The evening world. Newspaper, January 25, 1916, Page 15

in the Big © Mase Wer, leaving her Granville home, has frome west to teach school, There abe has been idsegeed by ‘Wid Bill” Wagstaff, and carried hae gent her back to civilinton, Harel, Jeumning that abe lores Bill, returns to the wilder. ‘of him, They marry and start on CHAPTER Iv. The Wintering Place. IN the second day they crossed the Skeena, a risky and tedious plece of busi- ~ ness, for the river ran deep and strong. And shortly | yafter this crossing they came to @ line ft wire strung on poles. Originally @ » fair passageway~ had been cleared " through low brush and dense timber “alike, A pathway of sorts still re- \ mained, though dim and little trodden and littered with down trees of vari- ‘ous sizes. Bill followed this. “What is the wire? A rural tele- phone? Ob, I remember you told me b} ,onee—that Yukon telegraph,” Hazel © remarked. 1 “Uh-huh, That's the famous Tele- “graph Trail,” Bill answered. “Runs from Ashcroft clear to Dawson City, on the Yukon; that ts, the line does. © There's @ lineman’s house every twen- ty miles or so, and an operator every «forty miles. The best thing about it is that it furnishes us with a sort oe <yoad. And that's mighty lucky, fag i) * there's some tough going ahead of uF So long as they held to the T grapd Tratl tho way lod through fai ly decent country. In open patches chere was ample grazing for thelr horses. Hills there were, to be sure, all the land rolled away In immense but the mountains t, frowao- 1 | . 3 forested billow: stood off on the right and b ing in the distance. A plague of fles harassed them continually, Hazol's | nds suffering most, even though sbo kept religiously to thick buckskin P| gloves. The poisonous bites led to t ETL which bred soreness, And } ‘ned a Erentor elevation and ‘the Uinberea bottoms gave way to hills over which she must per- force walk and lead her horse, the Sweat of the exertion stung and { burned intolerably, like salt water ' on an open wound, \ Minor hardships, these; scarcely to } be dignified by that name, more in the nature of aggravated discomforts But they irked, and, lik» sy accumulation of small things, a dishoartening total. By ptible degrees the glamour of | “the trail, the lure of gypsying, began \ to lessen. She found herself longing for the Pine River cabin, for sur- cease from this never-ending journey. But she would not have owned this Roaring Bill, not for the world, It ikness, disloyalty. She felt ashamed, Still—it was no longer | a pleasure jaunt. The country they { bore steadily up into grew more and " more forbidding. Tho rugged slopes bore no resemblance to tho kindly, \, peaceful Iand where the cabin stood amps and reedy lakes lurked in places, Tho hills stood forth grim and craggy, cashed with deep- cleft gorges, and rising to heights ‘more grim and desolate at tho utter- reach of her vision. And into of this, toward a far-distant ere she could fainly distin- irgin snow on peaks that the sky, they traveled day y. ly before reaching Station Six crossed the Naas, foaming down blue Pacific. And at Station Bill turned squarely off the | ‘Trail and struck east by it had been a break in the ‘y Bnd Fug bd ere to 4 ome upon ionely men in their | little houses. When they turnod *away from that single wire that linked them up with the outer world, !t ‘eeemed to Hazel as if the profound, © disquieting stiliness of the North be- came intensified. of w § B u $ ieee + “Presently the way grew rougher. If * qayibtng, Roaring Bil increased his | le himself no longer rode. ; When the of the beg) and ‘qmmyons meade the going hard the packs ‘were Givided, and henceforth Satin on this back @ portion of the sup- Bin jed the way tirelessly. files, river crossings, camp labor, and all the petty irritations of the trail he kept an unruffled spirit a fine, enduring patience that Hazel at and admired. Many a © time wakening at some slight stir she & would find him» cooking breakfast. In * every way within hie power he saved ‘her, é- “T got to take good care of you, little person,” he would say. “I'm © used to this sort of thing, and I'm tough as buckskin. But it sure isn't woreng any pionic for you. It's @ lot