A lonesome, brooding land, the home of a vast and
seldom-broken silence.
"But there's all kinds of game and fur in there," Bill remarked
thoughtfully. "And gold. Still, it's a fierce country for a man to
take his best girl into. I don't know whether I ought to tackle it."
"We couldn't be more isolated than we are here," Hazel argued, "if we
were in the arctic. Look at that poor woman at Pelt House. Three
babies born since she saw a doctor or another woman of her own color!
What's a winter by ourselves compared to that. And _she_ didn't think
it so great a hardship. Don't you worry about me, Mr. Bill. I think
it will be fun. I'm a real pioneer at heart. The wild places look
good to me--when you're along."
She received her due reward for that, and then, the long twilight
having brought the hour to a lateness that manifested itself by sundry
yawns on their part, they went to bed.
With breakfast over, Bill put a compass in his pocket, after having
ground his ax blade to a keen edge.
"Come on," said he, then; "I'm going to transact some important
business."
"What is it?" she promptly demanded with much curiosity.
"This domicile of ours, girl," he told her, while he led the way
through the surrounding timber, "is ours only by grace of the
wilderness.
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