Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 March 1919 — North of Fifty-Three [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

North of Fifty-Three

SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I—The story open® tn th® town of Granville Ontario, where Mis® Hazel Weir Is employed as a stenographer in th® office of Harrington and Bush. She is engaged to Jack Barrow, a' young real estate agent, and the wedding day is set. While walking with him ohe Sunday they Xneet Mr. Bush, Hasel’s employer, who for the first time seems to notice her attractiveness. Shortly afterward, at his request, she becomes his private stenographer. After three months Mr. Bush proposes marriage, which Hazel declines, and after a stormy scene In the office Hazel leaves her employment, Mr. Bush warn Ip g her h® would make her sorry for refusing him. CHAPTER IT—Bush makes an effort, by a gift of flowers, to compromise Hazel in 'the minds of her friends. She returns them. The next day Bush is thrown from his hor®e and fatally hurt. He sends for 'Hazel, who, refuses to see him before he dies. Three days afterward it is announced that he left a legacy of $5,000 to Hazel, “in reparation for any wrong I may have done her.” Hazel recognizes at once what construction will be put upon the words. Bush had his revenge. CHAPTER lll—Jack Barrow, In a fit of jealous rage, demands from Hazel an explanation of Bush’s action. Hazel ■ pride is hurt, and she refuse®. Th® engagement Is broken and Hazel determines to leave Granville. She sees an advertisement for a school teacher at Cariboo Meadows. British Columbia, and secures the situation. ’ CHAPTER IV—Cariboo Meadows is In a wild part of British Columbia and Hasel. shortly after her arrival, loses her way while walking in th® woods. She wanders until night, when, attracted by the light of a campfire, she turns to it. hoping to find somebody who will guide her home. At the fire she recognizes a character known to Cariboo Meadows as "Roaring Bill Wagstaff." who had Been her at her boarding house there. He fjromlses to take her home !n the mornnr, but she Is compelled to spend tns night in the woods. • CHAPTER V—They start next day. TTazel supposes, for Cariboo Meadows, but Wagstaff finally admits he is taking her to his cabin in the mountains. He Is respectful and considerate and Hazel, though protesting Indignantly, is helpless and has to accompany him. CHAPTER Vl—At the cabin Wagstaff provides Hazel with clothing which had been left by tourists. There they pass th® winter. Wagstaff tells her he loves her, but in her indignation at her abduction” sift refuses to.listen to him. CHAPTER Vll—With the coming of spring Hazel insists that Wagstaff take her out of the mountains. He endeavors to persuade her to marry him and stay, but on h®r persistent refusal, he accompanies her to Bella Coola, from where •he can proceed to Vancouver. CHAPTER VIII—On parting. Wagstaff gives Hazel a package which she discover® later contain® $1,200 and a map which will enable her to find her cabin if she desire® to go back. At Vancouver Hazel plan® to return to Granville. but on the train realizesthat she loves Wagstaff, and decide® to go to him. She leaves the train at the first stop.

CHAPTER IX. An Ending and a Beginning. Unconsciously, by natural asslmllaJtion, so to speak, Hazel Weir had abtsorbed more woodcraft than she realized In her over-winter stay In the high latitudes. Bill Wagstaff had once told her that few people know just what they can do until they are compelled to try, and upon this, her second Journey northward, the truth of that statement grew more patent with each passing day. So trailing north with old Limping George, his fat klootch, and two halfgTOwn Siwash youths, Hazel bore steadily across country, driving as straight as the rolling land allowed, for the cabin that snuggled In a woodsy basin close up to the peaks that guard Pine River pass. There came a day when brief uncertainty became sure knowledge at sight of a L-shaped body of water glimmering through the flre-thinned spruce. Her heart fluttered for a minute. Like a homing bird, by grace of the rude imap and Limping George, she had icome tp the lake where the Indians lhad camped In the winter, and she could have gone blindfolded from the Jake to Roaring Bill’s cabin. . She urged her pony through the .light timber growth and across the little meadows where the rank grass iand strange varicolored flowers were 'springing up under the urge of the •warm spring sun. Twenty minutes brought her to the clearing. Silk and Satin and Nigger, loafing at the sunny lend of the stable, pricked up their ears at ,her approach, and she knew that Roaring Bill was home again. She tied Jher horse to a sapling and drew nearer. The cabin door stood wide. A brief panic seized her. She felt a sudden shrinking, a wild desire for headlong flight. But it passed. She knew that for good or ill she would never turn back.