worse in this way than TI thought it * would be. And wo've got to gel in there before the snow begins to’ fy, or {t will play the dickens with us,” » Many a strange shift 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 eo that his horses could be led over. The depth was bottomless to the eye, but from far below rose the caver- nous growl of rushing water, and Hazel held her breath as each animal stepped gingerly over the marrow ‘ bridge. One misstep—— Once they climbed three weary days ‘up @ precipitous mountain range and _ were turned back in sight of the crest by an impassable cliff, were forced to back track and swing in a fifty- * mile detour, ‘ “Yn an air line Roaring Bill's desti- nation lay approximately two hun- dred miles north——almost due north —of Hazleton, By the devious route ‘were compelled to take the di tance was doubled, more than dou- bled. And their rate of progress now fell short of a ten-mile average. Sep- tember was upon them, The daya p dwindled in length, and the nights #* grew to have a frosty nip, Karly and late he pushed on. Two camp necessities were fortunately abundant, grass and water, Even so, the stress of the trail told on the horses. They lost flesh, The ungodly steepmess of succeeding hills bred gaile Ander the heavy packs. oy = A Romance of Love and Fortune rtrand M. Sinclair Author of ‘NORTH OF 63," EI naar pha NaNO The Evening World Daily Magazine Northwest grow leg weary, no loagee each other with ly step heads high. Hasel pitied them, for ehe herself was trail weary beyond words. The vagabond instinct had fallen asleep. The fine aura of ro- mance no longer hovered over the venture, Sometimes when dusk ended the day's journey and ehe swung her stiffened limbs out of the saddie she would cheerfully have foregone all the gold in the North to be at her ease before the fireplace in their dis- tant cabin, with ber man’s head nest- ing in her lap, and no toll of weary miles looming sternly on the mor- row'’s horizon. It was all work, try- ing work, the more trying because she sensed a Jatent uneasiness on her husband's part, an uneasiness she could never induce him to embody tn words, Nevertheless, it existed, and she resented {ts existence—a trouble ‘she could not share, But she could not put her Qnger on the cause, for Bill merely smiled a denial eben she mentioned it. Nor did she fathom the caves until upon a certain day which fell upon the end of a week's wearisome tr verse of the hardest country yet en- countered. Up and up and still bigh- er he bore into @ range of beetling crags, and always hjs gaze was fixed teadfustly and dubfously on the ser- rated backbone toward which they ascended with infinite toll and hourly risk, skirting eheer oliffs on narrow rock ledges, working foot by foot over declivities where the horses dug thelr hoofs into @ precarious toe hold, and where @ slip meant broken bones on the ra stones below. But win to tho uppermost height they a, where an early enowfal! lay two forhes deep in a thin forest of jack ine. They broke out of a canyon up which they had struggled all day onto a level plot where the pine stood i sombre ranks, A e@pring creek split the flat in two, Beside this tiny stream Bill unlashed his packs, It @till lacked two hours of dark, But he made no comment, and Hazel for- Dore to trouble him with question. Once the packs were off and the orses at iberty Bil caught up bis “Let's Y “Come on, Hazel,” he said ke a little hike. ne flat was small, and once clear of it the pines thinned out on @ steap, rocky slope so that westward they conld overlook a vast network of canyons aud mountain spurs. But ahead of them the mountain rose ‘o an upstanding backbone of jumbled granite, and on this backbone Bill Wagstaff bent an anxious eye. Pres- ently they sat down on a boulder to take a breathing spell after a atiff stretch of climbing. Hazel silpped her hand in his and whispered: “What is it, Billy- . “lm afraid we can't get 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 mile to the top.” He struck out again, clambering over great boulders, clawing his way along rocky shelves, with a hand out- stretched 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 he was forced to