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OSHAWA, ONTARIO, SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1922 -¥ "North of F ifty-three 4 by BERTRAND W. SINCLAIR Vp --_--_-- So she watched with keen interest what he did. Which, in truth, was simple enough, He worked his way to a point southeast of the clearing till they gained a little rise whence through the treetops they could look back and see the cabin roof. There Bill cut off an eight-inch jack pine, leaving the stump approximately four feet high, This he hewed square, the four fet sides of the post facing re- spectively the cardinal points of the compass. On one smoothed surface Bill set to work with his pocketknife Hazel sat down and watched while he busied himself at this, And when he had finished she read, in deep-carved letters: W. WAGSTAFF'S 8. E, CORNER, Then he penned on a sheet of let- ter paper a brief notice to the effect that he, William Wagstaff, intended to apply for the purchase of the land embraced in an area a half mile square, of which the post was thp southeast corner mark. This notice he fastened to the stump with a few tacks, and sat down to rest from his labors, "How long do you suppose that will stay there, and who is there to read it if it does?" Hazel observed, "Search me. The moose and the deer and the timber wolves, I guess." Bill grinned, ' "The chances are the paper won't last long, with winds and rains. But it doesn't matter, It's simply a form prescribed by the land act of British Columbia, and, 80 long as I go through the legal motions, that lets me out, Matter of form, you know." "Then what else do you have to do?" 'Nothing' but furnish the money when the land depariment gets a- round to accept my application," he said. "I can get an agent to attend to all the details. Well, let's take a look at our estate from another corner." This, roughly ascertained by sight- ing a line with the compass and step- ping off 880 yards, brought them up on a knoll that commanded the small basin of which the clearing was prac- tically in the centre, "Aha!" Bill exclaimed, 'Look at our raneh, would you; our wide- spread acres basking in the sun. A quarter section is quite a chunk. Do you know I never though} much about it before, but there's a piece of the finest land that lies outdoors. If this country should get a railroad and settle up, that quarter section might produce all the income we'd need. Just out of hay and potatoes. How'd you like to be a farmer's wife, huh?" "Fine," she smiled. 'Look at the view--it isn't gorgeous. It's--it's simply peaceful apd quiet and sooth- ing. I hate to leave it." "Better be sorry to leave a place than glad to get away," he answered lightly. "Come on, let's pike home and get things in order for the long trail, woman o' mine. I'll teach you how to be a woodland vagabond." CHAPTER X, En Romte, Long since Hazel had become aware that whatsoever her husband set about doing he did swiftly and with inflexible purpose. There was no malingering or doubtful hesita- tion. Once his mind was made up, he acted, Thus upon the third day from the land staking, they 'bore away eastward from the clearing, across a trackless area, traveling by the sun and Bill's knowledge of the country. "Some day there'll be trails blazed through here by a paternal govern- ment," he laughed over his shoulder, "for the benefit of the public. But we don't need 'em, thank goodness." The buekskin pony Hazel had bought for the trip in with Limping George ambled sedately under a pack containing bedding, clothes and a light shelter tent. The black horse, Nigger, he of the cocked ear and the rolling eye, carried in a pair of kyaks six weeks' supply of food. Bill led the way, seconded by Hazel on easy- gaited Silk. Behind her trailed the pack horses like dogs well broken to heel, patient under their heavy burdens. Off in the east the sun was barely clear of the towering Rockies, and the woods were still cool and shadowy, full of aromatic odors from plant and tree. There was no monotony in the passing days. . Rivers barred their way. These they forded or swam, or ferried a makeshift raft of logs, as seemed most fit. Haps and mishaps alike they accepted with an equable spirit and a true philosophy of the trail--to take things as they came. When rain deluged them, there was always shelter to be found and a fire to warm them. If the flies assailed too fiercely, a smudge brought ease- ment of that ill. Each day was something more than a mere toil of s0 many miles traversed. The un- expected, for which both were eager- eyed, lurked on the shoulder of each mountain, in the hollow of every cool canyon, or met them boldly in the open, naked and unafraid. Bearing up to where the Nachaco debouches from Fraser lake, with a Hudson's bay fur post and an Indian mission on its eastern fringe, they came upon a blazed line in the seru) timber. Roaring Bill pulled up, and squinted away down the narrow lane fresh with axe marks. "Well," said he, "I wonder what's coming off now? That looks like a survey line of some sort. It isn't a trail--too wide. Let's follow it a while. "Ill bet a mickel," he asserted next, "that's a railroad survey." Half an hour of easy jogging set the seal of truth on his assertion. through a brass instrument set on three legs, directing, with alternate wavings of his outspread hands, cer- tain activities of other men ahead of him. "Well, I'll be--" he bit off ie frank astonishment at Hazel. he took off his hat and bowed. "Good morning." he greeted politely. "Sure," Bill grinned. "We have mornings like this around here all the time. What all are you fellows | ) doing in the wilderness, anywaly? Railroad?" 