Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1919 — North of Fifty-Three [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

North of Fifty-Three

By Bertrand W. Sinclair

| (Qcpj right by UtUe, Brown A CoJ SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I—Th* story open* tn the town of Granville Ontario, where Miss Hasel weir la employed as a stsnographsi la the office of Harringtoa and Bush. She fa encaged to Jack Barrow a young real estate agent, and the wedding day is set. While walking wtth him one Bunday they meet Mr. Bush, Hasel's employer, who for the first time seems to notice her attractiveness. Shortly afterward, at his request. aha becomes his private stenographer. After three months Mr. Bush proposes marriage, which Hasel declines, and after a stormy scene in the office Hasel leaves her embloymqnL Mr. Bush warning her be would make her sorry for refusttig him. CHAPTER IT—Bush makes an effort, by a gift of flowers, to compromise Hasel in the minds of her friend*. She returns them. The next day Bush is thrown from his horse and fatally hurt. -He sends for Hasel, who refuses to see him before he dies. Three days afterward it is announced that he loft a legacy of 16.000 to Hasel, “tn reparation for any wrong I may have done her.“ Hasel recognises at once what construction will be put upon the words. Bush had his revenge. CHAPTER lll—Jack Barrow, in a fit ©f jealous rage, demands from Hasel an explanation of Bush's action. Hasel's pride is hurt, and she refuses. The 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 Meadoffs Is In a wild part of British Columbia and Hasel. shortly after her arrival, loses her way while walking In the woods. She wanders until night, when, attracted by the light of a campfire, ehe turn! to.lt, hoping to find eomebody who will guide her home. At the fire she recognises a character known to Cariboo Meadows as “Roaring BUI Wagstaff." who had seen her at her boarding house there. He promises to take her home in the morning. but she Is compelled to spend tbs night in the woods. CHAPTER V-r-They start next day. Hasel supposes, for Cariboo Meadows, but Wagstaff finally rdmlts he is taking her to his cabin in the mountains, lie i re ‘snectful and considerate, and Haxei. Sough protesting Indignantly, Is helpless and has to accompany him. ' CHAPTER Vl—At the cabin Wagstaff provides Hasel with clothing which had been left by tourists. There they pass the winter. Wagstaff tells her he Jovee bv. but tn her indignation at her abduction” slfb refuses to listen to him. CHAPTER Vn-Wlth the coming of goring Hasel insists that Wagstaff take her out of the mountains. He endeavors to persuade her to marry him and stay, but on her persistent refusal, he accompanies her to Bella Cools, from where {he can proceed to Vancouver. CHAPTER VIII—On gives Hasel a package which she discovers later contains |1.200 and a map which win enable her to find her J"** to eabln if ehe desires to go back. At Vancouver Hasel plans to return to GramVille, but on the train realises _ that she loves Wagstaff, and decides to go to him. She leavez the train at the first stop. CHAPTER IX—With the aid of, Bill's map she finds her way Ibackhand the pair travel to a Hudson married After some months they decide to go farther into the mountains'-to « spot where BUI is confident there is gold. ' CHAPTER X—After an arduous trip, which severely tries Hazel ß Bt r en jV.io they arrive at their destination and settle down for the long winter. CHAPTER Xl—Wagjtaff builds a cabin and a stable for the horses and cuts and stacks sufficient hay to last until Food there is in plenty. Hazel. forgetting the danger, allows sparks from the chimney to set fire to the stable, which Is consumed, with all the ■tored hay. 'T O keep the animals from death by starvation Bill Is compelled to shoot them.

CHAPTER XII. Jack Erost Withdraws. All through the mouth of January each evening, as dusk folded its somber mantle about‘the meadow, the [wolves gathered to feast on the dead horses, till Hazel’s nerves were (strained to the snapping point. Some[tlmes, when Bill was gone, and all (about the cabin was utterly still, one, ’bolder or hungrier than his fellows, (would trot across the meadow, drawn by the scent of the meat. Two or three of these Hazel shot with her Own rifle. But when February marked another iepan on the calendar the wolves came no more. The bones were clean. There was no Impending misfortune tor danger that she could point to or forecast with certitude. Nevertheless, ■struggle against it as she might, knowing it for pure psychological phenomena arising out of her harsh environment, Hazel suffered continual vague forebodings. The bald, white peaks seemed to surround her like a prison from which there could be no release.