On the soft turf her footsteps gave forth no sound. ShQ gained the door(way as silently as a shadow. Roaring Bill faced the end of the long room, but ;lje did not see her, for he was slumped jin the big chair before the fireplace, !hls chin sunk on his breast, staring .straight ahead with absent eyes. In all the days she had been with him she had never seen him look like that. That weary, hopeless expression, the wry twist of his lips, wrung hej heart and drew from her a yearning little whisper. “Bill!” z He came out of his chair like a panifher. And when his eyes beheld her in the doorway he stiffened in- his tracks, staring, seeing, yet reluctant to believe the evidence of his vision. His brows wrinkled. He put up one hand and absently ran it over his cheek. «I wonder if I’ve got to the point of Seeing things,” he said slowly. "Say, little person, is it your astral body, or is it really you?” * “Of course it’s me,” she cried tremulously, and with fine; disregard for her habitual preciseness of speech. . He came up close to her and pinched

by Bertrand W. Sinclair

CcmMu %

her arm with a gentle pressure, as if he had to feel the material substance of her before he could believe. And then he put his hands on her shoulders, as he had done on the steamer that day at Bella Coola, and looked long and earnestly at her —looked till a crimson wave rose from her neck to the roots of her dark, glossy hair. And with that Roaring Bill took her In his arms, cuddled her up close to him, and kissed her, not once but many times. “You really and truly came back, little person,” he murmured. “Lord, Lord —and yet they say the day of miracles Is past.” “You didn’t think I would, did you?” she asked, with her blushing face snuggled against his sturdy breast. “Still, you gave me a map so that I could find the place.” “That was just taking a desperate chance. No, I never expected to see you again, unless by accident,” he said honestly. “And I’ve been crying the hurt of it to the stars all the way back from the coast. I only got here yesterday. I .pretty near passed up com-

Ing back at all. I didn’t see how I could stay, with everything to remind me of you. Say, but it looked like a lonesome hole. I used to love this place—but I didn’t love It last night. It seemed about the most cheerless and depressing spot I could have picked. I think I should have ended up by touching a match to the whole business and hitting the trail to some new country. I don’t know. Fm not weak. But I don’t think I could have Stayed here long.” They stood silent In the doorway for a long Interval, Bill holding her close to him, and she blissfully contented, careless and unthinking of the future, so filled was she with joy of the present. “Do you love me much, little person?” Bill asked, after a little. She nodded vigorous assent. “Why?” he desired to know. “Oh, just because —because you’re a man, I suppose,” she returned mischievously. “The world’s chuck-full of men,” Bill observed.

“Surely,” she looked up at him. “But they’re not like you. Maybe it’s bad policy to start in flattering you, but there aren’t many men of your type, Billy-boy; big and strong and capable, and at the same time kind and patient and able to understand things, things a woman can’t always put into words. Last fall you hurt my pride and nearly scared me to death by carrying me off In that lawless, headlong fashion of yours. But you seemed to know just how I felt about it, and you played fairer than any man I ever knew would have done under the same circumstances. I didn’t realize it until I got back into the civilized world. And then all at once I found myself longing for you—and for these old forests and the mountains and all. So I came back.” “Wise girl,” he kissed her. “You’ll never be sorry, I hope. It took some nerve, too. It’s a long trail from here to the outside. But this north country —It gets in your blood —If your blood’s red —and I don’t think there’s any water in your veins, little person. Lord! I’m afraid to let go of you for fear you’ll vanish into nothing, like a Hindu fakir stunt.”