'Cross-section work for the G.T, P," the surveyor replied. Huh," Bill grunted. "Is ita dead Sineb) or is it something that may Si y come to Josey. pass in the misty "As near a cinch as anything ever is," the surveyor answered, '"'Con- struction has begun--at hoth ends, I thought the few white folks in this gountry kept tab on anything as it- portant as a new railroad," . "We've heard a lot, but none of em has transpired yet; not in my time, anyway," Bil] replied dryly. "However, the world keeps on mov- ing. I've heard more or less talk of this, but I didn't know it had got past the talking stage, What's their Pacific terminal?" "Prince Rupert--new town on a pepinsular north of the mouth of th® Skeena," said the surveyor, "It's a rush job all the way through, 1 believe. Three years to spike up the last rail, And that's going some for a transcontinental road. Both the Dominion and B. C. governments have guaranteed the company's bonds away up into millions." "Be a great thing for this country --say, where does it cross the Rock- ies?--what's the general route?" Bill asked abruptly. "Goes over the range through Yel- lowhead pass, From here it follows the Nachaco to Fort George, then up the Fraser by Tete Juan Cache, through the pass, then down the Athabasca till it switches over to strike Edmonton," "Uh-huh," Bill nodded, "One of the modern labors of Hercules, Well, we've got to peg. So long." "Our camp's about, five miles a- head. Better stop in and noon," the surveyor invited, "if it's on your road," "Thanks, returned, The surveyor lifted his hat, with a swift glance of admiration at Hazel, and they passed with a mutual "so long." "What do you think of that, old girl?" Bill observed presently. "A real, honest-to-goodness railroad g0- ing by within a hundred miles of our shack, Three years. It'll he there before we know it. We'll have neigh- bors to burn." "A hundred miles?" Hazel laugh- ed. "Is that your idea of a neigh- borly distance?" "What's a hundred miles?" he de- fended. "Two days' ride, that's all, And the kind of people that come to settle in a country like this don't stick in sight of the cars, They're like me--need lots of elbow room. There'll be hardy souls looking for 2 location up where we are hefore very long. You'll see." They passed other crews of men, surveyors with transits, chainmen, stake drivers, axe gangs widening the path through the timber. Most of them looked at Hazel in frank sur- prise, and stared long after she pass- ed by. And when an open bottom be- side a noisy little creek showed The scattered tents of the survey camp, Hazel said: "Let's not stop, Bill." He looked back over his shoulder with a comprehending smile. "Getting shy? Make you uncom- fortable to have all these boys look at you, little person?" he bantered. "All right, we won't stop. But all these fellows probably haven't seen a white woman for months. You can't blame them for admiring. You do look good to other men besides me, you know." So they rode through the camp with but a nod to the aproned cook, who thrust put his head, and a gray-hair- ed man with glasses, who humped over a drafting beard under an awn- ing. Tieir noon fire they built at a spring five miles beyond. At length they fared into Hazelton, which is the hub of a vast area over which men pursue gold and furs. Some hundred odd souls were gath- ered there, where tne stern-wheel steamers that ply the turgid Skeena reach the head of navigation, A land-recording office and a mining recorder Hazelton boasted as proof of its civie importance. The mining recorder, who combined in himself many capacities besides his govern- mental function, undertook to put through Bill's land deal. He knew Bill Wagstaff. "Wise man," he nodded over the description. "If some more of these boys that have blazed trails through this country would do the same thing, they'd be better off. A chunk Maybe we will," Bill of land anywhere in this country is a good bet now. We'll have rails here from the coast in a year. Bet- ter freeze onto a couple uh lots here in Hazleton, while they're low. Be plumb to the skies in ten years. A New Breakfast Natural place for a city, Bill. It's astonishin' how the settlers is comin'." There was ocular evidence of this last, for they had followed in a road well rutted from loaded wagons. But Bill invested in no real estate, notwithstanding the positive assur- ance that Hazelton was on the rag- ged edge of a boom. 