■From day to day she was harassed by dismal thoughts. She would wake in the night clutching at her husband. Such days as he went out alone she passed In restless anxiety. * Something would happen. What it would be she did not know, but to her it seemed that the bleak stage was set for untoward drama, and they two the puppets that must play. When Bill drew her up close in his arms, the Intangible menace of the wilderness and all the dreary monotony of the days faded into the background. But they, no more than others who have tried and failed for lack of understanding, could not live their lives with their heads in an emotional cloud. For every action there must be a corresponding reaction. They who have the capacity to reach the heights must likewise, upon occasion, plumb the depths.- Life, she began to realize, resolved itself into an unending succession of little, trivial things, Svith here and there some great event (looming out above all the rest for its [bestowal of happiness or pain.

February and March stormed a pat?, furiously across the calendar. Higher and higher the drifts piled about the cabin, till at length it was banked to the eaves with snow save where Bill shoveled it away to let light to the windows. Day after day they kept Indoors, stoking up the tire, listening to the triumphant whoop of the winds. “Snow, snow I" Hase! borst oat one day. “Front that cuts you like a knife. I wish we were home again—or aotne place.” “So do L Uttle person,” Bill Mid gently. “But spring's almost at the door. Hang on a little longer. We’ve made a fair stake, anyway, If we don’t wash an ounce of gold.” “How aro we going to get It all out?" She voiced a troublesome thought “Shoulder pack to the Skeens,” he answered laconically. “Build a dugout there, and float downstream. Portage the rapids as they come.” “Oh, Bill 1" She came and leaned her head against him contritely. “Oar poor ponies! And It was all my carelessness.” “Never mind, hon,” he comforted. “They blinked out without suffering. And we’ll make It like a charm. Be game—lt’ll soon be spring.” By April the twentieth the abdication of Jack Frost was complete. A kindlier despot ruled the land, and Bill Wagstaff began to talk of gold.

. . . that precious yellow metal sought by men In regions desolate. Pursued in patient hope or furious toll: Breeder of discord, wars, and murderous hate; The victor’s spoil. So Hazel quoted, leaning over her husband's shoulder. In the bottom of hls pan, shining among a film of black

sand, lay half a dozen bright specks, varying from pln-polnt size to the bigness of a grain of wheat. “That’s the stuff,” Bill murmured "It looks as if we’d struck It pretty fair. It’s time, too—the June rise will hit us Uke a whirlwind one of theee ’days.” “About what is the value of those little pieces?” Hazel asked. “Oh, fifty or sixty cents," he answered. "Not much by Itself. But it seems to be uniform over the bar — and I can wash a good many pans in a day’s work.” "I should think so,* she remarked. “It didn’t take you ten minutes to do that one.” “Whitey Lewis and I took out over two hundred dollars a day on that other creek last spring—no, a year last spring, it was," he observed reminiscently. “This isn’t as good, but it’s not to be sneezed at, either. I think I’ll make me a rocker.* “I can help, can’t IT' she said eagerly. “Sure.” he smiled. “You help n lot. little person, just sitting around and keeping me company.” “But I want to work,” she declared. “I’ve sat around now till I’m getting the fidgets.” “All right; I’ll give you a job,” he returned good-naturedly. “Meantime, let’s eat that lunch you packed up here.” In a branch of the creek which flowed down through the basin, Bill had found plentiful colors as soon as the first big run-off of water had fallen. He had followed upstream painstakingly, panning colors always, and now and then a few grains of coarse gold to encourage him in the quest. The loss of their horses precluded ranging far afield to that other glacial stream which he had worked with Whitey Lewis when he was a free lance in the North. He was close to his base of supplies, and he had made wages—with always the prospector’s lure of a rich strike on the next bar.