"No fear,” Hazel laughed. "I’ve got a pony tied to a tree out there, and four Siwashes and a camp outfit over by Crooked lake. If I should vanish I’d leave a plain trail for you to follow.” “Well,” BUI said, after a short silence, “it’s a hundred and forty miles to a Hudson’s Bay post where there’s a mission and a preacher. Let’s be on our way and get married. Then we’ll come back here and spend our honeymoon, eh?” She nodded assent. “Are you game to start In half an hour?” he asked, holding her off at arm’s length admiringly. “rm game for anything, or I wouldn’t be here,” she retorted. "All right. You just watch an exhibition of speedy packing,” Bill declared—and straightway fell to work. Hazel followed him about, helping to get the kyaks packed with food. They caught the three horses, and Bill stripped the pony of Hazel’s riding gear and placed & pack on him. Then he-put her saddle on Silk. • “He’s your private mount henceforth.” Bill told her laughingly. “Ton’ll

ride him with more pleasure than yon did the first time, won’t you?” Presently they were ready to start, planning to ride past Limping George ■ camp and tell him whither they were bound. Hazel was already mounted. Roaring BUI paused, with hl® toe in the stirrup, and smiled whimsically at her over his horse’s back. “I forgot something,” said he, and went back into the cabin —whence he shortly emerged, bearing In his hand a sheet of paper upon which something was written In bold, angular characters. This he pinned on the door. Hazel rode Silk cldbe to see what it might be, and laughed amusedly, for Bill had written: “Mr. and Mrs. William Wagstaff will be at home to their friends on and after June the twentieth.” He swung up into his saddle, and they jogged across the open. In the edge of the first timber they pulled up and looked backward at the cabin drowsing silently under Its sentinel tree. Roaring Bill reached out one arm and laid it across Hazel’s shoulders.

“Little person,” he said soberly, “here’s the end of one trail, and the beginning of another —the longest trail either of us has ever faced. How does it look to you?” She caught his fingers with a quick, hard pressure. “All trails look alike to me,” she said, with shining eyes, “just so we hit them together.” “What day of the month is this, Bill?” Hazel asked. “Haven’t the least idea,” he answered lazily. “Time Is of no consequence to me at the present moment." They were sitting on the warm earth before their cabin, their backs propped comfortably against a log, watching the sun sink behind a distant skyline all notched with purple mountains upon which snow still lingered. Beside them a smudge dribbled a wisp of smoke sufficient to ward off a pestilential swarm of mosquitoes and black flies. In the clear, thin air of that altitude the occasional voices of what bird and animal life was abroad In the wild broke Into the evening hush with astonishing distinctness—a lone gbose winged above in wide circles, uttering his harsh and solitary cry. He had lost his mate, Bill told her. Far off In the bush a fox barked. The evening flight of the wild ducks from Crooked lake to a chain of swamps passed intermittently over the clearing with a sibilant whistle of wings. To all the wild things, no less than to the two who watched and listened to the forest traffic, it was a land of peace and plenty.

"We ought to go up to the swamps tomorrow add rustle some duck eggs,” Bill observed Irrelevantly—his eyes following the arrow flight of a mallard flock. But his wife was counting audibly, checking the days off on her fingers. “This is July the twenty-fifth, Mr. Roaring Bill Wagstaff,” she announced. “We’ve been married exactly one month.” “A whole month?” he echoed, in mock astonishment. “You don’t say so? Seems like it was only day before yesterday, little person.” - “I wonder,” she snuggled up a little closer to him, “If any two people were ever as happy as we’ve been?” Bill put his arm across her shoulders and tilted her head back so that he could smile down Into her face. "They have been a bunch of golden days, haven’t they?” he whispered. “You won’t forget this joy time if we ever do hit real hard going, will you, Hazel?” “The bird of ill omen croaks again,” she reproved. “Why should we come to hard going, as you call it?” “We shouldn’t,” he declared. “But most people do. And we might. One never can tell wltat’s' ahead. By and by when the novelty wears off—maybe you’ll get sick of seeing the same old Bill around and nobody else. You see, I’ve always been on my good behavior with you. Do you like me a lot?” His arm tightened with a quick and

