rs arrived, Shock's heart was full to overflowing
with gratitude, and, when a little later he received notice that a
cabinet organ had arrived at the railroad depot, he felt that the
difficulties and trials of a missionary's life were few and small in
comparison with the triumphs and rewards.

At length everything was in place and the building ready for the
opening. The preparations for this great event were in the hands of a
committee, of which The Kid was chairman; the decorations were left to
Ike and Perault; the programme was left to The Kid, assisted by Marion,
who had been persuaded not only to sing, herself, but had agreed to
train the school children in some action songs. There was to be a grand
supper, of course,--nothing Western would be complete without that
feature,--and in addition to the ordinary speeches and musical numbers
there was to be a nigger-minstrel show with clog-dancing furnished by
the miners and lumbermen from the Pass, at Shock's urgent invitation.
The whole affair was to be wound up by a grand promenade headed by
young Malcolm Forbes, son of a Highland chief, a shy young fellow whom
Shock had dug up from a remote valley, and who was to appear in full
Highland costume with his pipes. Small wonder that the whole community,
from the Fort to the Pass, was tingling with delighted anticipation.
Such an event was not only important of itself, but it was hailed as
the inauguration of a new era in the country, for with church, school,
library, and club they would be abreast of the most advanced Eastern
civilisation.

Not only were the people of the Loon Lake district stirred with
interest in the opening of their new building, but to a far greater
extent than they knew their confidence and even their affection had
gathered about the man to whose energy the whole enterprise was due.
During these months they had come to rely upon his judgment as a man of
affairs, to trust him for his true human heart, and to regard him with
reverence as one touched with a spirit unlike that of the world with
which they were familiar--a spirit of generous sympathy with them in
all their multitudinous trials and difficulties, a spirit that made him
think nothing of himself and much of them. He represented to them
religion in a manner at once winning and impressive, as few of them had
ever seen it represented before.

At length the great day came, and with it the gathering of the people
from all parts far and near. A fe