“In the morning,” said he, when lunch was over, ‘TU bring along the ax and some nails and a shovel, and get busy.” That night they trudged down te the cabin in high spirits. BUI had washed out enough during the afternoon to make a respectable showing on Hazel's outspread handkerchief. And Hazel was in a' gleeful mood over the fact that she had unearthed a big nugget by herself. Beginner’s luck, Bill said teasingly, but that did not diminish her elation. As the days passed there seemed no question of their complete success. Bill fabricated his rocker, a primitive, boxlike device with a blanket screen and transverse slats below. It was faster than the pan, even rude -as it was, and it caught all but the finer particles of gold. A queer twist of luck -put the capsheaf on their undertaking. Hazel ran a splinter of wood into her hand, thus putting a stop to her activities with shovel and pail.. Until the wound

lost its soreness sne was forced to be idle. So she rambled along the creek one afternoon, armed with hook and line on a pliant willow tn search of sport. The trout were hungry, and atrupk fiercely at the bait She soon had plenty for supper and breakfast. Wherefore she abandoned that diversion and took to prying tentatively in the lee of. certain boulders on edge of the creek—prospecting on her own Initiative, as it were. She had no pan, and only one hand to work with, but she knew gold when she MW it—and, after all. It was but an Idle method of killing time. In this search ahe came upon a large, rusty pebble, snuggled on the downstream side of an overhanging rock right at the water’a edge. It attracted her first by its symmetrical form, a perfect oval; then, when she lifted It, by Its astonishing weight. She continued her search for the pink-ish-red stones, carrying the rusty pebble along. Presently she worked her way bacß to where Roaring Bill labored prodigiously. “Look at these pretty stones I found.” she said. “What are they. Bill?" “Those F He looked at her outstretched palm. “Garnets.” “Garnets? They must be valuable then," she observed. “Yes, if you can find any of any size. What’s the other rock?” ho Inquired casually. “You making a collection of specimens?" “That’s just a funny stone I found,” she returned. “It must be iron or something. It’s terribly heavy for Its el ge.” “Eh? Let me see IL" he Mid. She handed it over. He weighed it in his palm, scrutinized it closely, turning it over snd over. Then he took out his knife and scratched the rusty surface vigorously for a few minutes.

“Huh!” he grunted. “Look at your funny stone.” x He held it out for her Inspection. The blade of the knife had left a dull yellow scar. “Oh!” she gasped. ' “Why—it’s gold 1” “It Is, woman," he declaimed, with mock solemnity. “Gold — glittering gold! j “Say, where did you find this?” he asked when Hazel stared at the nugget, dumb in the face of this unexpected stroke of fortune. “Jhst around the second bend,” she cried. “Oh, Bill, do you suppose there’s any more there?” me to it with my trusty pan and shovel, and we’ll see,” Bill smiled. Forthwith they set out. The overhanging boulder w.as a scant ten minutes’ walk up the creek. Within five minutes his fingers brought to light a second lump, double the size of her find. Close upon that be winnowed,a third. Hasel leaned over him, breathless. At last he reached bottom. The boulder thrust out below in a natural shelf. From this Bill carefully scraped the accumulation of black sand and gravel, gleaning as a result of his labor a baker’s dozen of assorted chunks —one giant that must have weighed three pounds. He "sat back on his haunches, and looked at his wife, speechless. “Is that truly all gold. Bill?” she whispered Incredulously. “It certainly is—as good gold as ever went into the mint” he assured. “All laid in a nice little nest en this shelf of rock. That’s a real, honest pocket. And a well-lined one, if you ask me.” “My goodness!” she murmured. •There might be wagonloads of it in this creek.”

“There might, but it isn’t likely.”’ Bill shook his head. “This is a simonpure pocket, and it would keep a graduate mineralogist guessing to say how it got here, because it’s a different proposition from the wash gold in the creek bed. It’s rich placer ground, at that—but this pocket’s almost unbelievable. Must be forty pounds of gold there. And you found it You’re the original mascot, little person.” He bestowed a bearlike hug uppn her. “Now whatY’ she asked. “It hardly seems real to pick up several thousand dollars in half an hour or so like this. What will we do?” “Do? Why, bless your dear soul,” he laughed. "We’ll just consider ourselves extra lucky, and keep right on with the game till the high water makes us quit” Which was a contingency nearer at hand than even Bill, with a first-hand knowledge of the North’s vagaries in the way of flood, quite anticipated. Three days after the* finding of the pocket the whole floor of the creek was awash. His rocker went stream overnight. When Bill saw that he rolled himself a cigarette, and, putting one long arm across his wife’s shoulders, gild whimsically: “What d’you say we start home?” (TO BE CONTINUED.)

In the Bottom of Vie Pan Lay Half a Dozen Bright Specks.