Show ADD TU yn T ADD E NOE K fa ra by BERTRAND W SINCLAIR copyright little brown co CHAPTER continued I am pleased to welcome you back to gotts country mrs wagstaff Vae staff he said bald und let me carry dot suld suid case al retty they walked two blocks to the kings hotel where bauers family was housed he was in for supplies he told her and of course his wife and children accompanied him ai not dat aredda iss afraid she iss so goot a man as I 1 on der ranch ven I 1 am gone lie ho explained but for dem deal it iss a change und I 1 bring by der town a loat off boba does by cosh dern dem boba doea does iss sell high it flashed into hazels mind that here was vas a heaven sent opportunity to reach the cabin without facing that hundred miles in the company of chance hired strangers but she did not broach the subject at once instead she asked eagerly of bill lauer told her that bill had tarried a few days at the cabin and then struck out ou alone for the mines and he be had not no said when he would be back mrs lauer unchanged from a year earlier welcomed her with pleased friendliness and jake left the two of them and the chubbs biddles in the kings office while he betook retook himself about his business hazel baled his wife and the children to her room as soon ns as one was assigned to her and there almost before she knew it she was murmuring brokenly her story into an ear that listened with sympathy and understanding only a woman can grasp some of a womans comans needs gretta lauer patted hazels shoulder with a motherly hand band and bade her cheer up homes the place for you dear she sold said smilingly you just come right along with us your man will come quick enough when he gets word and well take good care of you in the menn meantime time la rm im all excited over it its the finest thing could happen for you both take it from me dearle dearie I 1 know weve had bad our troubles jake and L I 1 and seeing im only six months short of being a graduate nurse you fear well well ill need to have food hauled in hazel reflected and some things I 1 brought with me I 1 wish bill were here im afraid ill be a lot of bother wont you be heavily loaded as it Is she recalled swiftly the odd makeshift team that lauer depended on the mule aule lop eared and solemn und gretchen der cow she had cash and drafts for over three thousand dollars on her person she wondered if it would offend the sturdy independence of these simple kindly neighbors it if she offered to supply a four horse team and wagon for their mutual use but she had been forestalled there she learned in the next breath oh bother not nothing notting bing mrs lauer declared why wed be ashamed if we help a little and tars fars the load goes you ought to see the four beautiful horses your husband let jake have you dont know how much jake appreciates it nor what a fine man lie be thinks your husband is we needed horses so bad and have the money to buy so mr bir wagstaff Wag say a thing but got the team for us and jakes paying for them in clearing and plowing and making improvements prove ments on your land bonest they could pull twice the load well hanc hae theres a good wagon ro road ad most of the way now quito a lot ot of settlers too as much as fifty or sixty miles out and weve got the finest garden you ever saw vegetables enough to feed four families all win tor ter oh your old cities i I 1 never want to live in one again never kever a day have the biddles been sick suppose it Is a bit out of the world youre all the more ore pleased when somebody does happen along folks Is so different in a new country like this theres plenty for everybody and eve helps like neighbors ought to lauer came up after a time and hazel found herself unequivocally in their hands with the matter of transporting herself and supplies thus solved she set out to find fells felix cour who would know how to get word to lie ile might come back to the cabin in a month or so he might not come back at all unless he heard beard from her she was smitten with a great tear fear that lie he might give her up as lost to mm him and plunge deeper into the wilderness in some mood of recklessness and she wanted him longed for him it if only so that she could make amends she easily found a tall pare F frenchman hman past middle age yes he could deliver a message to bill wagstaff that Is he could send a man bill wagstaff was in the klap pan range but it if he be should have left there hazel azel suggested uneasily B E weel leave citey dewees word of were le e go reassured her an my man ees my bruszer law baw I 1 can mos fully trus e weel follow eem so bealo PCS ees arrange E D ees say mos partee vular if f madame ees come or tor ter forward message geet heem to me ii out long tarn tam beet beel ees know me I 1 am for depend always Omi ominio yio kieft a traders stock of goods in a weather beaten old log house which sprawled a hundred feet back from the street thirty years lie he told her he had kept that store in fort george she guessed that bill had selected him licause because he was a fixture she sat down at his counter and wrote her message just a few terse lines and when she had delivered it to she went back to the hotel there was nothing now to do but watt wait and with the message under way she found herself impatient to reach the