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