Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1919 — North of Fifty-Three [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

North of Fifty-Three

By Bertrand W. Sinclair

(Qcpjricht by UtU®, Brown A O®J SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I—Th® story open® to th® town of Granville. Ontario, where Mia® Hasel Weir is employed as a stenographer in th® office of Harrington and Bush. She is engaged to Jack Barrow. a young rekJ •state agent, and the wedding day is set. While walking with him one Sunday they meet Mr. Bush, Hasel’s employer, who for the first time seems to nolle® her attractiveness. Shortly afterward, at his request. she becomes his private stenographer. After three months Mr. Bush proposes marriage, which Hasel decline®, and after a stormy seen® in th® office Hasel leaves her employment, Mr. Bush warning her h® would make her sorry for refusing him. CHAPTER ll—Buih makes an effort,, by a gift of flowers, to compromise Hasel in the minds of her friends 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 ho dies Three days afterward it t® announced that he left a legacy of 16,000 to Hasel “in reparation for any wrong I may have done her.” Hasel recognises at once what construction will be put upon the words Bush had his revangs CHAPTER 111-Jack Barrow, In a fit of Jealous rage, demands from Hasel an explanation of Bush’s action. Hazel s pride la hurt, and she refuses The engagement Is broken and Hasel 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 tn 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 Are she recognises a character known to Cariboo Meadows as "Roaring Bill Wagstaff." who had seen her at her boarding house there. He promise® to take her home in the yoiri* Ing. but ®he is compelled to spend the night in the ▼oods. CHAPTER V-They start next day, Hasel supposes, for Cariboo Meadows, but Wagstaff finally admits he is taking her to his cabin in the mountains. He is mSectful and though 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 th* winter. Wagstaff tells her he loves her, but tn her indignation at her “abduction” sift refuses to listen to him. CHAPTER Vll—With the coming of spring Harel 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 Coola. from where ehe can proceed to Vancouver. CHAPTER VTII—On P** l "* gives Hasel a package which she dtscovEZ Uter contain® »1.500 and a map which will enable her to find her way to'the cabin if she desires to go back. At Vancouver Hasel plans to return to G™"’ ville, but on the train loves Wagstaff, and decide® to i hl She leaves the train at the first stop. CHAPTER IX—With the of Bin’s map she finds her way back, and the pair travel to a Hudson Bay married After some months they decide to go farther into the mountains to a spot where Bill is confident there is gold. CHAPTER X—After an arduous trip, which severely tries Hasel's strength, they arrive at their destination and settle down for the long winter.

CHAPTER XI— Wajrstaff builds a cabin and a stable for the horses and cuts and stacks sufficient hay to last until B PF’ Food there Is In plenty. Hazel, forgetting the danger, allows sparks from the cnimnev to set flre to the stable, which is consumed, with all t he stored hay. rro keep the animals from death by starvation Bill Is compelled to shoot themCHAPTER Xll—With the first .spring days they start prospecting for gold" and are lucky With the gold, and packs of the product of Bill's trapping during the winter, they start back to the cabin they call home. CHAPTER Xlll—Without the horses the trip is severe, but 8 jake and find they have neighbors, J X-aoer a German from Milwaukee, witn his wife and children. CHAPTER XIV—To please Hasel, tired of the solitude of the mountains, Bill agrees to make a visit to Granville. Hazel is welcomed by society, and finds herself in her element, but the artificiality if «?e life wearies Bill. With some business men he forms a company to work th"clalms on which he and Hazel had found gold. CHAPTER XV—Affairs connected with the claims force Wagstaff to go hack _to the mountains. On Tils his associates have planned * hlnr deal which Is unfair to him and his friends He protests, and the matter end® In a public brawl In which Bill uses his fists. Hazel is Indignant on account of the scandal. CHAPTER XVl—Bill attempts to inake Hazel see the matter in Ita true b “ is unable to do so, and »he refuses to go back with him to their cabin. He goes, leaving her at Granville.

