Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1919 — North of Fifty-Three [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

North of Fifty-Three

By Bertrand W. Sinclair

(Qcpj right by UtUe, Brown * Ce») SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I—The story opens In the town ot Granville, Ontario, where Miss Hasel Weir is employed as a stenographer < in the office of Harrington and Bush. She / ts engaged to Jack Barrow. a young real •state agent, and the wedding day Is set. While walking with him one Sunday they meet Mr. Bush. Hazel'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 Hasel declines, and after a stormy scene In the office Hazel leaves her employment, Mr. Bush warnkig her he would make her sorry for refuslhg him. CHAPTER n-Bush makes an effort, by a gift of flowers, to compromise Hazel in ’the minds of her frienda She returns them. The next day Bush is thrown from his horse and fatally hurt. He sends for Hazel, who refuses to see him before he dlea 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, 1n a fit of jealous rage, demands from Hazel an explanation of Rush's action. Hazel'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 Carlboc 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 the 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 seen her at her boarding house there. He promises to take her home In the mornIng, but she is compelled to spend the night In the woods. CHAPTER start next day. Hazel supposes, for Cariboo Meadows, but Wagstaff finally admits he is taking her to his cabin in the mountains. He Isrespeetful 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 the winter. Wagstaff tells her he loves her, but In her Indignation at her "abduction” sflb refuses to listen to him. CHAPTER Vn—With the coming of « Bring Hazel insists that Wagstaff take er out of the mountains. He endeavors to persuade her to marry him and stay, but on her persistent refusal, he accompanies her to Bella Coola, from where she can proceed to Vancouver. CHAPTER VHI—On parting, Wagstaff gives Hazel a package which she ers later contains $1,200 and a map which will enable her to find her the cabin If she desires to go back. At Vancouver Hazel plans to return to Granville, but on the train realizes that she loves Wagstaff, and decides to go to him. 6he leaves the train at the first stop. CHAPTER IX—With the aid of Blll’rf map she finds her way back, and the pair travel to a Hudson married After some months they decide to go farther into the mountains to a spot where Bill is confident there ts gold. CHAPTER X—After an arduous trip, which severely tries Hazel’s Bt J en *,V' they arrive at their destination and settle down for the long winter. CHAPTER Xl—Wagstaff builds a cabin and a stable for the horses and cuts and stacks sufficient hay to last ijntll spring:. Food there is In plenty. Hazel, forgetting the danger, allows sparks from the chlmney to set fire to the stable, which is consumed, with all the stored hay. keep the animals from death by starvation Bill Is compelled to shoot them. CHAPTER Xll—With the first spring days they start prospecting for gold and are lucky. With the gold, and packs of furs, the product of Bill’s trapping during the winter, they start back to the cabin they call home. CHAPTER Xin—Without the horses the trip is severe, but they B »*®ly and find they have 'IXh Lauer, a German from Milwaukee, with his wife and children. CHAPTER XIV—To please Hazel, tired of the solitude of the mountains. Bill agrees to make a visit to Granville. Hasel is welcomed by "society. finds herself in her element, but the artificiality of the life wearies Blil. With some business men he forms a company to work the claims on which he and Hazel had found sold.

CHAPTER Xy. A Business Journey. “I have to go to the Klappan,” Bill apprised his wife one evening. “Want to come along?” Hazel hesitated. Her first instinctive feeling was one of reluctance to retrace the nerve-trying trail. But neither did she wish t® be separated from him. “I see you don’t,” he observed dryly. “Well, I can’t say that I blame you. It’s a stiff trip.” “I’m sorry I can’t feel any enthusiasm for such a journey,” she remarked candidly. “I could go as far as the coast with you, and meet you there when you come out. How long do you expect to be in t|iere?” “I don’t know exactly,” he replied. “I’m not going in from the coast, though. I’m taking the Ashcroft-Fort George Trail. I have to take in a pack train and more men and get work started on a decent scale.” “But you won’t have to stay there all summer and oversee the work, will you?” she inquired anxiously. “I should,” he said. For a second or two he drummed on the table top. “But is there any real necessity for you to stay on the ground?” She pursued her own line of thought. “I should - think an undertaking of this size would justify hiring an expert to take charge of the actual mining operations. Won’t you have this end of it to look after?” “Lorimer and Brooks are eminently