the reluctant conclusion that no hoofed beast save mountain sheep or goat could cross that divide, Certainly not by the route they were taking. And north and south as tar as she could see the backbone ran like a solid wall. It was a scant quarter mile to the top, beyond which no further moun- tain 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 , and wiped the sweat out of ‘os. And as he stood his gaze suddenly became fixed, a concen- trated stare at a point northward. Hier “Ry thunde Heve--it's me for the top! Tle went up the few remaining yarda with a haste that left Hazel panting behind, Above her he stood balanced on a boulder, cut sharp against the sky, and she reached him just as he lowered the field glasses vith a long sigh of relief, Fils eyes ne with exultation. ‘Come on up on the perch,” he invited, and reached forth a long, muscular arm, drawing her up close beside him on the rock. “Behold the Promised Land," he breathed, “and the gateway thereof, lying a couple of miles to the north.” They were, it seemed to Harel, roosting precariously on the very summit of the world, On bot ides the mountain pitched away sharply in rugged folds. Distance smoothed out the harsh deciivities, blurred over the tremendous canyons, Looking east- ward, she saw an ample basin, which gave promise of level ground on its floor. True, it was ringed about with skyscraping peaks, save where 4 small valley opened to the south. Be- hind them, between them and the far Pacific roiled a sea pf mountains, snow-capped, glacler-torn, gigantic “Down there,” Roaring Bill waved his hand, “there’a a little meadow and turf to walk on. Lord, T'll be glad to get out of these rocks! You'll never catch me coming in this way again It's sure tough going d ['ve been scared to death for a w , thinking we couldn't get through. “But we can?” 7 ven easy,” he assured. “Take the glasses and look, That flat we lett our outfit in runs pretty well to the top, about two miles along. Then there's a notoh In the ridge that you can't get with the naked eye and a wider canyon running down Into the basin, It's the oply decent break tn the divide for Af@ miles so far as T can seo, This backbone runs to high mountains both north @nd south of tus—like the great wall of China, We're lucky to hit this pass. “suppose we couldn't get over here?” Hazel asked. “What if there hadn't been a pass?” “That was beginning to keep me awake nights,” he confessed. "I've been studying this rock wall for a week, It doesn't look good from the cast side, but {t's worse on the west, and I couldn't seem to locate the gap I spotted from the basin one time. And if we couldn't get through it meant a hundred miles or more back south around that white peak you see, Over a worse country than we've come through—and no cinch on ge ting over at that. Do you realize | that it's getting late in the year? Winte: ten da: And me caught in a rock pile, with no cabin to shelter my best girl, and no hay up to feed my horses! You bet it bothered me.” She hugged him sympathetically, and Bill smiled down at her. “But It's plain sailing now.” he con- tinued. “I know the basin and all the country beyond it. It's a pretty decent camping place, and there's a fairly easy way out.” He bestowed a reassuring kiss upon. her, They @at on the boulder for a fow minutes, then scrambled downhill to the jack-pine flat and built their evening fire. And for the first time in many days Roaring Bill whistied and lightly burst into snatch or song in the deep, bellowing voice that had given him his name back In the Cariboo country, His humor was in. fectious. Hazel felt the gods of high adventure smiling broadly upon them ‘ones more. Before daybreak they acked. In the dim Ii 1 picked his way up through the fack-pine flat. With easy travelling they made such time as enabled them to cross through the narrow gash— cut in the divide by some glacial off- shoot when the Klappan Range was young—before the sun, a ball of molten fire, heaved up from behind the far mountain chain. At noon, two days later, they stepped out of a heavy siand of spruce into @ sun-warmed meadow, where ripe, yellow grasses waved to heir horses’ knees, 1 came afoot, @ fresh killed deer lashed