Then she
caught a car passing in that direction, and rode to the end of the
line, where the rails ran out in a wilderness of stumps.
Crossing through these, she found a rudely graded highway, which in
turn dwindled to a mere path. It led her through a pleasant area of
second-growth fir, slender offspring of the slaughtered forest
monarchs, whose great stumps dotted the roll of the land, and up on a
little rise whence she could overlook the city and the inlet where rode
the tall-masted ships and sea-scarred tramps from deep salt water. And
for the time being she was content.
But a spirit of restlessness drove her back into the city. And at
nightfall she went up to her room and threw herself wearily on the bed.
She was tired, body and spirit, and lonely. Nor was this lightened by
the surety that she would be lonelier still before she found a niche to
fit herself in and gather the threads of her life once more into some
orderly pattern.
In the morning she felt better, even to the point of going over the
newspapers and jotting down several advertisements calling for office
help. Her brief experience in Cariboo Meadows had not led her to look
kindly on teaching as a means of livelihood.
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