti-
cles that bit like needles into the
cheeks of belated miners struggling
toward their cabins. Still swelling
in volume the roar of the tempest ap.
peared to affect the earth as well as
the air; the plains and distant noun
tains were shaken and the ground
under the camp trembled like the
floors of a dwelling in a city when
heavy trucks roll by along the pave
ment; the heavens swirled gigantic
ally overhead; at length the tempest
became a hurricane. The volumes
OF pulverized snow in the atmosphere
were now SO dense and piercing and
the gusts were SO violent that it was
impossible to see even lighted win
dow at 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 the habit of com.
ing in late to supper, for which fault
his wife, who was not of complain
ing or haggling disposition, never re.
preached him.


Seven o'clock Mrs. Oaks fed the
FIRE from the ample supply of wood
which one of the wagons had brought
to her door, then stepped to the pane
of glass which formed the only win.
dow in the diggings, and essayed to
look out into the night. The glass
was caked with frost and covered on
the outside by a snowdrift. Signing,
he young wife returned to her seat
by the fire. She snuffed the candle
with pair of snuffers which Jim
Oaks had ingeniously carved out of
an antelope's horn for the last birth
day present, and then putting her
hand into the bosom of her dress she
drew out-what?


A well worn copy of the New Tes-
lament


There was something covert in the
way in which she brought this vol.
ume TO the light, and, thinking she
heard noise at the door, she thrust
it back again. Jim Oaks had some
how and somewhere acquired so rank
a detestation of the Holy Scriptures
that be could not bear to hear them
quoted from or even mentioned.
The sight of Bible affected him ex.
actly as the devil was described by
Pat O'Grady's grandfather to have
been affected by holy water.


Finding that the noise was moth
ing but the crunch of a settling drift
she opened the little book and began
to read:


For if ye forgive men your tres-
passes, your heavenly Father will al
so forgive you.


But if We forgive not men their
trespasses, neither will your Father
forgive your trespasses.


Come unto me, all We that are
heavy laden, and will give you
rest


Then said Jesus unto his disciples.
if any man will come after me, let
him deny himself, and take up his
cross and follow me.


| am the resurrection and the life:
be that believeth in me, though he |
were dead, yet shall be live; and who
soever liveth ard believeth in me
shall never die.


These passages, on which Minerva |
Oaks was accustomed to dwell. were
all marked in the New Testament
and underscored with pencil. High
spirited and able to handle a rifle or
revolver on occasion, she was a SIM
cere Christian and quiet in her ways.


She sat, with the Testament spread
open on her lap and the New Years
eve supper growing browner in front
of the hre, until nearly eight O'Clock.
Then, as a mighty throe of the storm
threatened to wrench the cabin from
the foundation, she started up with
cry:


Jim! Why. Jim was to be off at
Wild Swan Gulch this afternoon. He
was going to get some feathers for
New Years. Oh, God 1t is eight
O'Clock. And the storm ! How can
be ever find his way homs ?p


Springing to the door she lifted
the hickory latch and drew it toward
her. The mass of snow which had
been piled against it fell in and
across the floor. and the