Vance applied himself industriously to his paper, widening his acquaintanceship among the people of Gold Bluff, solicited advertisements, and succeeded far beyond his expectations. His friends complimented him on the neat appearance of the Prospector. It was filled with excellent reading matter, and its circulation was constantly increasing. Another heavy snow storm during the holidays rendered the roads quite impassable and finally work on Gray Rocks was necessarily suspended, nor was it resumed until late the following spring. [193] In the meantime matters were progressing slowly in the great Thief River Valley. There had been no meeting of the Waterville Town Company. Homer Winthrop and Marcus Donald regularly opened up the Town Company’s office every morning and closed it every evening. Time hung heavy on their hands. Thus passed the winter months away in weary waiting for a boom in real estate that seemed stubborn and would not come. Dick Ballard called one afternoon in early April, and suggested that his finances were running rather low, and if it would be convenient he would like a check for Homer Winthrop’s board. 8201 Winthrop was a proud fellow and disliked to admit that he was, in the ordinary parlance, “broke.” Homer suggested to Ballard the advisability of purchasing a few lots in Eagle’s Addition to Waterville. “Or,” said Winthrop, “We can let you have a couple of lots adjoining your hotel. You’ve been a good friend of ours and we would let you have them cheap, awfully cheap.” Dick Ballard sat back in his chair, inserted his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, and said: “Now, lookee here, Winthrop, I have been your friend, haven’t I?” Winthrop acknowledged that he had. “I’ve been your friend, Mr. Donald, haven’t I?” said Ballard, pointing his index finger straight at Donald. “I think you have,” replied Donald, laughingly. “Yes, I’ve been Colonel Alexander’s friend; I’ve been General Ira House’s friend; I’ve been B. Webster Legal’s friend; in fact, gentlemen, I’ve been a friend to the [194] Waterville Town Company from start to finish.” He brought his hand clown upon the table in front of him with threat vehemence as he made this remark. “Yes sir,” he went on, “I have been a friend to you and to your enterprise, but when it comes, Homer Winthrop, to selling your uncle any Waterville town lots, why, you don’t know me. Oh, no; Dick Ballard usually knows which side his bread’s buttered on, and, between ourselves, I wouldn’t give you a square meal of victuals for any lot you’ve got in Eagle’s addition. No, sir, Mr. Winthrop, money is what I want, and pardon me for observing, money is what I, politely, but nevertheless firmly, insist that you must produce—if not to-day, perhaps tomorrow, and liquidate that little matter of board which has now been running for some three months.”