er the
mountain to see what I can see."

Within an hour of that Miss Hazel Weir had written to accept the terms
offered by the Cariboo Meadow school district, and was busily packing
her trunk.

CHAPTER VI

CARIBOO MEADOWS

A tall man, sunburned, slow-speaking, met Hazel at Soda Creek, the end
of her stage journey, introducing himself as Jim Briggs.

"Pretty tiresome trip, ain't it?" he observed. "You'll have a chance
to rest decent to-night, and I got a team uh bays that'll yank yuh to
the Meadows in four hours 'n' a half. My wife'll be plumb tickled to
have yuh. They ain't much more'n half a dozen white women in ten miles
uh the Meadows. We keep a boardin'-house. Hope you'll like the
country."

That was a lengthy speech for Jim Briggs, as Hazel discovered when she
rolled out of Soda Creek behind the "team uh bays." His conversation
was decidedly monosyllabic. But he could drive, if he was no talker,
and his team could travel. The road, albeit rough in spots, a mere
track through timber and little gems of open where the yellowing grass
waved knee-high, and over hills which sloped to deep canons lined with
pine and spruce, seemed short enough. And so by eleven o'clock Hazel
found herself at Cariboo Meadows.

"Schoolhouse's over yonder." Briggs pointed out the place--an
unnecessary guidance, for Hazel had already marked the building set off
by itself and fortified with a tall flagpole. "And here's where we
live. Kinda out uh the world, but blame good place to live."

Hazel did like the place. Her first impression was thankfulness that
her lot had been cast in such a spot. But it was largely because of
the surroundings, essentially primitive, the clean air, guiltless of
smoke taint, the aromatic odors from the forest that ranged for
unending miles on every hand. For the first time in her life, she was
beyond hearing of the clang of street cars, the roar of traffic, the
dirt and smells of a city. It seemed good. She had no regrets, no
longing to be back. There was a pain sometimes, when in spite of
herself she would fall to thinking of Jack Barrow. But that she looked
upon as a closed chapter. He had hurt her where a woman can be most
deeply wounded--in her pride and her affections--and the hurt was
dulled by the smoldering resentment that thinking of him always fanned
to a flame. Miss Hazel Weir was neither meek nor mild, even if her
environment had bred in her a repression that had be