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"North of F Higdon " by BERTRAND W, SINCLAIR All the heaviness of heart, all the resentment she had felt in the first few days when she followed him per- force away from Cariboo Meadows, came back to her with redoubled forge that afternoon, Bhe went back into the house, now gloomy without a fire, slumped forlornly into a chair, and cried herself into a condition approaching hysteria. And she was sitting there her head bowed on her hands, when Bill returned from his hunting, The 'sun sent a shaft through the south window, a shaft which rested on her drooping head. Roaring Bill walked slowly up be- hind her and put his hand on her shoulder, . "What is It, he asked gently, She refused to answer, "Say," he bent A little lower, 'you know what the Tentmaker sald: little person?" "Come fill the cup, and in the fire of spring | Your winter garment of repentance fling; The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter--and the bird is on the wing." "Life's too short to waste any of it in being uselessly miserable. Come on out and go for a ride on Silk. I'll take you up a mountain. side and show you a waterfall that leaps three hundred feet in the clear. The woods are waking up and put. ting on their Easter bonnets, There's beauty everywhere. Come along!" But she wrenched herself away from him, "I want to go home!" she wailed. "I hate you and the north, and every- thing in it. If you've got a spark of manhood left in you, you'll take me out of here." Roaring Bill backed away from her. "Do you mean that? Honest Injun?" he asked incredulously. "I do--I do!" she cried vehemen- tly, "Haven't I told you often enough? 1 didn't come here wil- lingly, and I won't stay. I will not! I have a right to live my own life in my own way, and its not this way." "So," Roaring Bill began evenly, "springtime with you only means get- ting back to work. You want to get back into the muddled rush of peopl- ed places do you? You want to be where you can associate with fluffy- rufflé pompadoured girls, and be properly introduced to equally prop- er young men. Lord, but I seem to have made a mistake! And by the same token I'll probably pay for it-- in a way you wouldn't understand if you lived a thousand years. Well, set your mind at rest. I'll take you out. Ye gods and little fishes, but I have sure been a fool!" He sat down on the edge of the table, and Hazel blinked at him, half scared, and full of wonder. She had grown so used to seeing him calm, imperturable, smiling cheerfully no matter what she said or did, that his passionate outburst amazed her. She could only sit and look at him. He got out his cigarette materials. head of the Naas to prospect for gold," They were camped in a notch on the tiptop of a long divide, a thou- sand feet above the general level, A wide valley rolled below, And from the height they 'overlooked two great sinuous lakes, and a multitude of smaller ones, "I've been wondering," Hasel sald, "This country seems somehow diff: erent, You're not taking me back to Cariboo Meadows, are you?" B Bill bestowed a look of surprise on er, "I should say not!" he drawled, "Not that it would make any dif- ference to me, But I'm very sure you don't want to turn up there in my company." "That's true," she observed, "But all the clothes and all the money I have in the world are there." "Don't let money worry you," he said briefly, "I have plenty to see you through, And you can easily buy clothes." They were now ten days on the road, Steadily they climbed, reach. ing up through gloomy canyons where 'foaming catapacts: spilled themselves over sheer walls of gra- nite, where the dim and nanrow pack trail was crossed and recrossed with footprints of bear and deer and the snowy-coated mountain goat. Roaring Bill lighted his evening fire at last at the apex of the pass. He had travelled long after sundown seeking a camp ground where his horses could graze, The fire lit up huge firs, and high above the fir tops the sky was studded with stars, bril- liant in the thin atmosphere. They ate ate and being weay lay down to sleep, At sunrise Hazel sat up and looked in silent wondering appreciation, All the world spread east and west below. She adjusted the binoculars and peered westward from the great height where the camp sat. Dis. tantly, and far below the green of the forest broke down to a hazy line of steel-blue that ran in turn to a huge fog bank, snow-white in the| rising sun. "There's a lake," she said. "No. Salt water--a long arm of the Pacific," he replied. That's where you and I part company---to your very great relief, I dare say. But look off in the other direction. Lord, you can see two hundred miles! sticking up you could look clear to where my cabin stands. What an outlook!" "I told you; I think, about pros- pecting on the head of the Naas last spring. I fell in with another fellow up there and we worked to- gether, and early in the season made a nice little clean-up on a gravel bar. {I have another place spotted by the { way, that would work