capable of upholding the dignity ehd importance of that sign they’ve got smeared aeroea the windows downtown,” he observed curtly. “The chief labor of the office they've set up will be to divide the proceeds. The work will be done and the money made in the Klappan Range. You sabe that, don't youF “I'm not stupid," she pouted. "I’m going tomorrow," he aald. “I think, On the whole, it’ll be just as well if you don’t go. Stay here and enjoy yourself. I'll transfer some more money to your account I think I’ll drop down to the club.” She followed him out Into the hall, and, as he wriggled into his coat, she had an Impulse to throw her arms around his neck and declare, in all sincerity, that she wqgld go to the Klappan or to the north pole or any plpce on earth with him, if he wanted her. But by some peculiar feminine reasoning she reflected in the same Instant that If Bill were away from her In a few weeks he would be all the more glad to get back. That closed her mouth. It was not wise to be too meek or obedient where a husband was concerned. That was another mite of wisdom she had garnered from the wives of her circle. So she kissed Bill good-by at the station next day with perfect good humor and no parting emotion of any particular keenness. And If he were a trifle sober he showed fio sign of resentment, nor uttered any futile wishes that she could accompany him. "So long," he said from the car steps. ’Til keep In touch—all I can.” Then he was gone.

Somehow, his absence made less difference than Hazel had anticipated. She had secretly expected to be very lonely at first. And she was not. Even when in her hand she held a telegram dated at a point five hundred or a thousand miles or double that distance away she did not experience the feeling of complete bodily absence. She always felt as If he were near. Only at night, when there was no long arm to pillow her head, no good-night kiss as she dozed into slumber, she missed him, realized that he was far away. Early In June came a brief wire from Station Six. Three weeks later the Free Gold Mining company set up a mild ripple of excitement along Broad street by exhibiting In their office window a forty-pound heap of coarse gold; raw, yellow gold, Just as it had come from the sluice. Every day knots of men stood gazing at the treasure. Bill had forwarded the first clean-up.

And close on the heels of this —ten days later, to be exact —he came home. “You great bear,” Hazel laughed. In the shelter of his encircling arms. "My, it’s good to see you again." , She pushed herself back a IJttle and surveyed him admiringly, with a gratified sense of proprietorship. The cheeks of him were tanned to a healthy brown, his eyes clear and shining. The offending flesh had fallen away on the strenuous paths of the Klappan. He radiated boundless vitality, strength, alertness, that perfect co-ordination of mind and body that Is bred of faring resourcefully along rude ways. She thrilled at the touch of his hand, was content to lay her head on his shoulder and forget everything In the joy of his physical nearness. They elected to spend the evening quietly at home, as they used to do. To Hazel It seemed quite like old times. Bill told her of the Klappan country, and their prospects at the mine. “It’s going to be a mighty big thing,” he declared. Tm so glad,” said Hazel. •"“We’ve got a group of ten claims. Whitey Lewis and the original stakers hold an Interest In their claims. I, acting as agent for these other fellows In the company, staked five more. I took In eight more men—and, believe me, things were humming when I left. And, say, I went in by the ranch. Old Jake has a fine garden. He’s still pegging away with the mule *und Gretchen, der cow.’ I offered him a chance to make a fat little stake at the mine, but he didn’t want to leave the ranch. Great old feller, Jake. Something of a philosopher In his way. Pretty wise old head. He’ll make good, all right.” In the morning, Bill ate his breakfast and started downtown.

“That’s the dickens of being a business man,” he complained to Hazel, in the hallway. “It rides a man, once it gets hold of him. Adios, little person. I’ll get out for lunch, business or no business.” Eleven-thirty brought him home, preoccupied and frowning. And he carried his frown and his preoccupation to the table. “Whatever 1% the matter, Bill?" Hazel anxiously inquired. “Oh, I’ve got a nasty hunch that there’s a nigger in the woodpile,” he replied. And that was all he vouchsafed. He finished his luncheon and left the house. He was scarcely out of sight when Jimmie Brooks’ runabout drew Up at the curb. A half minute later he was ushered into the living room. “Bill in?” was his first query. “No, he left just a few minutes ago,” Hazel told him. Mr. Brooks, a short, heavy-set, neatly dressed gentleman, whose rather weak blue eyes loomed preternaturally large and protuberant behind pincenez that straddled an insignificant snub nose, took off his glasses and twiddled them in his white, well-kept fingers. “Ah, too bad!” he murmured. “Thought I’d catch him. . “By the way,” he continued, after a pause, “you—ah—well, frankly, I have reason to believe that you have a good deal of influence with your husband in business matters, Mrs. Wag-

staff." “Well, I don’t know; perhaps I have. Why?" “Well—ah—you see,” he began rather lamely. "The fact la —I hope you'll regard this as strictly confidential, Mr*.