across Silk’s back. Bill hesitaed, an ff taking his bear- ings, then led to where a rocky spur of a hill jutted into the meadow's edge. A spring bubbled out of a pebbly basin, and he poked about in the rane beside It Be his foot, presently stooping to pick up some- thing which pores to be a short bit of charred stick, “The rematns of my last c fire,” he smiled reminiecently. “P: off, ‘re through with the traf! for a while.” old pal. We' CHAPTER V. Four Walls and a Roof. r © such as view with a kindly | eye the hushed areas of vir- ere up and eht of dawn gin forest and the bold cliffs and peaks of mountain ranges it is a joy to tread unknown trails, camping as the spirit moves, journeying leisurely and in decent comfort from charming spot to spots more charming. With no spur of need to drive, such inconse- quential wandering gives to each day and incident an added gest. Nature appears to have on her best bib and tucker for the occasion, The alluring finger of the unknown beckons allur- ingly onward, so that if one should betimes strain to physical exhaustion in pursuit that is a matter of no moment whatever, But it ie @ different thing to face the wilderness for @ purpose, to journey tn haste toward a@ set point, with @ penalty swift and sure for failure to reach that point in due nea~ son, Espectally ts this so in the high latitudes, Natural barriers uprear before the traveller, barriers which he must scale with sweat and strain- ing museles, He must progress by devious ways, seeking alwi the line of least resistance. The season of \ammer is brief, @ riot of dowers ‘ and vegetation. A certain number of weeks the land smiles and Saunts gay flowers in the shadow of the ancient glaciers. Then the frost and snow come back to thelr own, and the loug nights shut down like a pall. Brought to it by a kindller road, Hazel would have found that nook in the Klappan Range a pleasant enough place, She could not deny its beauty. It snuggled in the heart of a wild tangle of hills all turreted and battle- mented with ledge and pinnacle of rock from which ran buge escarp- ments clothed with spruce and pine, and gashed on every hand with slides and deep-worn water- courses, down which tumultuous streams rioted thelr foamy way. And nestled amid this, like a precious stone in its massive setting, a fow hundred acres of level grassy turf dotted with trees Southward opened @ narrow valle: as if pointing the road to a less orous land, No, she could not deny its beauty. But she was far too trail weary to appreciate the grandeur of the Klappan Range. She desired nothing so much as rest ard comfort, and the solemn mountaine were neither restful nor sootiing, ‘They stood too grim and aloof in a lonely land There was so much to be done, work of the hands; a cabin to bull and a stable; hay to bo cut and stacked so that ther horses might live through the long winter—whicb al ly heralded bis approach with pate. suoee frosts at night, and rid, of enow along the higher Bit staked the tent beside the pring, fashioned @ rude fork out & pronged willow, and fitted a handle to the scythe he had brought for the Purpose. From dawn to dark he e@wung the keen blade in the heavy a8 which carpeted the bottom. Br- ind him Hazel piled ft tn Mttle mounds with the fork She insisted on this, thi tt bitwtered her hands and brought furious pains to her back. If her man must strain every nerve whe would lighten the burden with what strength she had. And with two paira of hands to the taek, the piles of hay heres thick on the meadow, When Bill Judged that the supply reached twenty tons, he built a rude sled with a rack on It, and hauled in the hay witli a saddle horse. “Amen!’ said Pill, when he had emptied the rack fo last time, and the hay rose in a neat stack, “That's another load off my mind T can build a cabin and @ stable in six foet of snow, if | have to, but there would have beon « slim chance of haying once a storm hit us, And the caballos need a grubstake for the winter worse than we do, becanse they can't eat meat. We wouldn't go hungry—there’s moose enough to feed an army rancine in that low ground to the south.” “There's everything that one almost, in the wilderness, ten Hazel observed