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PAGE 'SIX "North of Fifty-three" Hy BERTRAND (Chapter VI. Continued) "Mr. Wagstaff,' Hazel pleaded, "won't you please stop talking like that? It ism't--it isn't--" "Isn't proper, 1 suppose," Bill supplied dryly. 'Now, that's merely an error, and a fundamental error on your part, little person. Our emotion and imstincts are perfectly proper when you get down to fund- amentals, You've got an artificial standard to judge by, that's all, And I don't supose you have the least idea how many lives are spoiled one way and another by the operation of those same artificial standards in this little old world, Now, I may seem to you a lawless, unprineipled ipdividual indeed, because I've acted dontrary to your idea of the accepted rder of things. But here's my side of it; I'm in search of happiness, We all are. I have a few ideals--and very few illusions. 1 don't quite be- lieve in this thing called love at first sight, That presupposes a volatility of emeqtion that people of any strength of character. are not likely to indulge in, But--for instance, a man can have a very definite ideal of the kind of woman he would like for a mate, the kind of woman he could be happy with and could make hap- py. And whenever he finds a woman who corresponds to that ideal he's apL to make a strenoous attempt to get her. That's pretty much how I felt about you." "You had no right to kidnap me," Hazel began, "You had no business gatting lost and making it possible for me to car- ry you off," Bill replied, *Isn't that logic?" "I'l never forgive you," Hazel flashed. "It was treacherous and un- manly. There are other ways of winning a woman." ' "There wasn't any other way ope to me." Bill grew suddenly moody. "Not with you in Cariboo Meadows. I'm taboo there. Why, I'd have been at your elbow when you. left the sup- per table at Jim Briggs' that night if I had't known how it would be. I went there out of sheer curiosity to take a look at you--maybe out of a spirit of defiance, too, because I knew that I was certainly not wel- come even if they were willing to take my money for a meal. And I came away all up in the air, There was something about you--the tone of your voice, the way your proud little head is set on your shoulders, your makeup in general--that sent me away with a large-sized, grouch| at myself, at Cariboo Meadows, and | at you for coming in my way." "Why?" she asked in wonder. { "Because you'd have believed | what they told you, and Cariboo! Meadows can't tell anything about | me that isn't bad," he said quietly. "My record there makes me entirely unfit to associate with--that would have been your conclusion. And I wanted to be with you, to talk to] you, to take you by morm and make | you like me as I felt I could care for | you. You can't have grown up, lit- tle person, without realizing that ypu | do attract men very strongly. All women do, but some far more than | others." "Perhaps," she admitted coldly. "Men have annoyed me with their unwelcome - attentions. But none of | them ever dared go the length of carrying me away against my will. You can't explain or excuse that." | "I'm not attempting excuses," Bill | made @nbwer. "There are two things | I never do--apologize or bully. I dare say that's one reason the Mead- | ows gives me such a black eye. If they weren't a good deal afraid of me,d and always laying for a chance to do me up, they wouldn't let me stay in the town over night. So you see what a handieap I was under when it came to making your acquaintance and courting you in the orthodox manner." " "You've made a great mistake," she said bitterly, "if you think you've | removed the handieap. [I've suffer- ed a great deal at the hands of men in the past six months. I'm beginn- ing to believe that-all men are brutes | at heart." | Roaring Bill sat up and clasped his hands over his knees and stared fixedly into the fire. "No," he said slowly, "all men are not brutes--any more than all women are angels. I'll convince you of that." i "Take me home then," she cried forlornly, "that's the only way you can convince me or make amends." "No," Bill murmured, "that isn't Wait until. you know me better. Besides I couldn't take yom | out now if I wanted to, without ex-| posing you to greater hardships than you'll have to endure here. Do you | realize that its fall, and we're in the |1 don't have to do it. high latitudes? This snow may mo | | the pile. mers of the tablecloth. W, SINCLAIR ) go off after all. Even if it does it will storm again before a week, You couldn't wallow through snow to your waist in forty-below-zero weather." "People will pass here, and. I'll get word out," Hazel asserted desper- ately. "What good would that do you? You've got too much conventional regard for what you term your repu- tation to send word to Cariboo Mead- ows that your living back here with Roaring Bill Wagstaff, and won't some one please come and rescue you." He paused to let that sink in, and then continued: "Besides, you won't see a white face before spring; then only by accident. No one in the North outside of a few