out a fortune {if a fellow wanted to spend a couple {of thousand putting in machinery. | However when the June rise drove us off our bar, I pulled clear out of the country. Just took a notion to If it weren't for the Babine range| po OSHAW A, ONTARIO, TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 1922 them to learn where you actually did got to unless you yourself tell them, The pt piausible explanation-- and if you go there you must make some explanavion--would be for you to say that you got lost--which 18 true enough----and that you eventu- ally fell in with a party of Indians, and later on connected up with a party of white people who were traveling ecoastward, That you win- tered with them, and they put you on a steamer and sent you to Vancouver when spring opened, * "That, I gues, is all," he con: cluded slowly, "Only I wish"--he cpught her by the shoulders and- shook her gently--'"I sure do wish it 'would have been different, little person, Maybe some time when I get restless for human companion- ship and come out to cavort in the bright lights for a while, I may pass you on A street somewhere, This world is very small, Oh, yes--when you go to Vancouver go to the Lady- smith, It's & nice, quiet hotel in the West end. Any hack driver knows the place," He dropped his hands, and looked steadily at her for a few seconds, steadily and longingly. "Good-by!"" he said abruptly--and walked out, and down the gangplank that was already being cast loose, and away up the whart without a backward glance, The Stanley D's siren woke the echoes along the wooded shore, A throbbing that shook her from stem to stern betokened the first turnings of the screw. And slowly she backed into deep water and swung wide for the outer passage. Hazel went out to the rail, Bill Wagstaff had disappeared, but pre- sently she caught sight of him standing 'on the shore end of the wharf, his hands thrust deep in his coat pockets, staring after the steam- er. Hazel waved the envelope that she still held in her hand. Now that she was independent of him, she felt magnanimous, forgiving-- and suddenly very much alone, as if she had dropped back into the old, depressing Granville atmosphere. But he gave no answering sign save that he turned on the instant and went up the hill to where his horses stood tied among the huddled build- ings. And within twenty minutes the Stanley D turned a jutting point, and Bella Coola was lost to view, Hazel went back into her state- room and sat down on the berth. Presently she opened the envelope. There was a thick fold of bills, her ticket, and both were wrapped in a sheet of paper penciled with dots and counted the money. "Heavens!" she whispered. "I TE -------- . wish he hadn't given me so much, 1 didn't need all that," For Roaring Bill had tucked a dogen one-hundred-dollar notes In the envelope, And, curiously enough, she was not offended, only wishful that he had heen less generous, Then she took up the map, recog- nizing it as the sheet of paper Bill worked over so long thelr last night at the cabin, It made the North more clear-- a great deal more clenr---to her, for he had marked Cariboo Meadows, the location of his eahin, and Bella Coola, and drawn dotted lines to In- dicate the way he had taken her in and brought her out, She put away the money and the map, and bestowed a brief scrutiny upon herself in the cabin mirror, Six months in the wild had given her a ruddy color, the glow of per. fect physical condition, But her garments were tattered and sadly out of date, The wardrobe of the steamer-trunk lady had suffered in the winter's wear, She was barely presentable in the outing suit of corduroy, The Stanley D,, upon the evening of the third day, turned into Bar- nard Inlet and swept across a har- bor speckled with shipping from all the Seven Seas to her berth at the dock. So Hazel came again to a elty---a city that roared and hellowed all its manifold noises in her ears, long grown accustomed to a vast and brooding silence, Mindful of Bill's parting word, she took a hack to the Ladysmith, And even though the hotel was removed from the business heart of the city, the rumble of the city's herculean labors reached her far into the night, At last she fell asleep, and dawn of a clear spring day awakened her, She ate her hreakfast, and sot forth on a shipping tour, To such advantage did she put two of the hundrededollar hills that by noon she was arrayed in a semi-tailored suit of gray, spring hat, shoes and gloves to match, She felt once more at ease, less conscious that people stared at her frayed and cur- ious habilimepts, - With a complete outfit of lingerie purchased, and a trunk in which to store it forwarded to her hotel, her immediate activity was at an end, and she had time to think of her next move And, brought face to face wilh that, she found herself at something of a loss. She had no desire to go back to Cariboo Meadows, even to get what few personal treasures she had left behind. Cariboo Meadows and grooked lines, She laid it aside | was wiped off the slate