Bill purchased four head of horses
in an afternoon, packed, saddled, and hit the trail at daylight in the
morning.

It was very pleasant to loaf along a passable road mounted on a
light-footed horse, and Hazel enjoyed it if for no more than the
striking contrast to that terrible journey in and out of the Klappan.
Here were no heartbreaking mountains to scale. The scourge of flies
was well-nigh past. They took the road in easy stages,
well-provisioned, sleeping in a good bed at nights, camping as the
spirit moved when a likely trout stream crossed their trail, venison
and grouse all about them for variety of diet and the sport of hunting.

So they fared through the Telegraph Range, crossed the Blackwater, and
came to Fort George by way of a ferry over the Fraser.

"This country is getting civilized," Bill observed that evening. "They
tell me the G. T. P. has steel laid to a point three hundred miles east
of here. This bloomin' road'll be done in another year. They're
grading all along the line. I bought that hundred and sixty acres on
pure sentiment, but it looks like it may turn out a profitable business
transaction. That railroad is going to flood this country with
farmers, and settlement means a network of railroads and skyrocketing
ascension of land values."

The vanguard of the land hungry had already penetrated to Fort George.
Up and down the Nachaco Valley, and bordering upon the Fraser, were the
cabins of the preemptors. The roads were dotted with the teams of the
incoming. A sizable town had sprung up around the old trading post.

"They come like bees when the rush starts," Bill remarked.

Leaving Fort George behind, they bore across country toward Pine River.
Here and there certain landmarks, graven deep in Hazel's recollection,
uprose to claim her attention. And one evening at sunset they rode up
to the little cabin, all forlorn in its clearing.

The grass waved to their stirrups, and the pigweed stood rank up to the
very door.

Inside, a gray film of dust had accumulated on everything, and the
rooms were oppressive with the musty odors that gather in a closed,
untenanted house. But apart from that it stood as they had left it
thirteen months before. No foot had crossed the threshold. The pile
of wood and kindling lay beside the fireplace as Bill had placed it the
morning they left.

"'Be it ever so humble,'" Bill left the line of the old song
unfinished, but his tone was full of jubil