New Ulm Enterprise (New Ulm, Tex.), Vol. 9, No. 1, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 10, 1918 Page: 3 of 8
eight pages : ill. ; page 21 x 14 in. Scanned from physical pages.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
NEW ULM ENTERPRISE, NEW ULM, TEXAS
--—-------------------3g
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
Box to Ho!d Vegetables.
The box should be divided by par-
titions, the largest space being for po-
tatoes, another for apples, etc. Where
space is at such a premium that pro-
visions have to be bought in small
quantities this plan will add much to
the comfort and convenience of the
kitchen. It may be covered nearly and
utilized for a seat. Have the cover
hinged so that it will be easy to open.
dis-
the ragged edge
admitted. “But
fry. That one
But
not-
de-
all.
looking for a location
are before very long.
other crews of men,
transits, chainmen,
withstanding
that Hazelton
of a boom.
“Maybe, maybe,” he
I’ve got other fish to
piece up by Pine river will do me for
a while.”
Here where folk talked only of gold
and pelts and railroads and settlement
and the coming boom that would make
them all rich, Bill Wagstaff added two
more ponies to his pack train. These
he loaded down with food, staples only,
Hour, sugar, beans, salt, tea and cof-
fee, and a sack of dried fruit. Also
he bestowed upon Nigger a further
burden of six dozen steel traps.
And in the cool of a midsummer
morning, before Hazelton 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 en-
dure, then dwindled to a path. A turn
in this hid sight of the clustered log
houses and tents, and the two steam-
ers 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.
“What do you think of that, old
girl?” Bill observed presently. “A
real, honest-to-goodness railroad going
by within a hundred miles of our
shack. Three years. It’ll be there be-
fore we know it. We’ll have neigh-
bors to burn.”
“A hundred miles 1” Hazel laughed.
“Is that your idea of a neighborly
tance?”
“What’s a hundred miles?” he
fended. “Two days’ ride, that’s
And the kind of people that com? to
settle in a country like this don’t stick
in sight of the cars. They’re like
me—need lots of elbow room. There’ll
be hardy souls
up where we
You’ll see.”
They passed
surveyors with
stake drivers, ax gangs widening the
path through the timber. Most of
them looked at Hazel in frank sur-
prise, and stared long after she passed
by. And when an open bottom beside
a noisy little creek showed the scat-
tered tents of the survey camp, Hazel
said:
“Let’s not stop, Bill.”
He looked back over his shoulder
with a comprehending smile.
“Getting shy?- Make you uncom-
fortable to have all these boys look at
you, little person?” he bantered. “All
right, we won’t stop. But all these
fellows probably haven’t seen a white
woman for months. You can’t blame
them for admiring. You do look good
to other men besides me, you know.”
So they rode through the camp with
but a nod to the aproned cook, who
thrust out his head, and a gray-haired
man with glasses, who humped over
a drafting board under an awning.
Their noon fire they built at a spring
five miles beyond.
At length they fared into Hazelton,
which is the hub of a vast area over
which men pursue gold and furs.
Some hundred odd souls were gath-
ered there, where the stern-wheel
steamers that ply the turgid Skeena
reaoh the head of navigation. A land-
recording office and a mining recorder
Hazelton boasted as proof of its
civic importance. The mining recorder,
who combined in himself many capaci-
ties besides his governmental function,
undertook to put through Bill’s land
deal. He knew Bill Wagstaff.
“Wise man.” he nodded, over the de-
scription. “If some more uh these boys
that have blazed trails through this
country would do the same thing,
they’d be better off. A chunk of land
anywhere in this country is a good
bet now. We’ll have rails here from
the coast in a year. Better freeze
onto a couple uh lots here in Hazel-
ton, while they’re low. Be plumb to
the skies in .ten years. Natural place
for a city, Bill. e-stonishin’ how_
the settlers is cornin’.”
There was ocular evidence
last, for they had follow’ed in a
well rutted from loaded wagons.
