She had been a year in the
wilderness, and the wilderness had not only lost its glamour, but had
become a thing to flee from. Even the rude motley of Hazleton was a
welcome change. Here at least--on a minor scale, to be sure--was that
which she craved, and to which she had been accustomed--life, stir,
human activity, the very antithesis of the lonely mountain fastnesses.
She bestowed a glad pressure on her husband's arm as they walked up the
street, Bill carrying the sack of gold perched carelessly on one
shoulder.
"Say, their enterprise has gone the length of establishing a branch
bank here, I see."
He called her attention to a square-fronted edifice, its new-boarded
walls as yet guiltless of paint, except where a row of black letters
set forth that it was the Bank of British North America.
"That's a good place to stow this bullion," he remarked. "I want to
get it off my hands."
So to the bank they bent their steps. A solemn, horse-faced Englishman
weighed the gold, and issued Bill a receipt, expressing a polite regret
that lack of facility to determine its fineness prevented him from
converting it into cash.
"That means a trip to Vancouver," Bill remarked outside.
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