CHAPTER XVIL A Letter From Bill. All through the long night she lay awake, struggling with the incredible fact that Bill had left her; trying to absolve herself from blame; flaring up In anger at his unyielding attitude, even while she was sorely conscious that she herself had been stubbornly unyielding. If he had truly loved her, she reiterated, he would never have made it an issue between them. But that was like a man—to insist on his own desires being made paramount; to blunder on headlong, no matter what antagonisms he aroused. And he was completely tn the wrong, she reasserted. She recapitulated it all. Through the winter he had consistently withdrawn into his shell. For her friends and for most of her pleasures he had at best exhibited only tolerance. And fte had ended by outraging both them and her, and on top of that demanded that she turn her back at twenty-four hours’ notice, on Granville and all its associations and follow him into a wilderness that she*dreaded. She had full right to her resentment. As his partner in the chancy enterprise of

marriage were not her feelings and desires entitled to equal consideration? He had assumed the role of dictator. And she had revolted. That was all. She was justified. Eventually she slept At ten o’clock, heavy-eyed, suffering an intolerable headache, she rose and dressed. Beside her plate lay a thick letter addressed In Bill’s handwriting. She drunk her coffee and went back to the

bedroom before she opened the envelope. By the postmark she saw that it had been mailed on a train. “Dear Girl: I have caught my breath, so to speak, but I doubt if ever a more forlorn cuss listened to the Interminable clicking of car wheels. I a<n tempted at each station to turn back and try again. It seems so unreal, this parting in hot anger, so miserably unnecessary. But when I stop to sum it up again, I see no use in another appeal. I could come back — yes. Only the certain knowledge that giving in like that would send us spinning once more in a vicious circle prevents me. I didn’t believe it possible that we could get so far apart. Nor that a succession of little things could cut so weighty a figure in our lives. And perhaps you are very sore and resentful at me this morning for being so precipitate. “I couldn’t help it. Hazel. It seemed the only way. It seems so yet to me. There was nothing more to keep me in Granville —everything to make me hurry away. If I had weakened and temporized with you it would only mean the deferring of just what has happened. When you declared yourself flatly and repeatedly it seemed hopeless to argue further. I am a poor pleader, perhaps; and Ido not believe in compulsion between us. Whatever you do you must do of your own volition, without pressure from me. We couldn’t be happy otherwise. If I compelled you to follow me against your desire we should only dra# misery in our train. “I couldn’t even say good-by. I didn’t even want it to be good-by. I didn’t know if I could stick to my determination to go unless I went as I did. And my reason told me that if there must be a break it would better come now than after long-drawn-out bickerings and bitterness. If we are so diametrically opposed where we thought we stood together we have made a mistake that no amount of adjusting, nothing but separate roads, will rectify. Myself I refuse to believe that we have made such a mistake. I don’t think that honestly and deliberately you prefer an exotic, useless, purposeless, parasitic existence to the normal, wholesome life we happily planned. But you are obsessed, intoxicated —I can’t put it any better

—and nothing but a shock will soner you. If I’m wrong, if love and Bill’s companionship can’t lure you away from these other things —why, I suppose you will consider it an ended chapter. In that case you will not suffer. The situation as it stands will be a relief to you. If, on the other hand, it’s merely a stubborn streak, that won’t let you admit that you’ve carried your proud little head on an overstiff neck, do you think it’s worth the price? I don’t. “I’m not scolding, little person. Tm sick and sore at the pass we’ve come to. No fool pride can close my eyes to the fact or keep me from admitting freely that I love you just as much and want you as longingly as I did the day I put you aboard the Stanley I D. at Bella Coola. I thought you were stepping gladly out of my life then. And I let you go freely and without anything but a dumb protest against fata, because it was your wish. I can