as far as she | Nevertheless she Somehow she | was concerned. | must make her way. ---------------- must find a means to return the un- used portion of the--to her---enor- mous sum Roaring Bill had placed in her hands, She must make her own living, The question that troubled her was: How, and where? She had her trade at her finger ends, and the storied office buildings of Vancouver assured her that any efficient steno- grapher could find work, But she looked up as she walked the streets at the high, ugly walls of brick and steel and stone, and her heart mis- gave her, At nightfall she went up to her room and threw herself wearily on the hed. She was tired, body and spirit, and lonely, Her brief exper- lence in Cariboo Moadows had not lod her to look kindly on teaching as fn moans of livelihood, And steno: graphers seemed to be in demand, wherefore, she reasoned that wages would be high, With the list In her purse, she went down on Hastings-- which runs like a huge artery through the heart of the 'city, with lesser streets crossing and diverging, But she made no application for employment, For on the corner of Hasings and Seymour, as she gather-| ed her skirt in her hands to cross| the street, smoone caught her by the| {arm and cried: | "Well, forevermore, if it Hazel Weir!" ~ | And she turned to find herself fae- {ing Loraine Marsh--a Granville] school chum---and Loraine's mother, Rack of them, with wide and startled eyes, loomed Jack Barrow, | He pressed forward while thé two women overwhelmed Hazel with a | flood of exclamations and questions, and extended his hand. Hazel ae-| She had long isn't cepted the overture, since gotten over her resentment against him, She was furthermore {amazed to find that she could meet his eye and take his hand without a single flutter of her pulse. It seemed strange, but she was glad of it, They stood a few minutes on the corner; then Mrs, Marsh proposed that they go to the hotel, where they could talk at their leisure and in comfort, Loraine and her mother took the lead. Barrow naturally fell into step with Hagel, "I've heen wearing sackcloth and ashes, Hazel," he said humbly. "Shortly after you left, somebody on one of 'the papers ferreted out the truth of that Bush affair, and the vindictive old hound's reasons for that compromising legaey were set forth. Bush appears to have kept a diary--and kept it posted up to the day of his death---poured out all his | feelings on paper, and repeatedly as- serted that he would win you or ruin you, And it seems that night after you refused to come to him when he | I} was hurt, he called in his lawyer and made that codicll--and spent the rest of the time till he died gloating over the chances of it be-smirching your character." "I've grown rather indifferent about it," Hazel replied impersonal- ly. "But he succeoded rather easily. Even you, who should have known me better, were ready to helleve the very worst,' "I've paid for it," Barrow pleaded, "You don't know how I've hated my- self for being sueh a cad, But it taught me a lesson--Iif you'll not hold a grudge against me, I've won- dered and worried about you, disap- pearing the way you did, Where have you heon, and how have you hoen getting on? You surely look well," He hent an admiring glanco on her, "Oh, I've heen overy place, and 1 can't complain about not getting on," she answered carelessly, For the life of her, she could not help making comparisons between the man beside her and another who she guessed would by now he Rearing up the crest of the divide that over- looked the green and peaceful vista of forest and lake, with the Babine range lying purplo beyond, She ts | wondered if Roaring Bill Wagstaff would ever, under any circumstances, have looked on her with the scornful, angry distrust that Barrow had once betrayed, Barrow's attitude was that of a little hoy who had broken some plaything in a fit of anger and was | now woefully trying to put the pleces together again, It amused her, In- deed, it afforded her a distinetly un- Christian satisfaction, since she was not hy nature of a meek or forgiving spirit, Hazel visited with the three of them in the hotel parlor for a matter of two hours, went to luncheon with them, and at luncheon Loraine Marsh hrought up the subject of her coming home to Granville with them, The Bush incident was discussed and dismissed, On the question of re- turning, Hazel was noncommittal "Of course you'll come! We won't hear of leaving you behind, So you can consider that settled," Lor- aine Marsh declared at last. "We're going day after tomorrow, So is Mr. Barrow." Jack walked with her out to the Ladysmith, and, among other things, told her how he happened to be in the coast city. "I've heen doing pretty well late- ly," he said. "1 came out here on a deal that involved about fifty thous- and dollars. 1 closed it up just this morning--and the commissions EE -------- EE ------ "It 'might be possible, Jack," she answered slowly, "if it were not for the fact that you took the most effec. tive means a man could have taken to kill every atom of affection I had for you, I don't feel bitter any more --1 simply don't feel at all," "But you will," he sald eagerly) "Just give me a change. 