Three cheers were then given to Yates and three to Jim, and, the spell once dissolved, they went noisily back to the cabin and their supper.

That evening Jim was very silent.  When they were about lying down for the night, he took his blankets, reached into the chest, and withdrew something that he found there and immediately hid from sight, and said that he was going to sleep in his house.  The moon was rising from behind the trees when he emerged from his cabin.  He looked up at the tall skeleton of his future home, then approached it, and swinging himself from beam to beam, did not pause until he had reached the cupola.  Boards had been placed across it for the convenience of the framers, and on these Jim threw his blankets.  Under the little package that was to serve as his pillow he laid his Bible, and then, with his eyes upon the stars, his heart tender with the thoughts of the woman for whom he was rearing a home, and his mind oppressed with the greatness of his undertaking, he lay a long time in a waking dream.  “If so be He cares,” said Jim to himself—­“if so be He cares for a little buildin’ as don’t make no show ‘longside o’ His doin’s up thar an’ down here, I hope He sees that I’ve got this Bible under my head, an’ knows what I mean by it.  I hope the thing’ll strike ‘im favorable, an’ that He knows, if He cares, that I’m obleeged to ’im.”

At last, slumber came to Jim—­the slumber of the toiler, and early the next morning he was busy in feeding his helpers, who had a long day’s walk before them.  When, at last, they were all ferried over the river, and had started on their homeward way, Jim ascended to the cupola again, and waved his bandanna in farewell.

Two days afterward, Sam Yates left his host, and rowed himself down to the landing in the same canoe by which he had reached Number Nine.  He found his conveyance waiting, according to arrangement, and before night was housed among his friends at Sevenoaks.

While he had been absent in the woods, there had been a conference among his relatives and the principal men of the town, which had resulted in the determination to keep him in Sevenoaks, if possible, in the practice of his profession.

To Yates, the proposition was the opening of a door into safety and peace.  To be among those who loved him, and had a certain pride in him; to be released from his service to Mr. Belcher, which he felt could go no farther without involving him in crime and dishonor; to be sustained in his good resolutions by the sympathy of friends, and the absence of his city companions and temptations, gave him the promise of perfect reformation, and a life of modest prosperity and genuine self-respect.

He took but little time in coming to his conclusion, and his first business was to report to Mr. Belcher by letter.  He informed that gentleman that he had concluded to remain in Sevenoaks; reported all his investigations on his way thither from New York; inclosed Jim’s statement concerning the death of a pauper in the woods; gave an account of the disinterment of the pauper’s bones in his presence; inclosed the money unused in expenses and wages, and, with thanks for what Mr. Belcher had done in helping him to a reform, closed his missive in such a manner as to give the impression that he expected and desired no further communication.