Wagstaff. I wouldn’t want Bill to think I, or any of us, was trying to bring pressure on him. But the fact is. Bill's got a mistaken Impression about the way we’re conducting the financial end of this mining proposition. You understand? Very able man, your husband, but headstrong as the deuce. I’m afraid —to speak frankly—he’ll create a lot of unpleasantness. Might disrupt the company, In fact, if he sticks to the position he took this morning. Thought I’d run in and talk It over with him. Fellow’s generally In a good humor, you know, when he’s lunched comfortably at home.”

’Tm quite In the dark,” Hazel confessed. “Bill seemed a trifle put out about something. He didn’t say what it was about.” “Shall I explain?” Mr. Brooks suggested. “You’d understand —and you might be able to help. I don’t as a rule believe in bringing business into the home, but this bothers me. I hate to see a good thing go wrong." “Explain, by all means,” Hazel promptly replied. “If I can help, I’ll be glad to.” “Thank you.” Mr. Brooks polished his glasses industriously for a second and replaced them with painstaking exactitude. “Now —ah —this is the situation: When the company was formed, five of us, Including your husband, took up enough stock to finance the preliminary work of the undertaking. The remaining stock, seventy-five thousand dollars in amount, was left in the treasury, to be held or put on the market as the situation warranted. With the first clean-up. Bill forwarded facts and figures to show that we had a property far beyond our greatest expectations. And, of course, we saw at once that the thing was ridiculously undercapitalized. "So we held a meeting and authorized the secretary to sell stock. Naturally, your husband wasn’t cognizant of this move, for the simple reason that there was no way of reaching him —and his Interests were thorough, ly protected, anyway. The stock was listed on Change. A good bit was disposed of privately. We now have a large fund In the treasury. It’s a cinch. We’ve got the property, and It’s rich enough to pay dividends on a million. The decision of the stockhplders is unanimously for enlargement of the capital stock. You understand? You follow me?”

“Certalnly,” Hazel answered. “But what Is the difficulty. Bill?” “Bill is opposed to the whole plan,” he said, pursing up his lips with evident disapproval of Bill Wagstaff and all his yyorks. “He seem® to feel that we should not have taken this step. He declares that no more stock must be sold; that there must be no enlargement of capital. In fact, that we must peg along in the little one-horse way we started. And that would be a shame. We could make the Free Gold Mining company the biggest thing on the map, and put ourselves on Easy street.” He spread his hands in a gesture of real regret. “Bill’s a fine fellow,” he said, “and one of my best friends. But he’s a hard man to do business with. He takes a very peculiar view of the matter. Tm afraid he’ll queer the company if he stirs up trouble over this. That’s why I hqpe you’ll use whatever Influence you have, to induce him to withdraw his opposition.” “But,” Hazel murmured, in some perlaxity, “from what little I know of corporations, I don’t see how he can set up any difficulty. How can he stop jjou from taking any line of action whatever?” “Oh, not that at all,” Brooks hastily assured. “Of course, we can outvote him, and put it through. But we want him with us, don’t you see? We’ve a high opinion of his ability. He’s the sort of man who gets results; practical, you know; knows mining to a T. Only he shies at our financial method. And if he begdn any foolish litigation, or silly rumors got started about trouble among the company officers, it s bound to hurt the stock. It’s all right, I assure you. We’re not foisting a wildcat on the market. We’ve got the goods. Bill admits that. It’s the regular method, not only legitimate, but good finance. Every dollar’s worth of stock sold has the value behind it. Distributes the risk a llttleifiore, that’s all, and gl.ves the company a fund to operate successfully. , “If Bill mentions it, you might sug-

