Part 22 (1/2)
CHAPTER XVIII
THE WINTERING PLACE
On the second day they crossed the Skeena, a risky and tedious piece of business, for the river ran deep and strong And shortly after this crossing they cainally a fair passageway had been cleared through low brush and dense tih dim and little trodden and littered with down trees of various sizes Bill followed this
”What is the wire? A rural telephone? Oh, I reraph,” Hazel reraph Trail,” Bill answered ”Runs from Ashcroft clear to Dawson City, on the Yukon; that is, the line does There's a lineman's house every twentyabout it is that it furnishes us with a sort of a road And that'sahead of us”
So long as they held to the Telegraph Trail the way led through fairly decent country In open patches there was a for their horses Hills there were, to be sure; all the land rolled away in imht and left, frowning in the distance A plague of flies harassed theh she kept religiously to thick buckskin gloves The poisonous bites led to scratching, which bred soreness And as they gained a greater elevation and the tiave way to rocky hills over which she must perforce walk and lead her horse, the sweat of the exertion stung and burned intolerably, like salt water on an open wound
Minor hardshi+ps, these; scarcely to be dignified by that naravated discomforts they were But they irked, and, like any accu total
By iypsying, began to lessen She found herself longing for the Pine River cabin, for surcease fro journey But she would not have owned this to Roaring Bill; not for the world It savored of weakness, disloyalty She felt ashaer a pleasure jaunt The country they bore steadily up into grew ed slopes bore no resemblance to the kindly, peaceful land where the cabin stood Swamps and reedy lakes lurked in low places The hills stood forth gri to heights rim and desolate at the uttermost reach of her vision And into the heart of this, toward a far-distant area where she could faintly distinguish virgin snow on peaks that pierced the sky, they traveled day after day
Shortly before reaching Station Six they crossed the Naas, foa down to the blue Pacific And at Station Seven, Bill turned squarely off the Telegraph Trail and struck east by north It had been a break in the monotony of each day's travel to co houses When they turned away frole wire that linked them up with the outer world, it see stillness of the North becaher If anything, Roaring Bill increased his pace He hier rode When the steepness of the hills and canonshard the packs were redivided, and henceforth Satin bore on his back a portion 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 ht stir, she would find hi breakfast In every ithin his power he saved her
”I got to take good care of you, little person,” he would say ”I'h as buckskin But it sure isn't proving any picnic for you It's a lot worse in this way than I thought it would be And we've got to get in there before the snow begins to fly, or it will play the dickens with us”
Many a strange shi+ft were they put to Once Bill had 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 bottorowl of rushi+ng water, and Hazel held her breath as each anie One misstep--
Once they clie, and, turned back in sight of the crest by an i in a fifty- Bill's destination lay approximately two hundred miles north--almost due north--of Hazleton By the devious route they were compelled to take the distance was doubled, ress now fell short of a ten-e
Septehts grew to have a frosty nip
Early and late he pushed on Two carass and water Even so, the stress of the trail told on the horses They lost flesh The extrealls under the heavy packs They grew leg weary, no longer following each other with sprightly step and heads high Hazel pitied theabond instinct had fallen asleep The fine aura of roer hovered over the venture
So her stiffened lione all the gold in the North to be at her ease before the fireplace in their distant cabin, with herin her lap, and no toll of wearysternly on thework, thebecause she sensed a latent uneasiness on her husband's part, an uneasiness she 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 cause until upon a certain day which fell upon the end of a week's wearisome traverse of the hardest country yet encountered Up and up and still higher he bore into a range of beetling crags, and always his gaze was fixed steadfastly and dubiously on the serrated backbone tohich they ascended with infinite toil and hourly risk, skirting sheer cliffs on narrow rock ledges, working foot by foot over declivities where the horses dug their hoofs into a precarious toe hold, and where a slip ed stones below But win to the upperht they did, where an early snowfall lay two inches deep in a thin forest of jack pine
They broke out of a canon up which they had struggled all day onto a level plot where the pine stood in so 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 forbore to trouble him with questions Once the packs were off and the horses at liberty Bill caught up his rifle
”Come on, Hazel,” he said ”Let's take a little hike”
The flat was small, and once clear of it the pines thinned out on a steep, rocky slope so that ard they could overlook a vast network of canons and mountain spurs But ahead of theranite, and on this backbone Bill Wagstaff bent an anxious eye Presently they sat down on a bowlder to take a breathing spell after a stiff stretch of cli Hazel slipped her hand in his and whispered:
”What is it, Billy-boy?”
”I'et over here with the horses,” he answered slowly ”And if we can't find a pass of some kind--well, come on! It isn't more than a quarter of a reat bowlders, clawing his way along rocky shelves, with a hand outstretched to help her now and then
Her perceptions quickened by the hint he had given, Hazel viewed the long ridge for a possible crossing, and she was forced to the reluctant conclusion that no hoofed beast save oat could cross that divide Certainly not by the route they were taking And north and south as far as she could see the backbone ran like a solid wall
It was a scant quarter mile to the top, beyond which no farther mountain crests showed--only clear, blue sky But it was a stretch that taxed her endurance to the limit for the next hour Just short of the top Bill halted, and wiped the sweat out of his eyes And as he stood his gaze suddenly became fixed, a concentrated stare at a point northward He raised his glasses