reflectively, “But still the law of life in awfully harsh, don't you think, RIN? Tsolation ts a terrible thing when {t ‘s #0 abso- lutely complete, Suppose something went wrong. There's no help, and no merey—absolutely none, You could die here by inches and the woods and mountains would look calmly on, just as they have looked on everything for thousands of vears, It's ike prison regulations, You must do this, and you must do that, and there's no ex- couse for mistakes, Nature when you get close to her is so inexorable.” Bill 4 her a second. Then he Put Ris arms around hor and patted her hair tenderly, “Ts it Getting ‘00 your nerves aj- eedin, "t there?" eRe ss, dividual, i4 Be) 1AM WAITING FOR MINE Too bey aan person?" he bag “Nothing's going to go wrong. I've been in Oy too n to make mistakes or get careless. Ard she whispered tn, hi “You must'nt thin! ing or lonesome or anything, Billy- nake remarks like I did those are the two crimes for which the North—or any wildernese—in- Micts rather serious penalties, Life isin't @ bit harsher here than in the human ant heaps. Only everything is more direct; cause and effect are linked up close, There are no com- plexities, It's all dono in the open, and if you don’t play the game ac- cording to the few simple rules you om and out. Ye “There's no doctor in the 100K up at these big mountains, and » Tuesday, By Maurice Ketten| + But when the fire had sunk to dull silently as @ show 4 the star “the open flap of thelr tent, shoulder, and whose breath exhaled Pi ik I'm complain- y » you a heap, and I'd be happy anywhere with you, really and truly at home in the wil- Only—only sometimes have @ funny feeling, ae it were @ It seeins silly, but this ts all trap That's all there 8° different from our litte cabin. I trap ines, of skinning and stretching derness, afraid. January 25, 1916 Itself. Don’t miss it. Monday's Evening World. on a pole of the scaffolding wolves, beyond = rea certainly does,” Hazel replied. Nl never eat all that.” robably not,” he amiled. “But there's nothing like having plenty. ‘The moose might emigrate, you know. I think I'll add a deer to that lot for vartety—if I can find one. He managed this if the next few days, and also laid a stock of frozen rae s imple expedient of lo~ & large pool, and netting the speckled denizens thereo: <= In the tee, mereet Coben ® io thelr larder was amply supplie: And, as the cold rigidly tightened nH grip, and succeeding anows deepened the white blanket till snowshoes be- came imperative, Bill be; out # line of traps. shal CHAPTER VI. Boreas Chants His Lay. ECEMBER winged by, the daya mucceeding each other like glittering panois on a black ground of long, drear nights, Christmas came. They mus- tered up something of the holiday spirit, dining gayly off a roast of caribou. For the occasion Hazel had saved the last half dozen potatoes. With the material at her command she evolved a Christmas pudding, serving it with brandy sauce, And after setlefying appetites bred of a morning tilt with Jack Frost along Bill's trap line they spent a pleasant hour picturing thelr next Christmas, There would be holly and bright Nghts and music—the festival spirit freed of all restraint, ‘The new year was born in a wild smother of fying snow, which died at dawn to let a pale, heatless sun peer tentatively over the suuthera muun- bis slanting beams setting glitter, Frost foot deep, a downy wrapping for th slumbering earth, over which Bll Wagstaff fitted on snowshoes as fur clad ghost, rifle on bis who bore a ping however, CS in white, steamy puffs, Gold or no gold, the wild ere tving up dts treasure to them. Kiready the catch of furs totalled ninety marten, a few mink, @ dozen ‘And I'm wolves—and two pelts of that rare avis, tho silver fox, 1 Around twelve hundred dollars, Bil estimated, with four months yet to ‘And the labor of tending the the catch, served to keep them both Hazel as much as he, for cupled— next block, nor a grocer to take your hey seem to be scowling—as if we preg end dit with bim on sil but the order over the phone, and you can't Were trespassers or something.” Tun out to a cafe and take di) with a friend. eis the But neither is the bim. air swarming with disease