powerful pressure, then suddenly relaxed to let her lean back and stare up at him tenderly. “I ought to punish you for saying things like that,” she pouted. “Only I can’t think of any effective method. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof —and there is no evil in our days.” “Amen,” he whispere4 softly—and they fell to silent contemplation of the rose and gold that spread in a wonderful blazon over all the western sky. < “Twenty-fifth of July, eh?” he mused presently. “Summer’s half gone already. I didn’t realize it. We ought to be stirring pretty soon, lady. These northern seasons are so blessed short. We ought to try and do a little good for ourselves —make hay while the sun shines. We’ll needa da mon’.” “Needa fiddlesticks,” she laughed. “What do we need money for? It costs practically nothing to live up here. Why this sudden desire to pursue the dollar? Besides, how are you

going to pursue it?” “Go prospecting,” he replied promptly. “Hit the trail for a place I know where there’s oodles of coarse gold, if you can get to it at low water. H6w d you like to go into the Upper Naas country this fall, trap all winter,, work the sandbars in the spring, and come out next fall with a sack of gold it would take a horse to pack?” Hazel clapped her hands. “Oh, Bill, wouldn’t that be fine?” she cried. “I’d love to.” , “It won’t be all smooth sailing,” he warned. “It’s a long trip and a hard otfe, and the winter will be longer and harder than the trip. Still, there’s a chance for a good big stake, right in that one trip.” *. . -

"But why the necessity for making a stake?” she inquired thoughtfully, after a lapse of five minutes. “I thought you didn’t care anything about money so long as you had enough to get along on? And we surely have that. We’ve over two thousand dollars In real money—and no place to spend it —so we’re compelled to save.” Bill blew a smoke ring over his head and watched it vanish up toward the dusky roof beam® before he answered. “Well, little person,” said he, “that’s very true, and we can’t truthfully say that stern necessity Is treading on our heels. The possession of money has never been a crying need with me. But I hadn’t many wants when I was playing a lone hand, and I generally let the future take care of Itself. It was always easy to dig up money enough to buy books and grub or anything I wanted. Now that I’ve assumed a certain responsibility, It has begun to dawn on me that we’d enjoy life better if we were assured of a competence. We won’t stay here always. I’m pretty much contented just now. So are you. But I know from past experience that the outside will grow more alluring as time passes. You’ll get lonesome for civilization. It’s the most natural thing in the world. And when we go out to mix with our fellow humans we want to meet them on terms of worldly equality. Which is to say with good clothes on, and a fat bank roll in our pocket And last, but not least old girl, while I love to loaf, I can ohly loaf about so long in contentment. Sabe? I’ve got to be doing something; whether It was profitable or not has never mattered, just so it was action.” "I sabe, as you call it” Hazel smiled. "Of course I do. Only lazy people like to loaf all the time. I love this place, and we might stay here for years and be satisfied. But —”

"But we’d be better satisfied to stay if we knew that we could leave it whenever we wanted to,” he interrupted. “That’s the psychology of the human animal, all right. We don’t like to be coerced, even by circumstances.” "If you made a lot of money mining, we could travel—one could do lots of things,” she reflected. “I don’t think Rd want to live in a city again. But it would be nice to go there, sometimes.” “Yes, dear girl, it would,” Bill agreed. "With a chum to help you enjoy things. We can do things together that I couldn’t do alone, and you couldn’t do alone. Remains only to get the wherewithal. And since I know how to manage that with a minimum amount of effort. I’d Ilka to be about it before somebody else gets ahead of me. Though there’s small chance of that.” “We’ll be partners,” said she. "How will we divide the profits, Blllum?” “We’ll split even,” he declared. “That is, I’ll make the money, and you’ll spend IL” They chuckled over this conceit, and as the dusk closed In slowly they fell to planning the details. Hazel lit the lamp, and In its yellow glow pored over maps whfle Bill Idly sketched their route on a sheet of paper. His

objective lay east of the head of the Naas proper, where amid a wild tangle of mountains and mountain torrents three turbulent rivers, the Stiklne, the Skeena and the Naas, took their rise. A God-forsaken region, he told her, where few white men had penetrated. The peaks flirted with the clouds, and their sides were scarred with glaciers. A lonesome, brooding land, the home of a vast and seldom-broken silence. “But there’s all kinds of game and fur in there,” Bill remarked thoughtfully. “And gold. Still, It’s a fierce