'Maybe, maybe," he admitted, "But I've got other fish to fry. That on piece up by Pine river will do me for a while," Here where folk talked only of gold and pelts and railroads and settlement and the coming boom that would make them all rich, Bill Wag- staff added two more ponies to his pack train. These he loaded down with food, staples only, flour, sugar, beans, salt, tea and coffee, and a sack of dried fruit, Also he bestow- ed upon Nigger a further burden of six dozen steel traps. And in the cool of a midsummer morning, before Hazleton had rub- hed the sleep out of its collective eyes and taken up the days' work of discussing its future greatness. Roaring Bill and his wife draped the mosquito nets over their heads and turned their faces north, They bore out upon a wagon road. For a brief distance only did this en- dure, then dwindled to a path, A turn in this hid sight of the clustered log houses and tents, and the iwo steamers that lay up against the bank. The river itself was soon lost in the far stretches of forest, Once more they rode alone in the wilder- Early and late he pushed on, Two camp necessities were fortunately abundant, grass and water. Even so, the stress of the trail told on the horses. They lost flesh, The ex- treme steepness of succeeding hills bred galls under the heavy packs. They grew leg weary, no longer fol- lowing each other with sprightly step and heads high, Hazél pitied them, for she kerself was trail weary he- yond words. The vagabond instinct had fallen asleep. The fine aura of romance no longer hovercd over the venture. Sometimes when dusk endad the day's jounrey' and she swung her stiffened limbs out of the saddle, she would cheerfully have foregone all the gold in the Nortn to be at her, ease hefore the fireplace In their dis- tant cabin, with her man's hgad nest- ing in her lap, and no toll of weary miles looming sternly on the mor- row's horizon, It was all work, try- ing work, the more trying because she sensed a latent uneasiness on her hushand's part, an uneasiness she glasses with a sigh of relief, His eyes shone with exultation. "Come up on the perch," he in- vited, and reached forth a long mus- cular arm, drawing her close up be- side him on the rock, 'Behold the Promised Land," he breathed, "and the gateway thereof, lying a couple of miles to the north." They were, it seemed to Hazel, roosting precariously on the very summit of the world, On both sides the mountain pitched away sharply in rugged folds, Behind them, be- tween them and the far Pacific, rol- led a sea of mountains, snow-capped, glacier-torn, gigantic. "Down there," Roaring Bill waved his hand, "there's a little meadow, and turf to walk on. Lord, I'll he glad to get out of these rocks! You'll never catch me coming in this way again, It's sure tough going. And I've heen scared to death for a week, thinking we couldn't get through." "But we ean?" "Yes, easy," he assured, "Tako the glasses and look, That flat we left our outfit in runs pretty well to could never induce him to embody in words, Nevertheless, it existed, and | she resented its existence--a trouble she could not share. But she could] not put her finger on the cause, for) Bill merely smiled a denial When she mentioned it. Nor did she fathom the eause un-| til upon a certain day which fell] upon the end of a week's wearisome traverse of the hardest country yet] encountered, { They broke out of a canyon up which they had strugled all day onto | | ness. For the first tMme Hazel felt a quick shrinking from the North, an awe of its huge, silent spaces, whieh could so easily engulf thous ands such as they and still remain a land untamed. On the second day they crossed the Skeena, a risky and tedious piece of business, for the rivér ran deep and strong. Presently the way grew rougher, If anything, Roaring Bill increased his pace. He himself no longer rode. When the steepness of the hills and canyons made the going hard the packs were redivided, and hence-| forth Satin bore on his hack a por- tion of the supplies. Bill led the way tirelessly. Through flies, river crossings, camp labor, and all the | petty irritations of the trail he kept an unruffled spirit, a fine, enduring patience that Hazel marvelled at and | admired. Many a time, wakening at | some slight stir, she would find him | cooking breakfast. In every way | within his power he saved her, Many a strange shift were they | put to. Once Bill haa to fell a great | spruce across a twenty-foot crevice. It took him two days to hew it flat so that his horses could be led over, The depth was bottomless to the eye, | but from far below rose the caver-| nous growl of rushing water, and] Hazel held her breath as each ani-| mal stepped gingerly over the nar- row bridge. One misstep-- Once they climbed three weary | days up a precipitous mountain | range, and, turned back in sight of the crest hy an impassable cliff , were forced to back track and swing a fifty-mile detour. September was upon them. The days dwindle d, and the nights grew to have a frosty nip. a level plot where the pine stood in| somber ranks. A spring creek split] the flat in two. Beside "this. tiny stream Bill unlashed his packs. It} still lacked two hours of dark. But he made no comment, and Hazel for hore to trouble him with questions. Once the packs were off and the