Indians, has ever seen this cabin or knows where it stands." She sat dumb, raging inwardly. For the minute she could have killed Roaring Bill. 8he who had been so sure in her independence, carried, whether or no, into the heart of the wilderness at the whim of a man who stood a self-confessed rowdy, in ill repute among his own kind. There was a slumbering devil in Miss Hazel Weir, and it took little to wake her temper, She looked at Bill Wagstaff and her breast heaved, He was re- sponsible, and he could sit cooly talk- ing about it, The resentment that had smoldered against Andrew Bush and Jack Barrow concentrated on Roaring Bill as the arch offender of them all, And lest she yleld to a savage impulse to scream at him, she got up and ran into the bedroom, slammed the door shut behind her and threw herself across the bed to muffle the sound of her crying on the pillow. After a time she-lifted her head. Outside the wind whistled gustily around the cabin corners. In the hushed intervals she heard a steady pad, pad, sounding sometimes close by her door, and again faintly at the far end of the room. A beam of light shone through the generous latch-string hole in the door. Steal- ing softly over she peeped through this hole. From end to end of the big room and back again Roaring Bill paced slowly, looking straight ahead of him with a fixed, absent stare, his teeth closed on his nether lip. Hazel blinked wonderingly. Many an hour in the last three months she had walked the floor like that, biting her lip in mental agony. And then, while she was looking, Bill abruptly ex- tinguished the candles. In the red gleam from the hearth she saw him go to the kitchen, closing the door softly. After that there was no sound except the swirl of the storm brushing at her window. LJ * * * * * In line with Roaring Bill's fore- cast the weather cleared for a brief |span, and then winter shut down in earnest. Daily the cold increased, till a half inch layer of frost stood on the cabin panes. But within the cabin they were snug and warm. Bill's axe kept the wood pile high. The two fireplaces shone red the twenty four hours through. Of flour tea, coffee beans, sugar and such stuff as could only be gotten from the outside he had a plentiful supply. Potatoes and cer- tain vegetables that he had grown! in a cultivated patch behind the cabin were storéd in a deep cellar. He could always 'sally forth and get meat. And the ice was no bar to fishing, for he could cut a hole, sink a small net, and secure over night a week's supply of trout and whitefish. Thus their material wants were pro- vided for. As time passed Hazel gradually shook off a measure of her depres- sion, thrust her uneasiness and re- sentment into the background. As a matter of fact, she resigned herself to getting through the winter since that was inevitable. She fell into the | way of doing little things about the house, finding speedily that time flew when she busied herself at some task in the intervals of delving in | Roaring Bill's library. One of these days Hazel came into the kitchen and found Bill piling towels, napkins, and a great quantity of other soiled articles on an out- spread tablecloth. "Well," she inquired, "what are you going to do with those?" "Take "em to the laundry," he laughed. "Collect your dirty duds, and bring them forth." "Laundry!" Hazel echoed. seemed rather a far fetched joke. "Sure! You dom't suppose we can get along forever without having things washed, do you *" he replied. it {I don't. mind housework, but I do draw the line at a laundry job when Go on--get | your clothes." So she brought out her accumula- tion of garments and laid them on Bill tied up the four cor- "Now," said he, "let's see if we can't fit you out for a more or less extended walk. You stay in the house altogether too much these days. That's bad business. Noth- ing like exercise in the fresh air." Thus in a few minutes Hazel fared | forth, wrapped in Bill's fur coat, a |flap-eared cap on her head, and on her feet several pairs of stockings inside moccasins that Bill had pro- cured from some mysterious sounce a day or two before. The day was sunny, albeit the | the roses hack to her cheeks. Bill carried the bundle of linen on his back, and trudged steadilythrough through the woods. But the riddle of his destination was soon read to her, for a two mile walk brought them out on the shore of a fair sized lake, on the farther side of which loomed the comical lodges of an In- dian camp. "You sabe now," said he, as they crossed the ice. "This bunch gen- erally comes in here about this time, and stays Jill spring. I get the squaws to wash for me. Ever see Mr. Indian on his native heath OSHAWA, ONTARIO, SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1922 .