germs, nor that saine “I know.” hardest trips. So that thelr isolation cnow.” Bill drow Der close, {2 in the hushed white world where the ensation up he I've felt frost ruled with an iron hand had a fool- Tit yo tar become oppressive. They are there malicious gossips to blaat ish, indefinuble foreboding. All the RO'*’ UM it ‘aevelop that dour you with thelr tongues, nor rent and oyt-of-the-way places turn produce that effect, If one Is Nor am Tat the mercy of a prac slat oi om Job. She as does the old, settled everything, and the eternal stillness, to you when you have pve caught myself listening—when I knew there was taxes to pay every time you around, country neither money nor job? It treats you worse than the woret the North can do; for, lacking the price, it denies you access to the undance that mocks you in every shop window, and bara you out of the houses that line !t the atre Here everything that in liye the bigne: Sure, | know it. here of the earth griiction of the spirit which lonell- al eas und idleness breeds through the of jong winters of the North. ‘A day or two after the firet of the ear Koaring Bill eet out to go over nothing to hear. » lines, Five Na ee ce abel like &,soell SOY. CHR ere ereares fergie’ left. by himself in some big, gloomy pac} building-—awesome, would be hard on the nerves to ne But we're only thy minutes after closing the door be was kK. Easy with that fire, little person, tioned, orthweat agal sparks are needful is yours for the taking. If after @ stake-then all the pleasant sailing pretty high. Keep your eye on one ia tgnorant or unable to convert Place wood and water and sume the penalty of incompetence. “No, little person, I don’t think the UP and go jo slesp law of life Is nearly eo harsh here as KA™M® sport, OF it le where the mob struggles for tts long aso. bread. It’ And next day to Hazel, eitting by swing the |. double-bitted axe on the foundation there was not mi their winter home, aboveboard here: sometimes I think of something hi Pening to you—sickness and acc dents, and all that. thinking what might happen.” “Forget it!” Bill exhorted... “That's the worst of living in this big, still Countsy—it m: and #0 confoundedly are, after all, of sickness here than any place, Any- of the earth are open to us; . old log house up by to bis With that ite own uses’ he must learn how or pay Pine River for a retug get tired of (he world at larg watohing ‘o what . logs of » pout!” whe denied. “Tm not seemed foolish, lonely, so long as I've got you. But heart which sometimes assailed her. She was perfectly of them the good happy. - red blood of youth One can’t help ran full and strong, offering ample se- curity against lenty of food. Hl would wrest a ‘one introspective, the treasure house of the North, and conscious of they would journey what puny atoms we human beings stages. But there's less chance was sheer folly—a mere ebb of spirit. Fortune favored then to the extent OF two at a Ume a gale might roar uck of gold from Why should she brood? It to watch wind and fire, By keepin it, Hazel “ALL right, Billum,” “T'll be careful,” Not more than fifty yards separated the house and stable. At the stable ahe replied You're a dead- you'd have holered end stood the stack of hay, a low- Except for t! heavy, removed the sup) foothold for @ it all spark, since « coat of anow overe heaviness of laid the greater part of the top, But there was that c of cates In each The chimney of thelr fireplace yawned wide to the sky, vomiting sparks and ash like a miniaturt volcano when the fire was roughly stirred, or an heavy supply of dry wood laid When the wind whistled out of the northwest the line of flight was fair over the stack. Lt behooved them 8. They had brief months ext home by easy & bed of coals and laying on @ stlox way, we've got to take a chancn on of letting tho October storma remain Scroms the chimney-top without suck~ things now and then, in the course of in abeyance Hill finished bis {pg forth A spark large enough to living “Our Hives “Aocording to our cabin, with a cavernous Sreplace of ignite the hay. Hence Bill's warsing, Mghts, We're playing for a stake end. He aplit He had spoken of it before and things that are worth