step out of your life again—ls It 18 your wish. But I can’t imprison myself In your cities. I’m neither an Idler nor dn I become a legalized buccaneer. I have nothing but contempt for those who are. Mind you. this is not so sweeping a statement as It sounds. No one has a keener appreciation of what civilization means than L Out of It has arisen culture and knowledge, much of what should make the world a better place for us aIL But somehow this doesn’t apply to the mass, and particularly not to the circles we Invaded In Granville. With here and there a solitary exception that class Is hopeless in Its smug selfsatisfaction— Its narrowness of outlook, and unblushing exploitation of the less fortunate, repels me. “And to dabble my hands in their muck, to settle down and live my life according to their bourgeois standards, to have grossness of soft flesh replace able sinews, to submerge mentality in favor of a specious craftiness of mind which passes in the ’city’ for brains well, I’m on the road. And, oh, girl, girl, I wish you were with me. “I must explain this mining deal — that phase of it which sent me on the rampage in Granville. I should have done so before, should have insisted on making it clear to you. The other side had been presented to you rather cleverly at the right time. And your ready acceptance of it angered me beyond bounds. You were prejudiced. It stirred me to a perfect fury to think you couldn't be absolutely loyal to your pal. When you took that position I simply couldn’t attempt explanations. Do you think I’d ever have taken the other fellow’s side against you, right or wrong?

“Anyway, here it is: You got the essentials, up to a certain point, from Brooks. But he didn’t tell it all—his kind never does, not by a tong shot. They, tire four of them, it seems, held a meeting as soon as I shipped out that gold and put through that stockselling scheme. That was legitimate. I couldn’t restrain them from that, being a hopeless minority of one. Their chief object, however, was to let two or three friends in on the ground floor of a good thing; also, they wanted each a good bundle of that stock while It was chean —figuring that with the prospects I had opened up It would sell high. So thdy had It on the mar ket, and in addition had everything framed up to reorganize with a capitalization of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This all cut and dried before I got there. Now, as It originally stood, the five of us would each have made a small fortune on these Klappan claims. They’re good. But with a quarter of a million In outstanding stock —well, H would be all right for the fellow with a big block. But you can see where I would get off with a five-thousand-dollar Interest. To be sure, a certain proportion of the money derived from the sale of this stock should be mine. But it goes into the treasury, and they had it arranged to keep it in the treasury, as a fund for operations, with them doing the operating. They had already Indicated their bent by voting an annual stipend of ten thousam} and six thousand dollars to Lcgimer and Brooks as president and secretary respectively. Me, they proposed to quiet with a manager’s wage of a mere five thousand a year—after I got on the ground and began to get my back up.

“But they capped the climax with what I must cold-bloodedly characterize as the baldest attempt at a dirty fraud I ever encountered. And they had the gall to try and make me a party to it. To make this clear you must understand that I, on behalf of the company and acting as the company’s agent, grubstaked Whitey Lewis and four others to go in and stake those claims. I was empowered to arrange with these five men that If the claims made a decent showing each should receive five thousand dollars in stock for assigning their claims to the company, and should have employment at top wages while the claims were operated. “They surely earned it. ¥ou know what the North is in the dead of winter. They bucked their way through a hell of frost and snow and staked the claims. If ever men were entitled to what was due them, they were. And not one of them stuttered over his bargain, even though they were taking out weekly as much gold as they were to get for their full share. They’d given their word, and they were white men. They took me for a white man also. They took my word that they would get what was coming to them, and gave me in the company’s name clear title to every claim. I put those titles on record in Hazelton, and came home.

“Lorimer and Brooks deliberately proposed to withhold that stock, to defraud these men, to steal —oh, I caq’t find words strong enough. Brooks said to me, with a grin: ‘The property’s in the company’s name —let the roughnecks sweat a while. They’ve got no come-back, anyway.’ “That was when I smashed him. Do you blame me? I’d taken over those fellows’ claims in good faith. Could I go back there and face those men and say: ‘Boys, the company’s got your claims, and they won’t pay for them.’ Do you think for a minute I’d let a bunch of lily-fingered crooks put anything like that over on simple, squaredealing fellows who were too honest to protect their own Interests from sharp practice? A quartette of softbodled mongrels who sat in upholstered office chairs while these others wallowed through six feet of snow for three weeks, living on bacon and beans, to grab a pot of gold for them I It makes my fist double up when I think about It. “And I wouldn’t be put off or placab ed by a chance to fatten my own bank roll. I didn’t care if I broke the Free

