Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1919 — North of Fifty-Three [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

North of Fifty-Three

By Bertrand W. Sinclair

(Oepjrlghl by UtUe, Brown A CoJ SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I—The story opena to the town of Granville, Ontario, where Mlaa Hanoi Weir la employed aa a stenographer in the office of Harrington and Buah. She la engaged to Jack Barrow. a young real •otata agent, and the wedding day la set. "Whlle walking with him one Sunday they taeet Mr. Buah, Hasel's employer, who for the first time seems to notice her attractlveneaa. Shortly afterward, at hia rvqueet, ahe becomes hia private atenographer. After three montha Mr. Buah proposes marriage, which Hazel daclinea and after a stormy acene in the office Hazel leavea her employment, Mr. Buah "wambig her he 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 friend a She returns i 'them. The next day Buah is thrown from pis horse and fatally hurt. He sends for 'Hasel, who refuses to see him before he ’dies. Three days afterward it is announced that he left a legacy of $6,000 to Hazel, "in reparation for any wrong I 'may have done her.** Hazel recognizes at [once what construction will be put upon ithe words. Bush had hia revenge. . CHAPTER lll—Jack Barrow, in a lit of jealous rage, demands from Hasel an 'explanation of Bush’s action. Hazel’s pride Is hurt, and ahe refuses. The engage‘ment is broken and Hazel determines to 'leave Granville. She seea an advertlse’ment for a school teacher at Cariboo I Meadows. British Columbia, and secures [the situation. [ CHAPTER IV—Cariboo Meadows la in a wild part of British Columbia and Ha.ael, 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 Are ahe recognises a 'character known to Cariboo Meadows as ‘••Roaring Bill Wagstaff.** who had seen "her at ner boarding house thera He promises to take her home in the morning, but she la compelled to spend the night in the woods.

' CHAPTER V-r-They start next day. Hazel 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 1 him. 1 CHAPTER Vl—At the cabin Wagstaff [provides Hazel with clothing which had ween left by tourists. There they pass the winter. Wagstaff tells her he loves ner. but tn her Indignation at her ‘‘abduo,tlon** refuses to listen to him. CHAPTER Vll—With the coming of spring Hazel insists that Wagstaff take ner out of the mountains. He endeavors ito 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. I CHAPTER VHI—On parting, Wagstaff Wives Hazel a package which she discovers later contains $1,300 and a map which .will enable her to find her way to the [cabin if she desires to go back. At Van>couver Hazel plans to return to Gran- I ivllle, but on the train realizes that she ; loves Wagstaff, and decides to go to him. i6he leaves the train at the first stop. CHAPTER IX—With the aid of Bin's *tnap she finds her way back, and the pair [travel to a Hudson Bay post and are [married After some months they decide to go farther Into the mountains to a Spot where. Bill Is confident there is gold, i CHAPTER X—After an arduous trip, which severely tries Hazel’s strength, 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 until spring. 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 stored hay. To 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 Xlll—Without the horses the trip is severe, but thev arrive safely and find they have “neighbors, Jake Lauer, a German from Milwaukee, with I 211 s wife and children. CHAPTER XIV—To please Hazel, 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 ‘•f the life wearies Bill. With some business men he forms a company to work Ithe claims on which he and Hazel had [found gold. CHAPTER XV—Affairs connected with the claims force Wagstaff to go back to the mountains. On his return he finds his associates have planned a stock-job-bing deal which is unfair to him and his I friends. He protests, and the matter ends lin a publtq, brawl In which Bill uses his .fists. Hazel Is indignant on account of ‘the scandal. I CHAPTER XVl—Bill attempts to make Hazel see the matter in its true light, but is unable to do so, and she refuses to go I back with him to their cabin. He goes, leaving her at Granville.

j A month passed. During that thirty-day period she received a brief note from Bill. Just a few lines to say: “Hit the ranch yesterday, little perison. Looks good to me. Went fishing last night about sundown. Trout were rising fine. Nailed a ten-pounder. Woke up this morning at daylight and found a buck deer with two lady friends standing in the middle of the Clearing. I loafed a few days In Fort George, sort of thinking I might hear 'from you. Am sending this out by Jake. Will start for the Klappan Bbout day after tomorrow." She had not answered his first letter. She had tried to. But somehowi when she tried to set pen to paper the right words would not come. She lacked his facility of expression. There was so much she wanted to say, bo little she seemed able to say. As the days passed she felt less sure of her ground, less sure that she had not sacrificed something precious to a vagary of self, an obsession of her own lego. I And slowly but surely she began to all the activities of her circle ith a critical eye. Certain of her