1 was a hot-hoaded, jealous fool, but I never will be again, Give me a chance, Hazel," "You'll have to make your own chances," she sald deliberately, "I refuse to bind myself in any way. Why should I put myself out to make you happy when you destroyed all the faith I had in you? And don't think I'm going to care--ox- copt, perhaps, in a friendly way," And with that Barrow had to be content, At dusk of the following day she and Loraine Marsh sat in a Pullman, flattening thelr noses against the cap window, taking a last look at the en. virons of Vancouver as the train roll. ed through the outskirts of the city, Hagel told herself that she was go- ing home, Barrow smiled friendly assurance over the seat, Even so, she was restless, far from content, There was something lacking, At half after eight she cal- led the porter and had him arrange her section for the night. And she got into bed, thankful to be by her self, depressed without reason. She slept for a time, her sleep broken into by morbid dreams, and eventually she wakened to find her eyes full of tears. She did not know why she should ery, but ery she did till her pillow grew moist--and the heavy feeling in her breast grew, if anything, more intense, She switched on the tiny electric bulb over her head, and fumbled in her purse for another handkerchie:, Her fingers drew forth, with the bit of linen, a folded sheet of paper, which seemed to hypnotize her, so fixedly did she remain looking at it, A sheet of plain white paper, marked with dots and names and crooked lines that stood for rivers, with shadéd patches that meant mountain ranges she had seen--Bill Wagstaff's map. (To Be Continued,) She Liked It Teacher--Clarice, can you decline hug? Clarice--Please, teacher, I never decline it.--Ilowa State Student. Another proof that Conan is right when he says death is delightful is would just about buy us that little "the way some political candidates house we had planned once. Won't you let bygones be bygones, Hazie | come back for more.--~Washington Post. N-- oo. rr Save the Comfort Soap and Pear] Whi dos bindu n two Wrappers! Buy a big supply now ; fr progiums DAD NEEDS THESE GIFTS ~~ MOTHER «BIG SISTER WANT THESE P But his fingers trembled, spilling the | tobacco. And when he tore the paper | in his efforts to roll it, he dashed | paper all into the fireplace with some- | thing that sounded like an oath, and | see the bright lights again. And I didn't stop short of New York. Deo you know I lasted there just one week by she calender. It: seems walked out of the house. Nor did he return till the sun was well down to- ward the tree-rimmed horizon. When he came back he brought an armful of wood and kindling, and began to build a fire. Hazel came out of her room. Bill greeted her serenly. "Well, little person," he said, "I hope you'll perk up now." "I'll try," she returned. "'Are you really going to take me out?" Bill paused with a match blazing in his fingers. "I'm mot in the habit of saying things I don't mean," he answered dryly. "We'll start in the morning." The dark closed in on them, and they cooked and ate supper in silence. Bill remained thoughtful amd ab- stracted. Then from some place among his books he unearthed a map, and, spreading it on the table, stud- | fed it for a while. After that he dragged 'in his kyags from the out- E himself packing done wp tn small canvas sacks. And when the preparations were complete he got a sheet of paper and a pencil, and fell to copying some funny when you think of it that a | man with three thousand dollars to | spend should get lonesome in a place like New York. But I did and at the end of a week I flew. I had all that money burning my pockets--and all told I didu't spend five hundred. Fancy a man jumping over four thousand miles to have a good time, and then running away from it. It was very foolish of me, I think now. Well, the longer we live the more we learn. Day after tomorrow you'll steamships carry passengers on a fairly regular schedule to Vancouver. How does that suit you?" "Very well," she answered shortly. "And you haven't the least twinge of regret at leaving all this?" "I don't happen Lo have your pecu- liar point of view," she turned. "The circumstances connected with my coming into this country and with my staying here are such as to make me anxious to get away." "Same old story," Bill muttered under his breath. tions. The evening of the third day from there Bill travelled till dusk. gif "of ehh fi : g £ § : g £ 3 if» i SRE 'i ks : § : i ir HT : B h ; it f ili | i HE if 2 i ] i Games, oH YOUR SCHOOL BOY SON WANTS -- Razor, Knife, Cuff Links, Razor Thermos strop, Brushes, Fishi Shaving Brush, Toe = Baseball, Football, Flash- light, Pen Knife, Meccano, Watch, Toy Printing Set, School Bag, yroscope, Marbles, Trapshooti ing, Bot! air Rod, Watch Fob, 'ountain Pen, ete. 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