Bill invested in no real estate,
the positive assurance
was on
Hazel gets a terrifying glimpse
of the ruthless way of the wil-
derness. She learns that the
great wide spaces of the north
are merciless to these who make
mistakes. How she learns the
lessen is told in the next install-
ment.
manifested itself by sundry yawns on
their part, they went to bed.
With breakfast over, Bill put a com-
pass 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 demand-
ed 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. It’s built on
unsurveyed government land — land
that I have no more legal claim to
than any passing trapper. But I’m
going to remedy that. I’m going to
formally stake a hundred and sixty
acres of this and apply for its pur-
chase. Then we’ll have a cinch on our
home. We’ll always have a refuge to
fly to. no matter where we go.”
She nodded appreciation of this. The
cabin in the clearing stood for some
of those moments that always loom
large and unforgettable in every wom-
an’s experience. She had come there
once in hot, shamed anger, and she
had come again as a bride. It was the
handiwork of a man she loved with a
passion that sometimes startled her
by its intensity. Just the mere pos-
sibility of that place being given over
to others roused in her a pang of re-
sentment. It was theirs, hers and
Bill’s, and, being a woman, she viewed
its. possession jealously. >
So she watched with keen interest
what he did. Which, in truth; was
simple enough. He worked his way
to a point southeast of the clearing
till they gained a little rise whence
through the treetops they could look
back and see the cabin roof. There
Bill cut off an eight-inch jack pine,
leaving the stump approximately four
feet high. This he hewed square, the
four flat sides of the post facing re-
spectively the cardinal points of the
compass. On one smoothed surface
Bill set to work with his pocketknife.
Hazel sat down and watched while he
busied himself at this. And when he
had finished she read, in deep-carved
letters:
W. WAGSTAFF'S S.-E. CORNER.
Then he penned on a sheet of let-
ter paper a brief notice to the effect-
that he, William Wagstaff, intended to
apply for the purchase of the land em-
braced in an area a half mile square,
of which the post was the southeast
corner mark. This notice he fastened
to the stump with a few tacks, and sat
down to rest from his labors.
“How long do you suppose that will
stay there, and who is there to read it
if it does?” Hazel observed.
“Search me. The moose and the
deer and the timber wolves, I guess,”
Bill grinned. “The chances are the
paper won’t last long, with winds and
rains. But it doesn’t matter. It’s sim-
ply a form prescribed by the land act
of British Columbia, and, so long as I
go through the legal motions, that lets
me out. Matter of form, you know.” .
“Then what else do you have to do?”
“Nothing but furnish the money
when the land department gets around
to accept my application,” he said. “I
can get an agent to attend to all the
details. Well, let’s take a look at our
estate from another corner.”
This, roughly ascertained by sight-
ing a line with the compass and step-
ping off 880 yards, brought them up
on a knoll that commanded the small
basin of which the clearing was prac-
tically in the center.
“Aha 1” Bill exclaimed. “Look at
our ranch, would you; our widespread ‘
acres basking in the sun. A quarter
section is quite a chunk. Do you
know I never thought much about It
before, but there’s a piece of the finest
land that lies outdoors. If this coun-
try should get a railroad and settle up,
that quarter section might produce all
the income we’d need. Just out of hay
and potatoes. How’d you like to be a
farmer’s wife, huh?”
“Fine,” she smiled. “Look at the
view—it isn’t gorgeous. It’s—it’s sim-
ply peaceful and quiet and soothing.
I hate to leave it.”
“Better be sorry to leave a place
than glad to get away,” he answered
lightly. “Come on, let’s pike home and
get things in order for the long trail,
woman o’ mine. I’ll teach you how to
be a woodland vagabond.”
CHAPTER X.
En Route.