I friends had become tentative enemies. I Kitty Brooks and the Bray womenfolk, I who were a numerous and influential I tribe, not only turned silent faces I when they met. but they made war on I her in the peculiar fashion of women. A word here, a suggestive phrase I there, a shrug of the shoulders. It all bore fruit Other friends conveyed the avid gossip. Hasel smiled and ignored It. But in her own rooms she raged unavailingly. Her husband had left her. There was a man in the case. They had lost I everything. The first count was sufficiently maddening because it was a half truth. And any of it was irritating—even if few belle red —since it made a choice morsel to digest in gossipy corners, and brought sundry curious stares on Hazel at certain times. Also Mr. Wagstaff had caused the stockholders of Free Gold a heavy loss —which was only offset by the fact that the Free Gold properties were producing richly. None of this was even openly flung at her. She gathered It piecemeal. And it galled her. She could not openly defend either Bill oi herself against the shadowy scandalmongers. Slowly it dawned upon her, with a bitterness born of her former experience with Granville, that she had lost something of the standing that certain circles had accorded her as the wife of a successful mining man. It made her ‘ponder. Was Bill so far wrong, after all, in his estimate of them? It was a disheartening conclusion. She had come of a family that stood well in Granville; she had grown up there; if lifetime friends blew hot and cold like that, was the game worth playing? In so far as she could she gave the

He to some of the petty gossip. Whereas at first she had looked dubiously on spending Bill's money to maintain the standard of living they had set up, she now welcomed that deposit of five thousand dollars as a means to demonstrate that even in his absence he stood behind her financially—which she began to perceive counted more than anything else. So long as she could dress in the best, while she could ride where others walked, so long as she betrayed no limitation of resources, the doors stood wide. Not what you are, but what you’ve got — she remembered Bill that was their holiest creed. It repelled her. And sometimes she was tempted to sit down and pour it all out in a letter to him. But she could not quite bring herself to the point. Always behind Bill loomed the yast and dreary Northland, and she shrhnk from that.

On top of this, she began to suffer a queer upset of her physical condition. All her life she had been splendidly healthy; her body a perfectworking machine, afflicted with no weaknesses. Now odd spasmodic pains recurred without rhyme or reason in her head, her back, her limbs, striking her with sudden poignancy, disappearing as suddenly. - She was stretched on the lounge one afternoon wrestling nervously with a particularly acute attack, when Vesta Lorimer was ushered in. “You’re almost a stranger,” Hazel remarked, after the first greetings.

“Your’outing must have been pleasant, to hold you so long.” | “It would have held me longer,”. Vest returned, “if I didn’t have to be in touch with my market. I could Hve[ quite happily on my island eight; months in the year. But one can’t get people to come several hundred miles to a sitting. And I feel inclined to acquire a Hving Income while my vogue lasts.”

“You’re rather a wilderness lover, aren't you?” Hasel commented. “I don’t think you'd love it as dearly If you were buried allvo in it” “That would all depend on the cumstancea,” Veeta replied. “One escapee many disheartening things tn a country that is still comparatively primitive. The continual grind of keeping one’s end up In town gets terribly wearisome. I’m always glad to go to the woods, and sorry when I have to leave. But I suppose it’s largely in one’s point of view.” They chatted of sundry matters for a few minutes. “By the way, is there any truth in! the statement that this Free Gold row has created trouble between you and your husband?** Vesta asked abruptly. “I dare say It’s quite an Impertinent question, and you’d be well within your rights to tell me It’s none of my business. But I should like to confound some of these petty tattlers. I haven’t been home forty-eight hours; yet I’ve heard tongues wagging. I hoope there's nothing in It I warned Mr. Wagstaff against Paul.”