#* EE -------- Rr Hazel never had and she was duly interested, even if a trifle shy of the red brother who stared so fixedly. She entered a lodge with Bill, and listened to him make laundry arran- | gements in broken English with al withered old beldame whose features | resembled a ham that had hung over- long in the smoke house. Two or | three blanketed bucks squatted by the fire that sent its blue smoke steaming out the peak of the lodge. "Heap fine squaw!' one suddenly addressed Bill, "Where you ketch- um?" Bill laughed at Hazel's confusion. "Away off." He gestured southward, and the Indian grunted some unintel- ligible remark in lis own tongue-- at which Roaring Bill laughed again. Before they started for home Bill succeeded in purchasing after much talk a pair of moccasins that Hazel conceded to be a work of art, what with the dainty pattern of heads and the ornamentation of colored porcu- pine quills, Her femine soul could not cavil when Bill thrust them in the pocket of her coat, even if her mind was set against accepting any peace tokens at his hands. In the nearing sunset they went home through the frost-bitten woods, where the gnow crunched and squeak- ed under their feet, and the branches broke off with a pistol-like snap when | they were bent aside. A hundred yards from the cabin | Bill challenged her for a race. She] | refused to run and he picked her up | bodily and ran with her to the very| door. He held her for a second be- fore he set her down, and Hazel's| face whitened, 8he could feel his| breath on her cheek, and she could | feel his arms quiver, and the rapid | beat qf his heart. For an instant | she thought Roaring Bill Wagstaff | was going to make the colossal mis-| take of trying to kiss her, Bue he set her gently on her feet and opened the door. And by the time he had his outer clothes off and fires started up he was talking whim- sically about their Indian neighbours, and Hazel breathed more freely. The | plear-set impression that she hpd aside from her brief panic, was of his strength. He had run with her easily as if she had been a child. as {bare boughs ol After that they went out. many times together. Bill took her hunt- ing, initiated her into the mysteries | of rifle shooting, and the manipula- of to a six shooter, walk. on tion her He snowshoes, taught lightly over the surface of the crusted snow, | through which otherwise she floun- dered. A sort of truce arose between them, and the days drifted by without untoward incident, Bill tended to his horses, chopped wood, carried water. She took upon herself the care of the house. And through the long evenings in default of con- versation they would sit with a book on eithgy side of the fireplace that roared defiance to the storm gods without. And sometimes Hazel would find herself wondering why Roaring Bill Wagstaff could not have come into her life in a different manner. As is was--she never, never would for give him, CHAPTER VII The Fives of Spring There came a day when the metal- lic brilliancy went out of the sky, and it became softly, mistily blue, All that forenoon Hazel prowled rest- lessly out of doors without cap or coat, There was a new feel in the air. The deep winter snow had sud- |denly lost its harshness, Toward evening a mild freshened from the southwest, At ten o'clock a gale whooped riot- ously through the trees. And at midnight Hazel wakened to a sound that she had not heard in months, She rose and groped her way to the window. The encrusting frost had vanished from the panes. They were wet to the touch of her fingers, She unhooked the fastening and swung the window out. A great gust of damp warm wind blew strands of hair across her face, She leaned through the casement and drops of cold water struck her bare neck. That which she had heard was the dripping eaves. The chinook winl droned its spring song and the the tree beside the and ereaked the time, breeze cabin At waved dawn eaves ceased their | | drip, and the dirt roof lay bare to the cloud-banked sky. From the south west the wind still blew strong and warm. The thick winter garment of the earth softened to slush, and van-| ished with amazing swiftness. | Streams of water poured down every depression. Pools stood betwegn the house and stable, Spring had leaped strong-armed upon old Winter and vanished him at the first on- slaught, All that day the chinook blew, working its magic upon the land. | When day broke again with a clear- ing sky, and the sun peered down between the cloud rifts, his beams fell upon vast areas of brown and| green, where but forty-eight hours gone, there was the cold revelry of | [frost spirits upon far-flung fields of | SNOW. Patches of earth dteamed | wherever a hillside lay bare to the | sun, From some mysterious distance |a lone crow winged his way, and, | perching on a nearby tree-top, cawed raucous greeting. Hazel cleared away the breakfast things, and stood looking out the kit- chen window. Roaring Bill sgt on a log, shirt-sleeved, smoking his pipe. Presently he went over to the stable, led out his horses and gave them their liberty. For twenty minutes or 50 he stood watching their mad cap-| ors as they ran and leaped and pran-| ced back and forth over the clearing. | Then he walked off into the timber, | his rifle over his shoulder, Hazel washed her dishes and went outside. She did not know why, but all at once a terrible feeling of utter forlornness seized her. 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