havir pianka for # door out of Taw timber, . ieee) wasaed up the bresktast never handed to us on @ allver &: Besides, 1 never had a dows nd graced his dishes and get the cebin tn order ac ling to her housewifely instincts, en she curled up in the chair which with tw stomachache in my life—an 4 glass carefully packed uh + pretty healthy specimen yourself. iiing all the way 5 BD, AG aun aie Camere ‘Wait til I get that cabin built, with other a two-foot square of d She was working up @ pair of moc- a big fireplace at one end. Wo'llgt scraped thin; opaque to casing after an Indian pattern, and more comfortable, and thingy iil the vision, it #till permitted light to ste grew wholly absorl in the look a little rosier, This thing of enter. was plain earth, & task, drawing stitoh after atitch of everlasting hurry and hard work gets condition promised to remedy sinew strongly and neatly tnto place. on anybody's nerves.” with hides of moose ono® his buildings The hours ficked past In unseemly ‘The best of the afternoon was still were completed. Hudely finished, and 40 pletely was she en- unspent when the haystacking term!- lacking much that would have made 1. When at length the eore- nated, and Bill declared a holiday. He rigged a line on @ limber still It nerved willow pose, and Hazel made shift content for comfort, f her Angers warned her that ita pur been at work @ long time, Ming 5 oad with @ fragment of veni- ed ahe. joaked at her wie 4 «, son for bait sought the pools of the — 4, . ; "Goodness me! Bill's due home Stream which flowed out the south ..Followed then the erection of # any time, and L haven't a thing rea opening. He prophesied that in cer. "Able to sliviter ihe horeea. Midway to eat," she exclaimed, “And here’ tain bikck eddies plump trout wourd of 18 construction # cloud bank blew my fire nearly out,” be lurking, and he made his prophecy Ut of the port herself gun bi Hazel elected 309 of trom rae! eure on, days of frost but before long Bill a eetin chee At night he tied the horses thereto, sparks or aught but that she sho trout after trout MY day they good at the first pool, while she snared ast, and a foot of hen It cleared to brilliant ec Hi finished his stable, were turned loose to be Sho piled on wood, and stirring the in under it, fanned them with her husband's old felt hat, forgetf cooking against bis hungry. ar- Outside the wind blew lust he al ws rustle their fodder from under the Fival. creates Pree Nisait oaaae crisp snow. It was necessary to hue- !¥, driving the loose anow across the Bill's schooling, And when they were band the hay, for spring open In long, wavering ribbons. But frying the fish that evening he sud- might be late she had forgotten that it was in the denly observed: After that they went hunting. The “Uangerous quarter. and she did not tay” they were game litte fellowes, third day Bill shot two goose in an Tecull thas important fact even when these. woren't they? Wasn't that bet. open glad ten miles afield. It took Moose stents broil nto watch her ter sport than taking reet car out them two more days to haul in the coals raked apart from the greed to the park and feeding the swans?” frozen meat on a sled Dlase. t The flames licked into’ the “What an whe laughed ! “Looks like one side of a butcher ‘Who wants to feed swans ine park? ebop,”’ Bill remarked, 70 hi the we a y with the purr What Would YOU Do— if you were on this earth and your eweetheart ved on Mara? That's one of a hundred queer and original compHeationa in NEXT WEEK’S COMPLETE NOVEL IN THE EVENING WORLD, THE GODS OF MARS By Edgar Rice Burroughs (Author of “TARZAN OF THE APES,” &c.) Did you read “UNDER THE MOO! rouge, in The Evening World a few MARS” Is @ sequel to that great serial. Remember “THE GODS OF MARS" will begin in “Sho's blowing out of 9. The } And everyth OF MARS,” by Edgar Rice Bur- eks ago? “THE GODS OF It Is also a complete story by No aixth sense warned her of im- pending calamity, It burst upon her with startling abruptness only when she opened the door to throw out vine scraps of discarded meat, for the blaze of the burning stack #hot in the air and the smoke o¥s the meadow in a sooty Bareneaded, in a thin pair of moe- casings, without