gest that he look Into the matter ■ little more fully before he takes any definite action." Brooks concluded, riaIng. “I must get down to the office. It’s his own Interests I’m thinking of, ns much as my own. Of course, he couldn't block a reorganization—but wc want to satisfy him In every particular, and, at the same time, carry out these plans. It's a big thing for all of us. A big thing, I assure you." He rolled awny In his car, and Hazel watched him from the window, a trifle puzzled. She recalled Bill’s remark at luncheon. In the light of Brooks' explanation, she could see nothing wrong. On the other hand, she knew BUI Wagstaff was not prone to jump at rash conclusions. If he objected to certain manipulations of the Free Gold Mining company, his objection was likely to be based on substantial grounds. At any rate, she hoped nothing disagreeable would come'of It. So she put the whole matter out of her mind. She dressed, and went whole-heartedly at>out her own affairs. Dinner time was drawing close when she returned home. She sat down by a window that overlooked the street to watch for Bill. Six passed. The half-hour chime struck on the mantel clock. Hazel grew impatient, petulant, aggrieved. Dinner would be served In twenty minutes. Still there was no sign of him. And for lack of other occupation she went into the hall and got the evening paper, which the carrier had just delivered. A startling headline on the front page stiffened her to scandalized attention. Straight across the tops of two columns it ran, a facetious caption: WILLIAM WAGSTAFF IS A BEAR Under that the subhead: Husky Mining Man Tumbles Prices and Brokers. Whips Four Men in Broad Street Office. Slugs Another on Change. His Mighty Fists Subdue Society’s Finest. Finally Lands in Jail. The body of the article Hazel read In what a sob sister would describe as a state of.mingled emotions.

William Wagstaff is a mining gentleman from the northern wilds of British Columbia. He is a big man, a natural-*>orn fighter. To prove this he Inflicted a black eye and a split lip on Paul Ixrrimer, a broken nose and sundry bruises on James L. Brooks. Also Allen T. Bray and Edward Gurney Parkinson suffered certain contusions in the melee. The fracas occurred In the office of the Free Gold Mining Company. 15M Broad street, at S:SO this afternoon. While hammering the brokers a police officer arrived hn the scene and Wagstaff was duly escorted to the city bastlle. Prior to the general encounter In the Broad street office Wagstaff walked into the Stock Exchange, and made statements about the Free Gold Mining Company which set all the brokers by the ears. Lorimer was on the floor, and received his discolored optic there. A reporter was present when Wagstaff walked on the floor of the Stock Exchange. He strode up to the post where Lorimer was transacting business. “I serve notice on you right now.” he said loudly and angrily, “that If you sell another dollar's worth of Free Gold stock. I’ll put you out of business." Lorimer appeared to lose his temper. Some word was passed which further incensed Wagstaff. He smote the broker and the broker smote the floor. Wagstaff’s punch would do credit to a champion pugilist, from the execution it wrought. He immediately left the Stock Exchange, and not long afterward Broad street was electrified by sounds of combat In the Free Gold office. It ts conceded that Wagstaff had the situation and his three opponents well in hand when the cop arrived. " None of the men concerned would discuss the matter. From the remarks dropped by Wagstaff, however, it appears that the policy of marketing Free Gold stock was inaugurated without his knowledge or consent. Be that as It may. all sorts of rumors are In circulation, and Free Gold stock, which has been sold during the past week as high as a dollar forty, found few takers at par when Change closed. There has been a considerable speculative movement in the stock, and the speculators are beginning to wonder If there is a screw loose in the company affairs. Wagstaff’s case will come up tomorrow forenoon. A charge of disturbing the peace was placed against him. He gave a cash bond and was at once released. When the hearing comes some of the parties to the affair may perchance divulge what lay at the bottom of the row. Apy fine within the power of the court to impose Is a mere bagatelle, compared to the distinction of scientifically manhandling four of society’s finest in one afternoon. As one bystander remarked in the classic phraseology of the street: "Wagstaff’s a bear!" The brokers concerned might consider this to have a double meaning.

Hazel dropped the paper, mortified and wrathful. The city jail seemed the very Pit Itself to her. And the lurid publicity, the lifted eyebrows of her friends, maddened her in prospect. Plain street brawling, such as one might expect from a cabman or a taxi mahout, not from a man like her husband. She involuntarily assigned th® blame to him. Not for the cause—the cause was of no Importance whatever to her —but for the act Itself. Their best friends! She could hardly realize it. Jimmie Brooks, Jovial Jimmie, with a broken nose, and sundry bruises! And Paul Lorimer, distinguished Paul, who had the courtly bearing which was the despair es his fellows, and the manner of a dozen generations of culture wherewith to charm the women of his acquaintance. He with a black ey* and a split lip! So the paper stated. It was vulgar. Brutal! The act of a cave man. She was on the verge of tears. And just at that moment the door opened, and in walked Bill. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Every farmer who owns his farm ought to have printed stationery with his name and the name of his postoffice properly given. The prln f ed heading might also give the names of whatever crops he special izes in or his specialties in stock. Neatly printed stationery gives you personality and a standing with any person or firm to whom you write f.ud insures the proper reading el your name Sind address.

“Very Able Man, Your Husband, But Headstrong as the Deuce.”