Long since Hazel had become aware
that whatsoever her husband set about
doing he did swiftly and with inflex-
ible purpose. There was no malinger-
ing or doubtful hesitation. Once his
mind was made up, he acted. Thus,
upon the third day from the land stak-
ing. they bore away eastward from the
ikless area, trav-
North of Fifty-Three
By BERTRAND W. SINCLAIR
(Copyright: Little, Brown & Co.)
syi....'..: -T-7---------------..... ..... ------ , — __
•ere
come
is the evil
evil in our
should we
call it?”
declared,
we might.
ahead.
“But
One
By and
LURE OF HIDDEN GOLD CALLS “ROARING BILL” AND
HAZEL INTO THE WILDERNESS.
I
Synopsis.—Miss Hazel Weir, a stenographer, living at Granville,
Ontario, is placed under a cloud by circumstances for which she is
entirely blameless. To escape from the groundless gossip that pursues
her, she secures a position as schoolteacher at Cariboo Meadows, in a
wild part of British Columbia. There, at a boarding house, she first
sees “Roaring Bill” Wagstaff, a well-known character of that country.
Soon after her arrival Hazel loses her way while walking in the woods.
She wanders until night when she reaches “Roaring Bill’s” camp fire
in the woods. He promises to take her home in the morning, but she
is compelled to spend the night in the woods. After wandering in the
woods all the next day, “Roaring Bill” finally admits that he is taking
Hazel to his cabin in the mountains. Hazel finds upon their arrival at
the. cabin that she cannot hope to escape from the wilderness before
spring. During the long winter “Roaring Bill” treats Hazel with the
greatest respect. He tells her he loves her and tries to induce her to
marry him, but she refuses. In the spring he .takes her to Bella Coola,
where she can get a boat to Vancouver. At Vancouver Hazel takes a
train for Granville, but on the way she realizes that she loves Wagstaff
and decided to return to him. “Roaring Bill” is overjoyed and to-
gether they travel to a Hudson bay post and are married.
softly—and
they fell to silent contemplation of
the rose and gold that spread in a
wonderful blazon over all the western
sky. '*
“Twenty-fifth of July, eh?” he mused
presently. “Summer’s half gone al-
ready. I didn’t realize it. We ought
to be stirring pretty soon, lady. These
■northern seasons are so blessed short.
We ought to try and do a little good
for ourselves—make hay wTiile the sun
shines. We’ll needa da mon'.”
“Needa fiddlesticks,” she laughed.
“What do we need money for? It
costs practically nothing to live up
Tiere. Why this sudden desire to pur-
sue the dollar? Besides, how are you
going to pursue it?”
“Go prospecting,” he replied prompt-
ly. “Hit the trail for a place I know
where there’s oodles of coarse gold,- if
you can get to it at low’ water. How’d
you like to go into the Upper Naas
country this fall, trap all winter, work
the sandbars ih the spring, and come
out next fall with a sack of gold it
would take a horse to pack?”
Hazel clapped her hands. -
“Oh, Bill, wouldn’t that be fine?” she
cried. “I’d love to.”
“It won’t be all smooth sailing,” he
warned. “It’s a long trip and a hard
one, and the winter will be longer and
harder than the trip. Still, there’s a
chance for a good big stake, right in
that one trip.”
“But why the necessity for making
a stake?” she inquired thoughtfully,
after a lapse of five minutes. “I
thought you didn’t care anything about
money so long as you had enough to
get along on? And we surely have
t. We’ve over two thousand dollars
money—and no place to spend
’re compelled to save.”
e ring over his head
up toward the
placing a lone hand, and I generally let
the; future take care of itself. It was
always easy to dig v.p money enough to
buy books and grub or anything I
warnted. Now that I’ve assumed a cer-
tain responsibility, it has begun to
d/awn on me that we’d enjoy life bet-
ter if we were assured of a compe-
tence. We -won’t stay here always.
I’m pretty much contented just now.