cout or mittens to fend her from the lance-toothed frost, Hazel ran to the atable. She could get the horses out, perhaps, before the log walls became thelr: crematory, But Bill, coming in from his traps, reached the stable first, and there nothing for her to do pat stand and watch with a sickel welf-reproach. He untied and clubbe the rel ant horses outside. agalnat the tongues of As the blaze lapped swiftly over the roof and ate into the walls, the horses struggied through the deep drift, lunging desperately to gain @ fow Tans, er turned to stand with ears pricked up at the strange ai; shivering in the bitter northwest med that availed their bare, unprotected bodies. Bill himself drew back from the fire and stared at {t fixedly. He kept ailence until Hazel timidly put ber band on bis arm You watched that fire all right, sho cried. But he merely shrugged bis shoulders aad kept his gaze on the burning stable. To Ha: ahtvering with the coli even close as she was to the intense beat, it seemd an incredibly short Ume till a glowing mound below the snow level was ail that remained; @ black-edged pit that belched smoke ried sparks. That and five horses ju tall to the driving wind, stolidly enduring, She shuddered wii something besides the cold. And then Bill spoke absently, bis eyes etill on the smoldering heap. “Five feet of caked snow on to; mutter, “They like deer, Aw, hell!" He had stuck his rifle butt first to the snow. He walked over to ft; Hazel followed. When he stood, with the slung in the crook of b® arm, she tried again to break through this silent aloofness which cut ber more deeply than any barshness of eyneeh ee here tome “Bil, I'm so sorry!” “It's terrible, I know, “Det Hub!” he snorted, “If ters tthe al asd it wi a head in the al! iy awit.’ Hiven then she hed no clear idea of his intention, She looked up et him pleadingly, but be was staring at the horses, his teeth biting nervously ‘at bis under lip, Buddenly he biinked and she saw his eyes moisten, In mame instant he thi up the ‘At the thin, vicious crack of ft, Silk collapsed. Numbed with the cold, terrified at the elemental ruthlessness of threw herself on the bed, denied even the relief of tears. Dry. heavy-bearted, she waited bus- band’s coming, and dreading it—for the first time she had seen her Bill look on her with cold, oritical anger, He came ef last, and the thump of hia rifle as he stood it against the had no more than sounded was bending over her. #e z E i “Never mind, iittle person,” he over, I'm way I dia fool man's way—4f he’s bart jump on oy omplexity of her women’s nature teare forced their way. She did not vee) Se —only the weak end mushy- ‘up beside him prese: ‘ber hand tucked in between his own two palms, but he looked wistfully at the window as if he were secing what le y beyond. “Poor, dumb devils!" he murmured. “I feel like a murderer, Rut it was pure mercy to them. They won't suf- fer the agony of frost, nor the slow pain of starvation. That's what tt amounted to—they’d starve if th didn't freeze first. I've known men would rather have shot. I bucked many 4 hard trail with Bilk end Satin. Poor, dumb devils!” “D-don't, Bill!" she cried forloraly. “{ know {t's my fault I let the fire elmont fo out, and then built tt up big without thinking. And I know being sorry doesn't make any differ- ence. Hut please—I don't want to be miserable over Tl never be care- less again “AN, right; hon,” he said I won't talk about it, “T don't think you will ger than we are, and it's merciless if we make mistakes.” Bhe shuddered tnvol- ® grim country, It he said tenderly. “Bo have our health end lon« strength we can win out, and be stronger for the experience. Winter's ® a tough proposition up here, but you wont to fight shy of morbid brooding as we over things that can't be help Thie everlasting frost and snow will be gone by and by. It'll be spring. ng looks different when there's green grass and flowers, and fe sun ts warm Buck up, old gtrl— ill'a still on the job,” “How can you spring without hor: to pack 1° she asked. after a little, et out of here with ‘N have? Nant! MI get out with ightly "Well out and gold, all right, and = were un, on a ne Sack tri, “Lesdve We tote! Be Continued.)