You'll never
have a closer call. And the same thing might not happen again if you
lived in a bear country for thirty years.
"It's a pity to let that good skin rot here," Bill concluded slowly;
"but I guess I will. I don't want his pelt. It would always be a
reminder of things--things I'd just as soon forget."
He tucked the hatchet in its place on the pack. Hazel swung up on
Silk. They tipped over the crest of the mountain, and began the long
descent.
The evening of the third day from there Bill traveled till dusk. When
camp was made and the fire started, he called Hazel to one side, up on
a little rocky knoll, and pointed out a half dozen pin points of yellow
glimmering distantly in the dark.
"That's Bella Coola," he told her. "And unless they've made a radical
change in their sailing schedules there should be a boat clear
to-morrow at noon."
CHAPTER XIV
THE DRONE OF THE HIVE
A black cloud of smoke was rolling up from the funnel of the _Stanley
D._ as Bill Wagstaff piloted Hazel from the grimy Bella Coola hotel to
the wharf.
"There aren't many passengers," he told her. "They're mostly cannery
men. But you'll have the captain's wife to chaperon you.
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