whatever.

But it is a different thing to face the wilderness for a purpose, to
journey in haste toward a set point, with a penalty swift and sure for
failure to reach that point in due season. Especially is this so in
the high latitudes. Natural barriers uprear before the traveler,
barriers which he must scale with sweat and straining muscles. He must
progress by devious ways, seeking always the line of least resistance.
The season of summer is brief, a riot of flowers and vegetation. A
certain number of weeks the land smiles and flaunts gay flowers in the
shadow of the ancient glaciers. Then the frost and snow come back to
their own, and the long nights shut down like a pall.

Brought to it by a kindlier road, Hazel would have found that nook in
the Klappan Range a pleasant enough place. She could not deny its
beauty. It snuggled in the heart of a wild tangle of hills all
turreted and battlemented with ledge and pinnacle of rock, from which
ran huge escarpments clothed with spruce and pine, scarred and gashed
on every hand with slides and deep-worn watercourses, down which
tumultuous streams rioted their foamy way. And nestled amid this, like
a precious stone in its massive setting, a few hundred acres of level,
grassy turf dotted with trees. Southward opened a narrow valley, as if
pointing the road to a less rigorous land. No, she could not deny its
beauty. But she was far too trail weary to appreciate the grandeur of
the Klappan Range. She desired nothing so much as rest and comfort,
and the solemn mountains were neither restful nor soothing. They stood
too grim and aloof in a lonely land.

There was so much to be done, work of the hands; a cabin to build, and
a stable; hay to be cut and stacked so that their horses might live
through the long winter--which already heralded his approach with
sharp, stinging frosts at night, and flurries of snow along the higher
ridges.

Bill staked the tent beside the spring, fashioned a rude fork out of a
pronged willow, and fitted a handle to the scythe he had brought for
the purpose. From dawn to dark he swung the keen blade in the heavy
grass which carpeted the bottom. Behind him Hazel piled it in little
mounds with the fork. She insisted on this, though it blistered her
hands and brought furious pains to her back. If her man must strain
every nerve she would lighten the burden with what strength she had.
And with two pair of hands to the task, the piles of