“Warned him? Why?’’ Hazel neglected the question entirely. The bluntness of it took her by surprise. Frank speech was not a characteristic of Vesta Lorimer's set. The girl shrugged her shoulders. “He is my brother, but that doesn’t veil my eyes,” she said coolly. “Paul is too crooked to lie straight in bed. I’m glad Mr. Wagstaff brought the lot of them up with a round turn —which he seems to have done. If he had used a club Instead of his fists it would have I been only their deserts. I suppose the; fuss quite upset you?” “It did,” Hazel admitted grudgingly. “It did more than upset me.” “I thought as much,” Vesta said slowly. “It made you inflict an Indeserved hurt on a man who should have had. better treatment at your hands; not only because he loves you, but because he is one of the few men who deserve the best that you or any woman can give.” “You’ve said quite enough,” Hazel cried. “If you have any more Insults, please get rid of them elsewhere. I think you are—” “Oh, I don’t care what you think of me,” the girl interrupted recklessly, “If I did I wouldn’t be here. I’d hide behind the conventional rules of the game and let you blunder along. But I can’t. I’m not gifted with your blind egotism. Whatever you are, that Bill of yours loves you, and if you care anything for him, you should be with him. I would, if I were lucky enough to stand in your shoes. I’d go with him down Into bell itself gladly if he wanted me to!”

“Oh I” Hazel gasped. “Are you clean mad?” “Shocked to death, aren’t you?” Vesta fleered. “You can’t understand, can you? I love him —yes. I’m not ashamed to own it. Tm no sentimental prude to throw up my hands in horror at a perfectly natural emotion. But he is not for me. I dare say I I couldn’t give him an added heartbeat if I tried. And I have a Uttle too much pride—strange as it may seem to you —to try, so long as he is chained hand and foot to your chariot. But you're | making him suffer. And I care enough to want him to live all his days happily.' He is a man, and there are so few of them, real men. *lf you can make him happy, I’d compel you to do so, if I had the power. You couldn’t understand that kind of a love. Oh, I could choke you for your stupid disloyalty. I could do almost anything that would spur you to action. I can’t rid myself of the hopeless, reckless mood he is in. There are so few of his kind, the patient, strong, loyal, squaredealing men, with a woman’s tenderness and a lion’s courage. Any woman should be proud and glad to be his mate, to mother his children. And you—” She threw out her hands with a sudden, despairing gesture. The blue eyes grew misty, and she hid her face in her palms. Before that passionate outburst Hazel sat dumbly amazed, staring, uncertain. In a second Vesta, lifted her head defiantly.

“I had no notion of breaking out like this when I came up,” she said quietly. “I was going to be very adroit. I Intended to give you a friendly boost along the right road, if I could. But it has all been bubbling inside me for a long time. You perhaps think it very unwomanly—but I don’t care much what you think. My little heartache is incidental, one of the things life deals us whether we will or not. But if you care in the least for your husband, for God’s sake make some effort, some sacrifice of your own petty little desires, to make his road a little pleasanter, a little less gray than a must be now. You’ll be well repaid—if you are the kind that must always be paid in full. Don’t be a stiff-necked idiot That’s all I wanted to say. Goodby I” She was at the door when she finished. The click of the closing catch stirred Hazel to speech and action. “Vesta, Vesta!’’, she cried, and ran out into the corridor. But Vesta Lorimer neither heeded nor halted. And Hazel went‘back to her room*, quivering. Sometimes the truth is bitter and stirs to wrath. And mingled with other emotions was a dull pang of jealousy—the first she had ever known. For Vesta Lorimer was beautiful beyond most women; and she had but given ample evidence of the bigness of her soul. With shamed tears creeping to her eyes, Hazel wondered if she could love even Bill so intensely that she would drive another woman to his arms that he might win happiness. But one thing stood out clear above that painful meeting. She was done fighting 'against the blankness that

I seemed to surround her since Bln went away. Slowly but steadily It I had been forced upon her that much I which she deemed deairable, even necI easary, was of little weight In the balance with him. Day and night ahe longed for him, for bls cheery voice, the whimsical good humor of him, his kiss and his smile. Indubitably Vesta Lorimer was right to term her a stiffnecked, selfish fool. But if all folk were saturated with the essence of wisdom —well, there was but one thing ■to be done. Silly pride had to go by the board. If to face gayly a land site dreaded were the price of easing his heartache —and her own —that price she would pay, and pay with a grace but lately learned. She lay down on the lounge again. The old pains were back. And as ahe endured, a sudden startling thought flashed across her mind.' A possibility?— She hurried to dress, wondering why It had not before occurred to her, and, phoning up a taxi, rolled downtown to the office of Doctor Hart. An hour or so later she returned. A picture of her man stood on the mantel. She took It down and stared at It with a tremulous smile. “Oh, Billy-boy, Billy-boy, I wish you knew,” she whispered. “But I was coming, anyway. Bill!” That evening, stirring about her preparations for the journey, ahe paused, and wondered why, for the first time since Bill left, she felt ao utterly at peace.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

"You’re Almost a Stranger," Hazel Remarked, After the First Greetings