country for a man to taka his Mat girl Into. I don’t know whether I ought to tackle it.” “We couldn't be more isolated than we are here," Hasel argued. “if we were In the Arctic. Look at that poor woman at Pelt House. Three babies born since she saw a doctor or another woman of her own color I What’s a winter by ourselves compared to that. And she didn’t think It ao great a hardship. Don’t you worry about me, Mr. Bill. I think it will be fun. Pm a real pioneer at heart. The wild places look good to me—when yon’re along." She received her due reward for that, and then, the long twilight having brought the hour to a lateness that manifested itself by sundry yawns on their part, they went to bed. With breakfast over, Bill put a compass In his pocket, after having ground his ax blade to a keen edge. “Come on," said he, then; ’Tm going to transact some Important business.” “What is It?” she promptly demanded with much curiosity.

“This domicile of ours, girl," he told her, while he led the way through the surrounding timber, “is ours only by grace of the wilderness. It's built on unsurveyed government land - land that I have no more legal claim to than any passing trapper. But Tm going to remedy that. I*m going to formally stake a hundred and sixty acres of this and apply for Its purchase. Then we’ll have a cinch on our home. We’ll always have a refuge to fly to, no matter where we go." She nodded appreciation of this. The cabin In the clearing stood for some of those moments that always loom large and unforgettable In every woman’s experience. She had come there once in hot, shamed anger, and she had come again as a bride. It was the handiwork of a man she loved with a passion that sometimes startled her by its intensity. Just the mere possibility of that place being given over to others roused in her a pang of resentment. It was theirs, hers and Bill’s, and, being a woman, she viewed Its possession jealously. So she watched with keen Interest what he did. Which, in truth, was simple enough. He worked his way to a point southeast of the clearing till they gained a little rise whence through the treetops they could look back and see the cabin roof. There Bill cut off an eight-inch jack pine, leaving the stump approximately four feet high. This he hewed square, the four flat sides of the post facing respectively the cardinal points of the compass. On one smoothed surface Bill set to work with his pocketknife. Hazel sat down and watchad while he busied himself at this. And when he had finished she read, in deep-carved letters: W. WAGSTAFF’S S. E. CORNER. Then he penned on a sheet of letter paper a brief notice to the effect that he, William Wagstaff, Intended to apply for the purchase of the land embraced in an area a half mile square, of which the post was the southeast corner mark. This notice he fastened to the stump with a few tacks, and sat down to rest from his labors.

“How long do you suppose thnt will stay there, and who Is there to read it if It does?" Hazel observed. “Search me. The moose and the deer and the timber wolves, I guess," Bill grinned. “The chances are the paper won’t last long, with winds and rains. But it doesn’t matter. It’s simply a form prescribed by the land act of British Columbia, and, so long as I go through the legal motions, that lets me out. Matter of form, you know.” “Then what else do you have to do?” “Nothing but furnish the 1 money when the land department gets around to accept my application,” he said. “I can get an agent to attend to all the details. Well, let’s take a look at our estate from another corner.” This, roughly ascertained by sighting a line with the compass and stepping off 880 yards, brought them up on a knoll that commanded the small basin of which the clearing was practically In the center. “Aha!” Bill exclaimed. “Look at our ranch, would you; our widespread acres basking In the sun. A quarter section Is quite a chunk. Do you know I never thought much about It before, but there’s a piece of the finest land that Iles outdoors. If this country should get a railroad and settle up, that quarter section might produce all the Income we’d need. Just out of hay and potatoes. flow’d you like to be a farmer’s wife, huh?” “Fine,” she smiled. ‘Took at the view—it isn’t gorgeous. It’s —it’s simply peaceful and quiet and soothing. I hate to leave it.” “Better be sorry to leave a place than glad to get away,” he answered lightly. “Come on, let’s pike home and get things In order for the long trail, woman o* mine. I’ll teach you how to be a woodland vagabond.” (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Roaring Bill Took Her in His Arms.

Pored Over Maps While Bill Idly Sketched Their Route on a Sheet of Paper.