So are you. But I know from past ex-
perience that the outside will grow
more alluring as time passes. You’ll
get lonesome for civilization. It’s the
most natural thing in the world. And
when we go out to mix with our fellow
humans we want to meet them on
terms of worldly equality. Which is
to say with good clothes on, and a fat
bank roll in our pocket. And last, but
not least, old girl, while I love to loaf,
I can only loaf about so long in con-
tentment. Sabe? I’ve got to be doing
something; whether it was profitable
or not has never mattered, just so it
was action.”
“I sabe, as you call it,” Hazel smiled.
“Of course I do. Only lazy people like
to loaf all the time. I love this place,
and we might stay here for years and
be satisfied. But—”
“But we’d be better satisfied to stay
if we knew that we could leave it
whenever we wanted to,” he inter-
rupted. “That’s the psychology of the
human animal, all right. We don’t like
to be coerced, even by circumstances.”
“If you made a lot of money mining,
we could travel—one could do lots of
things,” she reflected. “I don’t think
I’d want to .live in a city again. But
it would be nice to go there,, some-
times.”
“Yes, dear girl, it would,” Bill
agreed. “With a chum to help you en-
joy things. We can do things together
that I couldn’t do alone, and you
couldn’t do alone. Remains only to get
the wherewithal. And since I know
how to manage that with a minimum
amount of/ effort, I’d like to be about
it before somebody else gets ahead of
me. Though there’s small chance of
that.”
“We’ll be partners,” said she. “How
will we divide the profits, Biilum?”
“We’ll split even,” he declared.
That is, I’ll make the money, and
you’ll spend it.”
They chuckled over this conceit, and
as the dusk closed In slowly they fell
to planning the details. Hazel lit the
lamp, and in Its yellpw glow pored
over maps while Bill idly sketched
their route on a sheet of paper. His
objective lay east of the head of the
Naas proper, where amid a wild tangle
of mountains and mountain torrents
three turbulent rivers, the Stikine, the
Skeena and the Naas, took their rise.
A God-forsaken region, he told her,
where few white men had penetrated.
The peaks flirted with the clouds, and
their sides were scarred with glaciers.
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 thought-
fully. “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
look good to me—when you’re
of ill omen croaks again.'
Wed. “Why
^H^^njoing, as you
“We. shouldn’t,” he
raoJt people do. And
never can tell what’s
by when the novelty wears off—maybe
you’ll get sick of seeing the same old
Bill around and nobody else. You see,
I’ve always been on my good behavior
with you. Do you like me a lot?”
His arm tightened with a quick and
powerful pressure, then suddenly re-
laxed to let her lean back and stare
up at him tenderly.
“I ought to punish you for saying
-things like that,” she pouted. “Only I
-can’t think of any effective method.
Sufficient unto the day
(thereof—and there is no
■days.”
“Amen,” he whispered
CHAPTER IX—Continued.
—9—
“This is July the twenty-fifth, Mr.
Roaring Bill Wagstaff,” she announced.
"“We’ve been married exactly one
month.”
“A whole month?” he echoed, in
■mock astonishment. “You don’t say
so? Seems like it was only day before/
yesterday, little person.” J
“I wonder,” she snuggled up a lit^ie
.closer to him. “if any two people
ever as happy as we’ve been?”/-
Bill put his arm across her smoulders
and tilted her head back s£o that he
could smile flown into h>>r face.
k “They launch of golden
tfthaveni’t they?” he whispered.
M^n't/forget this joy time if we
KLUf real hard going, will you.
due reward for
twilight hov-
eling by rhe sun and Bill’s knowledge
of the country.
“Some day there’ll be trails blazed
through here by a paternal govern-
ment,” he laughed over his shoulder,
“for the benefit of the public. But we
don’t need ’em, thank goodness.”
The buckskin pony Hazel had
bought for the trip in with Limping
George ambled sedately unde? a pack
containing bedding, clothes and a light
shelter tent. The black horse, Nigger,
he of the cocked ear and the rolling
eye, carried in a pair of kyaks six'-
weeks’ supply of food. Bill led the
way, seconded by Hazel on easy-gaited
Silk. Behind her trailed the pack
horses like dogs well broken to heel,
patient under their heavy burdens. Off
in the east the sun was barely clear
of the towering Rockies, and the
woods were still cool and shadowy,
full, of aromatic odors from plant and
tree.
