h.

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. Originally a
fair passageway had been cleared through low brush and dense timber
alike. A pathway of sorts still remained, though dim and little
trodden and littered with down trees of various sizes. Bill followed
this.

"What is the wire? A rural telephone? Oh, I remember you told me
once--that Yukon telegraph," Hazel remarked.

"Uh-huh. That's the famous Telegraph Trail," Bill answered. "Runs
from Ashcroft clear to Dawson City, on the Yukon; that is, the line
does. There's a lineman's house every twenty miles or so, and an
operator every forty miles. The best thing about it is that it
furnishes us with a sort of a road. And that's mighty lucky, for
there's some tough going ahead of us."

So long as they held to the Telegraph Trail the way led through fairly
decent country. In open patches there was ample grazing for their
horses. Hills there were, to be sure; all the land rolled away in
immense forested billows, but the mountains stood off on the right and
left, frowning in the distance. A plague of flies harassed them
continually, Hazel's hands suffering most, even though she kept
religiously to thick buckskin gloves. The poisonous bites led to
scratching, which bred soreness. And as they gained a greater
elevation and the timbered bottoms gave way to rocky hills over which
she must perforce walk and lead her horse, the sweat of the exertion
stung and burned intolerably, like salt water on an open wound.

Minor hardships, these; scarcely to be dignified