And in the cool of a midsummer morning,
before Hazleton had rubbed the sleep out of its collective eyes and
taken up the day's work of discussing its future greatness, Roaring
Bill and his wife draped the mosquito nets over their heads and turned
their faces north.
They bore out upon a wagon road. For a brief distance only did this
endure, then dwindled to a path. A turn in this hid sight of the
clustered log houses and tents, and the two steamers that lay up
against the bank. The river itself was soon lost in the far stretches
of forest. Once more they rode alone in the wilderness. For the first
time Hazel felt a quick shrinking from the North, an awe of its huge,
silent spaces, which could so easily engulf thousands such as they and
still remain a land untamed.
But this feeling passed, and she came again under the spell of the
trail, riding with eyes and ears alert, sitting at ease in the saddle,
and taking each new crook in the way with quickened interest.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE WINTERING PLACE
On the second day they crossed the Skeena, a risky and tedious piece of
business, for the river ran deep and strong. And shortly after this
crossing they came to a line of wire strung on poles.
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