There was no monotony in the pass-
ing days. Rivers barred their way.
These they forded or swam, or ferried
a makeshift raft of logs, as seemed
most fit. Haps and mishaps alike they
accepted with an equable spirit and
the true philosophy of the trail—to
take things as they come. When rain
deluged them, there was always shel-
ter to be found and fire to warm them.
If the flies assailed too fiercely, a
smudge brought easement of that ill.
Each day was something more than a
mere toll of so many miles traversed.
The unexpected, for which both were
eager-eyed, lurked on the shoulder of
each mountain, in the hollow of every
cool canyon, or met them boldly in
the open, naked and unafraid.
Bearing up to where the Nachaco
debouches from Fraser lake, with a
Hudson’s bay fur post and an Indian
mission on its eastern fringe, they
came upon a blazed line in the scrub
timber. Roaring Bill pulled up, and
squinted.away down the narrow lane
fresh with ax marks. •
“Well,” said he, “I wonder what’s
coming off now? That looks like a
survey line of some sort. It isn’t a
trail—too wide. Let’s follow it a
while.
“I’ll bet a nickel,” he asserted next,
“that’s a railroad survey.”
Half an hour of ea’sy jogging set the
seal of truth on his assertion. They
came upon a man squinting through
a brass instrument set on three legs,
directing, with alternate wavings of
his outspread hands, certain activi-
ties of other men ahead of him.
“Well, I’ll be—” he hit off the sen-
tence, and stared a moment In frank
astonishment at Hazel. Then he took
off his hat and bowed. “Good morn-
ing,” he greeted politely.
“Sure,” Bill grinned. “We have
mornings like this around here all the
time. What all are you fellows doing
in the wilderness, anyway? Railroad?”
“Cross-section work for the G. T.
P.,” the surveyor replied.
“Huh,” Bill grunted. ‘.‘Is it a dead
cinch, or is it something that may pos-
sibly come to pass in the misty fu-
ture?”
“As near a cinch as anything ever
is,” the surveyor answered. “Construc-
tion has begun—at both ends. I
thought the few white folks in this
country kept tab on anything as im-
portant as a new railroad.”
“We’ve heard a lot, but none of ’em
has transpired yet; not in my time,
anyway,” Bill replied dryly. “How-
ever, the world keeps on moving. I’ve
heard more or less talk of this, but I
didn’t know it had got past the talking
stage. What’s their Pacific terminal?”
“Prince Rupert—new town on a pe-
ninsula north of the mouth of the
Skeena,” said the surveyor. “It’s a
rush job all the way through, I believe.
Three years to spike up the last rail.
And that’s going some for a transcon-
tinental road. Both the Dominion and
B. C. governments have guaranteed
lhe company’s bonds away up into mil-
lions.”
“Be a great thing for this country—
say, where does it cross the Rockies?
—what’s the general route?” Bill
asked abruptly.
“Goes over the range through Yel-
lowhead pass. From here it follows
the Nachaco to Fort George, then up
the Fraser by Tete Juan Cache,
through the pass, then down the Ath-
abasca till it switches over to strike
Edmonton.”
“Uh-huh,” Bill nodded. “One of the
modern labors of Hercules. Weil,
we’ve got to peg. So long.”
“Our camp’s about five miles ahead.
Better stop in and noon,” the surveyor
invited, “if it’s on your road.”
“Thanks. Maybe we will,” Bill re-
turned.
The surveyor lifted his hat, with a-
swift glance of admiration at Hazel,
and they passed with a mutual “so
long.”
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
New Ulm Enterprise (New Ulm, Tex.), Vol. 9, No. 1, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 10, 1918, newspaper, October 10, 1918; New Ulm, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1193492/m1/3/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.