“It’s her as did it,” said Pat Fadden; “an’ ’tain’t all she’s done.  Fhat d’ye tink she did dhis mornin’?  I was a-fixin’ me pork, jist as ivery other bye in camp allers does it, an’ jist then who should come along but hersilf.  I tuk off me pork, and comminced me breakfast, when sez she to me, sez she, ‘Ye don’t ate it widout gravy, do ye?’ ‘Gravy, is it?’ sez I.  ‘Nobody iver heard of gravy here,’ sez I.  ‘Thin it’s toime,’ sez she, an’ she poured off the fat, an’ crumbled a bit of cracker in the pan, an’ put in some wather, an’ whin I thought the ould thing ’ud blow up for the shteam it made, she poured the gravy on me plate—­yes, she did.”

There were but a few men at Tough Case who were not willing to have their daily fare improved, and as Mrs. Blizzer did not make a tour of instruction, the boys made it convenient to stand near Mrs. Blizzer’s own fire, and see the mysteries of cooking.

As a natural consequence, Sim Ripson began to have inquiries for articles which he had never heard of, much less sold, and he found a hurried trip to ’Frisco was an actual business necessity.

As several miners took their departure, after one of these culinary lessons, Arkansas Bill, with a mysterious air, took Fourteenth Street aside.

“Forty,” said he, in a most appealing tone, “ken you see what ’twas about?  She kep’ a-lookin’ at my left han’ all the time, ez ef she thort there wuz somethin’ the matter with it.  Mebbe she thort I was tuckin’ biscuits up my sleeves, like keerds in a live game. Ken you see any thin’ the matter with that paw?”

The aristocratic young reprobate gave the hand a critical glance, and replied: 

“Perhaps she thought you didn’t know what buttons and buttonholes were made for.”

“Thunder!” exclaimed the miner, with an expression of countenance which Archimedes might have worn when he made his famous discovery.

From that day forward the gentleman from Arkansas instituted a rigid buttonhole inspection before venturing from his hut, besides purchasing a share in a new clothesbroom.

“‘Pears to me I don’t see Blizzer playin’ keerds with you fellers ez much ez he wuz,” remarked Uncle Ben one evening at the store.

“No,” said Flipp, the champion euchre-player, with a sad face and a strong oath.  “He used to lose his ounces like a man.  But t’other night I knocked at his door, and asked him to come down an’ hev a han’.  He didn’t say nothin’, but she up an’ sed he’d stopped playin’.  I reely tuk it to be my duty to argy with her, an’ show her how tough it wuz to cut off a feller’s enjoyment; but she sed ’twas too high-priced fur the fun it fetched.”

“That ain’t the wust, nuther,” said Topjack Flipp’s usual partner.  “There wuz Arkansas Bill an’ Jerry Miller, thet used to be ez fond of ther little game ez anybody.  Now, ev’ry night they go up thar to Blizzer’s, an’ jest do nothin’ but sit aroun’ an’ talk.  It’s enough to make a marble statoo cuss to see good men spiled that way.”