Part 37 (1/2)
HOME AGAIN
Twelvefrontier Hazel found this so When she ca the last gap in a transcontinental syste distance of Fort George She could board a sleeping car at Granville and detrain within a hundredpost--with a fast river boat to carry her the ree loos, fraers to paint as yet On every hand others stood in varying stages of erection
Folks hurried about the sturdy 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 s and lonesoenuinely friendly face
”I astaff,” 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 accooot a one,” he explained ”But for deonloat off bodadoes By cosh, deh”
It flashed into Hazel's mind that here was a Heaven-sent opportunity to reach the cabin without facing that hundred ers 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 the's office while he betook himself about his business Hazel haled his wife and the children to her rooned to her And there, al brokenly her story into an ear that listened with syrasp some of a woman's needs Gretta Lauer patted Hazel's shoulder with a motherly hand, and bade her cheer up
”Holy ”You just coh when he gets word And we'll take good care of you in thecould happen for you both
Take it from me, dearie I know We've had our troubles, Jake and I
And, seeing I'raduate nurse, you needn't fear Well, well!”
”I'll need to have food hauled in,” Hazel reflected ”And soht 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, makeshi+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 sturdy independence of these sihbors, if she offered to supply a four-horse teaon 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 ashaoes, you ought to see the four beautiful horses your husband let Jake have You don't kno much Jake appreciates it, nor what a fine man he thinks your husband is We needed horses so bad, and didn't have the ot the tea andimprovements 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 arden 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 theFolks 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 theherself and supplies thus solved, she set out to find Felix Courvoiseur--ould kno to get word to Bill He ht not come back at all unless he heard froive her up as lost to hie deeper into the wilderness in soed for him, if only so that she could make amends
She easily found Courvoiseur, a tall, spare Frenche to Bill Wagstaff; that is, he could send a e
”But if he should have left there?” Hazel suggested uneasily
”'E weel leave weeth W'itey Leord of w'ere 'e go,” Courvoiseur reassured her ”An' my man, w'ich ees my bruzzer-la'ich I can mos'
fully trus', 'e weel follow 'eee 'E ees say mos' parteecular if eet hee 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 e 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 e under way she found herself i days where she had first found happiness She could set her house in order against her reat, 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 faht arrived He loaded his wagon, a ton of goods for hioodly load, but he drove out of Fort George with four strapping bays arching their powerful necks, and cha on the bit