t out of sight
in a convenient thicket, repacked his horses, and struck out again.
They left the valley behind, and camped that evening on a great height
of land that rolled up to the brink of the valley.

Thereafter the country underwent a gradual change as they progressed
north, slanting a bit eastward. The heavy timber gave way to a sparser
growth, and that in turn dwindled to scrubby thickets, covering great
areas of comparative level. Long reaches of grassland opened before
them, waving yellow in the autumn sun. They crossed other rivers of
various degrees of depth and swiftness, swimming some and fording
others. Hazel drew upon her knowledge of British Columbia geography,
and decided that the big river where Bill hid his canoe must be the
Fraser where it debouched from the mountains. And in that case she was
far north, and in a wilderness indeed.

Her muscles gradually hardened to the saddle and to walking. Her
appetite grew in proportion. The small supply of eatable dainties that
Roaring Bill had brought from the Meadows dwindled and disappeared,
until they were living on bannocks baked a la frontier in his frying
pan, on beans and coffee, and venison killed by the way. Yet she
relished the coarse fare even while she rebelled against the
circumstances of its partaking. Occasionally Bill varied the meat diet
with trout caught in the streams beside which they made their various
camps. He offered to teach her the secrets of angling, but she
shrugged her shoulders by way of showing her contempt for Roaring Bill
and all his works.

"Do you realize," she broke out one evening over the fire, "that this
is simply abduction?"

"Not at all," Bill answered promptly. "Abduction means to take away
surreptitiously by force, to carry away wrongfully and by violence any
human being, to kidnap. Now, you can't by any stretch of the
imagination accuse me of force, violence, or kidnaping--not by a long
shot. You merely wandered into my camp, and it wasn't convenient for
me to turn back. Therefore circumstances--not my act, remember--made
it advisable for you to accompany me. Of course I'll admit that,
according to custom and usage, you would expect me to do the polite
thing and restore you to your own stamping ground. But there's no law
making it mandatory for a fellow to pilot home a lady in distress.
Isn't that right?"

"Anyhow," he went on, when she remained silent, "I didn't. And you'll
have to lay the bl