cabin to spend the waiting days where she had bad first found happiness she could set her house bouse in order against her mans coming and if the days dragged and the great lone land seemed to close in and press inexorably upon her she would have to be patient very patient jake was held up waiting tor for supplies fort george suffered a sugar famine two days later the belated freight arrived ile he loaded his wagon a ton of goods for himself a like weight of hazels supplies and belongings A goodly load but he e drove out of fort george with four strapping bays arching their powerful necks and champing champine cham ping on the bit four days ve vill till make it by der ranch jake chuckled mit der mule und gretchen der cow von it take me alt half der oat four altogether pleasant and satisfying days they were to hazel the worst of the fly pests were vanished for the season A crisp touch of frost sharpened the night winds indian summer hung its mellow haze over the land the clean pungent air that sifted through the forests seemed doubly sweet after the vitiated atmosphere of town fresh from a gridiron of dusty streets and stone pavements and but stepped as one might say from days of imprisonment in the narrow confines of a railway coach she drank the winey air la in hungry gulps and joyed in the soft yielding of the turf beneath her feet the fern and leavine peavine carpet of the forest floor it was her pleasure at night to sleep as she and bill had slept with her face bared to the stars she would draw her bed ed a little aside from the campfire and from the low seclusion of a thicket lie watching the nimble flames at their merry dance smiling lazily at the grotesque shadows cast by jake and his bis frair as they moved about the blaze and she would wake in the morning clearheaded clear headed alert grateful for the pleasant woodland smells arising wholesomely from the fecund bosom of the earth lauer pulled up before his own cabin at mid afternoon of the fourth day unloaded his own stuff and drove to his neighbors with the rest til walk back after a little hazel told him when he had piled her goods in one corner of the kitchen the rattle of the wagon died away she was alone at home her eyes filled as she roved restlessly from kitchen to living room and on into the bedroom at the end bill had unpacked the rugs were down the books stowed in familiar disarray upon their shelves th bedding spread in semi disorder where he had last slept and gone away without troubling to smooth it out in housewifely fashion she came back to the living room and seated herself in the big chair she had expected to be lonely very lonely but she was not perhaps that would come later for the present it seemed as if she had reached the end of something as if she were very tired and had gratefully come to 1 11 Y walked away through the woods a welcome resting place she turned her gaze out the open door where the forest fell away in vast undulations to a range of snow capped mountains purple in the autumn haze and a verse that bill had once quoted came back to her oh to feel the th wind grow strong etrone where the tha trail leaps down I 1 could never learn the way and wisdom of the town she blinked the town it seemed to have grown remote a fantasy in which she had played a puppet part but she was home again it if only the gladness of it endured strong enough to carry her through whatever black days might come to her there alone she would gladly have cooked her supper in the kitchen fireplace and laid down to sleep under her own roof it seemed the natural thing to do but she had not expected to find the cabin liva lity arranged and she had promised the bauers to spend the night with them so presently she closed the door and walked away through the woods september and october trooped past and as they marched the willow thickets and poplar groves grew yellow and brown and carpeted the floor of the woods with fallen leaves shrub and tree bared gaunt limbs to every autumn wind only the spruce and pine stood forth in their year round habiliments ot of green the days shortened steadily the nights grew long and bitter with frost snow fell blanketing softly the dead leaves old winter cracked his whip masterfully over all the north day by day between tasks and often while she worked hazels eyes would linger on the edges of the clearing often at night she would lift herself on elbow at some unexpected sound her heart leaping wild with expectation pec tation and always she would lie down again and sometimes press her clenched hand to her lips to keep back the despairing cry always she adjured herself to be patient to wait doggedly as bill would have waited to make due allowance tor for immensity of distance forthe for the manifold delays which might overtake a messenger faring across those silent miles or a man hr hurrying to his home many things might hold bold him back but he would atwould come it was inconceivable that he might not come meantime with only a dim consciousness ness of the tact fact she underwent a marvelous schooling in adaptation self restraint she had work of a R sort tasks such as every housewife finds self imposed in her own home she was seldom lonely she he marveled at that it was unique la in her experience all her old dread of the profound silence the pathless