Smith was gone; the episode was closed, and the men had resumed their interrupted work. Then, presently, the teacher called Mose and the older children to her assistance, and an arch was formed of stout saplings twined with hemlock and cedar. And when Stratton had returned and it had been set up on the finished floor, he helped to decorate it with flags and yards on yards of gay ribbon, in loops and bows and streamers. There were also, nodding under the smartest twigs, mysterious little packages wrapped in bright papers with fringed ends, so that Lem with increasing difficulty held his wonder. Garlands strung from the rafters, were studded with other flags and supported every variety of Japanese lantern. The day drew to a close. On the ashes of last year’s camp-fire, Mose kindled a new blaze, and the people gathered around it for a brief interval of rest. They discussed the gabled roof, the roomy balcony, and then the conditions of the soil. And afterwards Myers spun a grizzly yarn, rivaled by Laramie’s recital of the elk hunt from which he had lately returned. And the women, brought together from remote solitudes, exchanged small personalities, sure of a sympathetic ear. They took up the misfortunes of Slocum’s family, left without a head, and the fatal accident that had befallen young Girard, soothing his mother with a reminder of the good bargain she had made in selling the ranch, and the comfortable home she was to find with the teacher. But when the round moon looked over the high shoulder of the slope, and the lighted lanterns began to show blue or red or orange spheres along the edge of the clearing, and filled the cabin with a soft illumination, Eben brought his violin, and with various trials of the bow upon the strings, led the way into the building. Then, when Mill Thornton had danced a hornpipe, and all the young folk had warmed their blood to the tune of Money Musk, followed by a stirring jig, the teacher led them a new step, fitting to the music of the settlement the qualities of the cotillion. She came under the arch, and reaching, took one of the small flags. But it was not to Stratton that she gave it, but to Laramie, who stood frowning in the doorway. Laramie, who had not danced these many years. And to the astonishment of everybody the Canadian answered the salutation of her pretty head, and sticking the flag in his buttonhole, commenced with much shuffling of the cowskin boots, a series of gyrations and curvetings that filled the newer generation with amazement and delight.