The reception lasted three hours and the account of it in the paper next day covered several columns. The impression it left on Jim was pleasing, but confusing. The single immediate and pleasant result was when the local lumberman, learning that Hartigan wished to erect a stable for his own team, volunteered to send round one thousand feet of the special siding, of which he was exclusive agent, together with the necessary amount of tar paper, on condition that the stable should bear the signboard: ------------------------------------- | SQUELCHE'S SPECIAL MATCHED SIDING | | JOHN JOHNSON, SOLE AGENT | ------------------------------------- So the siding came and Jim built the stable with his own hands and gloried in every nail as he drove it. Midnight was thereupon withdrawn from a livery stable and installed with due pride and pomp. CHAPTER XLVIII The Fork in the Trail The reception was over. Jim and Belle had supped at Aunt Collins's and were back again in the cottage, sitting by the kitchen stove, in which Jim had just kindled a blazing fire, for the evenings were cold. They were glad to be together again by themselves, and to talk things over. Jim put a new block in the stove; then, sitting down, remarked: "For a capitalist who contemplates buying up part of the town, securing a new railroad, and cornering a township of gold ore, this is quite a modest layout." "Now while it's fresh," she replied, "let's have the whole thing; especially the invitations." She took paper and wrote them down as he recited them. Then, with a good deal of shrewdness, she proceeded to appraise one by one. The gold mine, the railroad, and the livery barn she treated with a joyous laugh; she liked them as symptoms. The town lot matter was worth looking into. As for the invitations to preach, compared with the Presbyterians, the Evangelicals were a larger body; but the Congregationalists, much smaller, were more solid. The last had a fine church with a strong membership of well-to-do men, but they also had an able preacher of their own particular doctrines, so that Belle gave preference to the Evangelicals. "We must concentrate our big guns on them, Jim; get out your best sermon, the one on 'Show thyself a man' (1 Kings II:2). Keep that for the big crowd in the evening. Next Sunday, at the Congregational Church you can give them the same thing, for it will be a different crowd; but at night, why not give them your sermon on 'Kindness' that made such a hit in Cedar Mountain." "Well, where does the Salvation Army come in, Belle?"