forests which In folded like a prison wall distances which seemed impossible of span had bad vanished in its place had fallen over her an abiding sense of peace of security the lusty storm winds whistling about the cabin sang a restful lullaby when the wolves lifted their weird melancholy plaint to the cold star jeweled skies she listened without the old shudder these things which were wont tont to oppress her to send her imagination reeling along morbid ways seemed but a natural aspect of life of which she herself was a part often sitting before her glowing fireplace watching a flame kindled with her own hands with wood she herself carried from the pile outside she pondered this it defied her powers of self analysis she could only accept it as a fact and be glad granville and all that granville stood for had withdrawn to a more or less remote background she could look over the frost spangled forests and feel that she lacked nothing nothing save her mate there was no impression of transient abiding no chafing to be elsewhere to do otherwise it was home she reflected perhaps that was why A simple routine served to fill her days she kept her house shining she cooked her food carried in her fuel except on days of forthright storm she put on her snowshoes and with a little rifle in the crook of her arm prowled at random through the woods partly because it gave her pleasure to range sturdily afield partly for the physical brace of exertion in the crisp air otherwise she curled comfortably before the fireplace and sewed or read something out of bills catholic assortment sort ment of books it was given her also to learn the true meaning of neighborliness that kindliness of spirit which Is stifled by stress in the crowded places and stimulated by like stress amid surroundings where life is noncomplex non complex direct AN where here cause and effect tread on each others heels every day it if she failed to drop into their aban came one of her neighbors to seis see it if all were well with her quite as a matter ot ol course jake kept steadily replenished for foi her a great pile ot of firewood or they would come babies and all bundled in furs of jakes trapping jingling up of an evening behind the frisky bays and while the bays munched hay in roaring bill Wag staffs fEs stable thay would cluster about the op dpn ri hearth popping corn for the children talking always with cheerful optimism behind I bauers auers quers mild blue ets ey s lurked e d a mind that burrowed ins to the roots of things ho he had bad lived and worked and read and pondering it all he had bad summed up a few of the verities verifies veri ties life it iss giffen us und ve must off it make der best ve can he said once to hazel fondling a few books he had borrowed to read at home li lite iss goot dor der lining of life if only ve go not astray abder der bool ish dings und if der self struggle str ucela years us not out so dot ve cannot enjoy being abife alife so many iss struggle und slave under terrible conditions und it iss largely because off ignorance ye vi e know not vot ve can do und ve shrink arom der unknown here iss acres by der doudand vree to der man vot can off it make use und dou sands vot lifts und and dies und beffer hass bass a home here iss goot glean air und in der und and und dirty streets iss a ravage of tuberculosis der balance iss not trun und in der own vay der rich iss full oft off droubie drunk mit giette e ment venry mit blea measures ach der boods und and mountains und and streams alenty off food und a kindly neighbor 4 not dot enough only der abnormal more as dot und I 1 dink der droubie iss largely dot der modern modem bagh breasure civilization makes for der abnormal vedder redder a man iss a millionaire or yorks in der brewery contentment iss a state off der mind und if der mind yorks raft logic it vill content find in der simple dings dinga it sounded like a pronouncement of bills but lauer did not often grow serious mostly he be was jovially cheerful ful and his wife likewise the north had emancipated them and they were loyal to ane source of their deliverance and hazel understood because she herself bad found the wild land a benefactor kindly in its silence restful dinits forested peace a cure for sickness of soul twice now it had rescued her from herself november and december went their appointed way and still no word of bill if now and then her pillow was wet she struggled mightily against depression she was not lonely in the dire significance of the word but she longed passionately tor for him and she held fast to her faith that he would come the last of the old year she went little abroad ventured seldom beyond the clearing and on new years eve jake bauers wife came to the cabin to stay hazel sat up wide awake on th the instant there was not the slightest sound she had been deep in sleep nevertheless she felt rather than knew that some one was in the living room perhaps the sound of the door opening had filtered through her slumber she hesitated an instant not through fear because in the months of living alone fear had utterly forsaken her but hope had leaped leaned so often only to fall sickeningly that she was halt half persuaded it must be a dream still the impression strengthened she slipped out of bed the door of the bedroom stood |