the top, about two miles along. Then there's a notch in the ridge that you can't get with the naked eye, and a wider canyon ruhning down into the basin. It's the only decent break in the divide for fifty miles so far as I can see, We're lucky to hit this pass." Suppose we couldn't get over here?" Hazel asked. What if there hadn't been a pass?' "That was beginning to keep me awake nights," he confessed. "Do you realize that it's getting late in the year? Winter may come-- hing! inside of ten days. And me caught in a rock pile, with no cabin to shel- ter my best girl, and no hay up to feed my horses! You het it bothered me." She him hugged sympathetically, horses at liberty, Bill caught up his and Bill smiled down at her. hifle. "Come on, Hazel," he sald. take a little hike." The flat was small, and once clear of it the pines thinned out on a steep, | rocky slope so that westward they could overlook a vast network of canyons and mountain spurs, But ahead of them the mountain rose to] an upstanding backbone of jumbled granite, and on this backbone Bill Waestaff hent an anxious eye, Pre- 'Let's | | continued. "But it's now," he hasin and plain sailing "I know that all the country heyond it, It's a pretty decent camptng place, and there's a fairly easy way out." He bestowed a reassuring kiss upon her. They sat on the houlder for a few minutes, then scrambled downhill to the jack-pine flat, and built their evening fire. And for the first time in many days Roaring Bill p-- ---- whistled and lightly burt into snatches of song in the deep, bellow- ing voice that had given him his name back in the Cariboo country. His humor was inrectious, Hazel felt the gods of high adventure smiling broadly upon them . once more, At noon, two days later, they step- ped out of a heavy stand of spruce into a sun-warmed meadow, where ripe yellow grasses waved to their horses' knees, Hazel came afoot, a fresh-killed deer lashed across Silk's baek, Bill hesitated as if taking ~ his bearings, then led to where a rocky spur of a hill jutted into the mead- ow's edge. A spring hubbled out of a pebbly basin, and he poked about in the grass beside it with his foot, presently stooping to pick up some- thing which proved to be a short bit of charred stick, "The remains or my last camp- fire," he smiled reminiscently. "Packs off, old pal. We're through with the trail for a while.' 50,000 More 'Motor Cars in Canada Canada's registration of motor vehicles for 1921 shows an increase of more than 50,000 over the pre- vious year, according to official fig ures issued by the highways branch of the department of railways and canals, Last year there were 463,- 848 motor vehicles registered in the dominion as against 415,268 the pre- vious year. Total revenues from re- gistrations were $7,669,493. On the 1921 census of 8,782,422 persons in the dominion there, was one motor vehicle for every 19 per- sons in Canada. . Truck Turns Over When Road Gives; Driver Is Injured Loose gravel giving way on the narrow road north of Highland Creck caused the delivery truck of the Imperial Oil Company to turn turtle in the ditch on Thursday af- ternoon, injuring the driver Mr. A. E. Core, Simcoe street south, con- siderably. The truck turned over Mr. Core when the upset occurred. First aid was given to the injured man by three farmers who happened to be working in an adjoining field and saw the occurrence, The truck was empty at the time Mr. Core being engaged in driving it from Unionville to Highland Creek. The driver's cab was smash- ed. Mr. Core came to town Thurs- day night but the machine was not brought in till yesterday. It is becoming evident that there are coal operators who would not recognize uw mimimum price should they meet one face to face.--Boston Transeript. You can use sweet milk, sour milk, buttermilk or water with EGG-O 2 Baking Powder ORDER FROM YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD GROCER ¥ sently they sat down on a howlder to take a breathing spell after a stiff) stretch of climbing. Hazel slipped her hand in his and whispered: "What is it, Billy-boy?" "I'm afraid we can't get over here with the horses," he answered siow- ly. "And if we can't find a pass of some kind--well, come on! It isn't more shan a quarter of a mile to the top." i Just short of the top Bill halted, and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. And as he stood his gaze suddenly hecame fixed, a concentrated stare at a point morthward, He raised | his glasses. "By thunder! believe--it's me for He went up the few remaining | yards with a haste that left Hazel panting behind. Above her he stood balanced on a bhowlder, cut sharp against the sky, and she reached him just as he lowered the field | exclaimed, "I the top." he c CORMICKS RS A A «BISCUITS no waste. Ex: pa wc. P.S. There's a Powder in its handiest, most economical form. Dainty cakes of Face Powder Jonteel in charming little boxes that slip into your uisite shades--to match all ¢ Jonteel Beauty for the dressing table, sil barf. JURY & LOVELL LTD. Simcseses hand-bag. No spilling-- omplexions. size F. W. 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