Gold Mining company and myself likewise. A dollar doesn’t terrify nor yet fascinate me—l bope It never will. And while, perhaps, it was not what they would call good form for me to lose my temper and go at them w’lth my fista, I was lighting mad when I thoroughly sensed their dirty project. Anyway, It helped bring them to time. When you take a man of that type and cuff him around with your two hands he’s apt to listen serious to what you say. And they listened when I told them in dead earnest next day that Whitey Lewis and his partners must have what was due them, or I'd wreck the bunch of them If It took ten years and every dollar I had to do It. And I could have put them on the tramp, too —they'd already dipped their fingers in where they couldn’t stand litigation. I'm sure of that —or they would never have come through ; which they did. "But I’m sorry I ever got mixed up with them. I’m going to sell my stock and advise Lewis and the others to do the same while we can get full value for It. Lorimer and that bunch will manipulate Uie outfit to death, no matter how the mine produces. "That’s all of that. I don’t care two whoops about the money. There is still gold in the Klappan Range and other corners of the North, whenever I need It But It nauseated me. I can’t stand that cut-throat game. And Granville, like most other cities of Its kind, lives by and for that sort of thrlng. The pressure of modern Use makes It Inevitable. Anyway, a town Is no place for me. I can stomach it about so long, and no longer. It’s too cramped, too girded about with pettylarceny conventions. If once you slip and get down, every one walks on you. Everything’s restricted, priced, tinkered with. Jhere is no real freedom of body or spirit. I wouldn’t trade a comfy log cabin In the woods with a big fireplace and a shelf of books for

the finest home on Maple drive —not If I had to stay there and stifle in the dust and smoke and smells. That would be a sordid and impoverished existence. I cannot live by the dog-eat-dog code that seems to prevail wherever folk get Jammed together in an unwieldy social mass. I have said the like to you before. “By nature and training I’m unfitted to live In these crowded places. I love you. little person, I don’t think you realize how much, but I can’t make you happy by making myself utterly miserable. That would only produce the Inevitable reaction. But I still think you are essentially enough like me to meet me on common ground. You loved me and you found contentment and joy at our little cabin once. Don’t you think it might be waiting there again?

“If you really care, if I and the old North still mean anything to you, a few days or weeks, or even months of separation won’t matter. An affection that can’t survive six months is too fragile to go through life on. I don’t ask you to Jump the next train and follow me. I don’t ask you to wire me, ‘Come back, Bill.’ Though I would come quick enough if you called me. I merely want you to think It over soberly and let your heart decide. You know where 1 stand, don’t you, Hazel, dear? I haven’t changed—not a bit— I’m the same old Bill. But I’d rather hit; the trail alone than with an unwilling partner. Don’t flounder about In any quicksand of duty. There is no ‘I ought to’ between us. “So it Is up to you once more, little person. If my wy is not your way I will abide by your decision without whining. And whenever you want to reach me, a message to Felix (Jour-, voiseur, Fort George, will eventually find me. I’ll fix it that way. “So long, little person. I like you a heap, for all your cantankerous ways. “BILL.” She laid aside the letter, with a lump in her throat. For a brief Instant she was minded to telegraph the word that would bring him hurrying back. But—some of the truths he had set down In cold black and white cut her deep. Of a surety she had drawn her weapon on the wrong side In the mln-

ing trouble. Over hasty?— yea. Ana shamefully disloyal. Perhaps there was something In It, after all; that la to say, it might be they had made a mistake. She saw plainly enough that unless she could get back some of the old enthusiasm for that wilderness life, unless the fascination of magnificent distances, of silent, breathless forests, of contented, quiet days on trail and stream, could lay fast hold of her again, they would only defer the day of reckoning, as Bill had said. No, she would not attempt to call him back. She doubted if he would come. And she would not go—not yet She must have time to think. Altogether, as the first Impression of Bill’s letter grew less vivid to her she considered her grievances more. And she was minded to act as she had set out to do —to live her life as seemed best to her, rather than pocket her pride and rejoin Bill. The feminine Instinct to compel the man to capitulate asserted Itself more and more strongly. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Standing With His Hand on the Knob, He Turned.

"That Was When I Smashed Him."