Part 37 (1/2)

HOME AGAIN

Twelve months works many a change on a changing frontier. Hazel found this so. When she came to plan her route she found the G. T. P.

bridging the last gap in a transcontinental system, its trains westbound already within striking distance of Fort George. She could board a sleeping car at Granville and detrain within a hundred miles of the ancient trading post--with a fast river boat to carry her the remaining distance.

Fort George loomed up a jumbled area of houses and tents, log buildings, frame structures yellow in their newness, strangers to paint as yet. On every hand others stood in varying stages of erection.

Folks hurried about the st.u.r.dy beginning of a future greatness. And as she left the boat and followed a new-laid walk of planks toward a hotel, Jake Lauer stepped out of a store, squarely into her path.

His round face lit up with a smile of recognition. And Hazel, fresh from the long and lonesome journey, was equally glad to set eyes on a familiar, a genuinely friendly face.

”I am pleased to welgome you back to Gott's country, Mrs. Vagstaff,” he said. ”Und let me carry dot suid case alretty.”

They walked two blocks to the King's Hotel, where Lauer's family was housed. He was in for supplies, he told her, and, of course, his wife and children accompanied him.

”Not dat Gredda iss afraid. She iss so goot a man as I on der ranch ven I am gone,” he explained. ”But for dem it iss a change. Und I bring by der town a vaigonloat off bodadoes. By cosh, dem bodadoes iss sell high.”

It flashed into Hazel's mind that here was 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 alone for the mines. And he had not 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 chubby kiddies in the King's office while he betook himself about his business. Hazel haled his wife and the children to her room as soon as one was a.s.signed 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 woman's needs. Gretta Lauer patted Hazel's shoulder with a motherly hand, and bade her cheer up.

”Home's the place for you, dear,” she said smilingly. ”You just come right along with us. Your man will come quick enough when he gets word. And we'll take good care of you in the meantime. La, I'm all excited over it. It's the finest thing could happen for you both.

Take it from me, dearie. I know. We've had our troubles, Jake and I.

And, seeing I'm only six months short of being a graduate nurse, you needn't fear. Well, well!”

”I'll need to have food hauled in,” Hazel reflected. ”And some things I brought with me. I wish Bill were here. I'm afraid I'll be a lot of bother. Won't you be heavily loaded, as it is?”

She recalled swiftly the odd, makes.h.i.+ft team that Lauer depended on--the mule, 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 st.u.r.dy independence of these simple, kindly neighbors, 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 nothing,” Mrs. Lauer declared. ”Why, we'd be ashamed if we couldn't help a little. And far's the load goes, you ought to see the four beautiful horses your husband let Jake have. You don't know how much Jake appreciates it, nor what a fine man he thinks your husband is. We needed horses so bad, and didn't have the money to buy. So Mr.

Wagstaff didn't say a thing but got the team for us, and Jake's paying for them in clearing and plowing and making improvements on your land.

Honest, they could pull twice the load we'll have. There's a good wagon road most of the way now. Quite a lot of settlers, too, as much as fifty or sixty miles out. And we've got the finest garden you ever saw. Vegetables enough to feed four families all winter. Oh, your old cities! I never want to live in one again. Never a day have the kiddies been sick. Suppose it is a bit out of the world? You're all the more pleased when somebody does happen along. Folks is so different in a new country like this. There's plenty for everybody--and everybody 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 Felix Courvoiseur--who would know how to get word to Bill. He might come back to the cabin in a month or so; he might not come back at all unless he heard from her. She was smitten with a great fear that he might give her up as lost to him, and plunge deeper into the wilderness in some mood of recklessness. And she wanted him, longed for him, if only so that she could make amends.

She easily found Courvoiseur, a tall, spare Frenchman, past middle age.

Yes, he could deliver a message to Bill Wagstaff; that is, he could send a man. Bill Wagstaff was in the Klappan Range.

”But if he should have left there?” Hazel suggested uneasily.

”'E weel leave weeth W'itey Lewees word of w'ere 'e go,” Courvoiseur rea.s.sured her. ”An' my man, w'ich ees my bruzzer-law, w'ich I can mos'

fully trus', 'e weel follow 'eem. So Beel 'e ees arrange. 'E ees say mos' parteecular if madame ees come or weesh for forward message, geet heem to me queeck. _Oui_. Long tam Beel ees know me. I am for depend always.”

Courvoiseur kept a trader's stock of goods in a weather-beaten old log house which sprawled a hundred feet back from the street. Thirty years, he told her, he had kept that store in Fort George. She guessed that Bill had selected him 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 Courvoiseur she went back to the hotel. There was nothing now to do but wait. And with the message under way she found herself impatient to reach the cabin, to spend the waiting days where she had first found happiness. She could set her house in order against her man's 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 for supplies. Fort George suffered a sugar famine. Two days later, the belated freight arrived. He loaded his wagon, a ton of goods for himself, a like weight of Hazel's supplies and belongings. A goodly load, but he drove out of Fort George with four strapping bays arching their powerful necks, and champing on the bit.

”Four days ve vill make it by der ranch,” Jake chuckled. ”Mit der mule und Gretchen, der cow, von veek it take me, mit half der loat.”