Part 27 (2/2)
Wooded banks on either hand spread dusky green in the hot August sun
On their left glinted the roofs and white walls of Hollyburn, dear to the suburban heart Presently they swung around Brockton Point, and Vancouver spread its peninsular clutter before thes and launches puffed by, about their harbor traffic A ferry clustered black with people hurried across the inlet But even above the harbor noises, across the intervening distance they could hear the vibrant hum of the industrial hive
”Listen to it,” said Bill ”Like surf on the beaches And, like the surf, it's full of treacherous undercurrents, a bad thing to get into unless you can swih to keep your head above water”
”You're a thoroughgoing pessimist,” she smiled
”No,” he shook his head ”I ame to buck, under normal conditions We're of the fortunate few, that's all”
”You're not going to spoil the pleasure that's within your reach by pondering the misfortunes of those who are less lucky, are you?” she inquired curiously
”Not much,” he drawled ”Besides, that isn't my chief objection to town I simply can't endure the noise and confusion and the manifold stinks, and the universal city attitude--which is to gouge the other fellow before he gouges you Too ht No, I haven't any otistic view that it doesn't concernthat I' to take our fun as we find it Just the sa into that ranch of ours on the hurricane deck of a right good horse as approaching Vancouver's water front This isn't any place to spend rown village, overrun with business exploiters and real-estate sharks It'll be a city soe of civic youth”
In so far as Hazel had observed upon her for, was in the rets when Bill confined their stay to the tiold into a bank account, and allow her to buy a trunkful, more or less, of pretty clothes Then they bore on eastward and halted at Ashcroft Bill had refused to coe He wanted to see the cabin again For that matter she did, too--so that their sojourn there did not carry theue threat Those weary e had filled her with the subtle poison of discontent, for which she felt that new scenes and new faces would prove the only antidote
”There's a wagon road to Fort George,” he told her ”We could go in there by the B X steauess a pack outfit froht”
Froe whirled them swiftly into the heart of the Cariboo country--to Quesnelle, where Bill purchased four head of horses in an afternoon, packed, saddled, and hit the trail at daylight in thea passable road ht-footed horse, and Hazel enjoyed it if for nocontrast to that terrible journey in and out of the Klappan
Here were no heartbreaking h past They took the road in easy stages, well-provisioned, sleeping in a good bed at nights, ca as the spirit moved when a likely trout strearouse all about the
So they fared through the Telegraph Range, crossed the Blackwater, and cae by way of a ferry over the Fraser
”This country is getting civilized,” Bill observed that evening ”They tell me the G T P has steel laid to a point three hundred miles east of here This bloo all along the line I bought that hundred and sixty acres on pure sentiment, but it looks like it may turn out a profitable business transaction That railroad is going to flood this country with farmers, and settle ascension of land values”
The vanguard of the land hungry had already penetrated to Fort George
Up and down the Nachaco Valley, and bordering upon the Fraser, were the cabins of the pree A sizable town had sprung up around the old trading post
”They come like bees when the rush starts,” Bill ree behind, they bore across country toward Pine River
Here and there certain landraven deep in Hazel's recollection, uprose to clai at sunset they rode up to the little cabin, all forlorn in its clearing
The grass waved to their stirrups, and the pigweed stood rank up to the very door
Inside, a gray fil, and the rooather in a closed, untenanted house But apart from that it stood as they had left it thirteen months before No foot had crossed the threshold The pile of wood and kindling lay beside the fireplace as Bill had placed it thethey left
”'Be it ever so hu unfinished, but his tone was full of jubilation Between the wind filled the place with sweet, pine-scented air Then Bill started a blaze roaring in the black-mouthed fireplace--to make it look natural, he said--and went out to hobble his horses for the night
In the s and bearskins found each its accustomed place upon the floor His books went back on the shelves With ical swiftness the cabin resuht Bill stretched hirizzly hide before the fireplace, and kept his nose in a book until Hazel, as in no hu a temper