om. Even the rude motley of Hazleton was a
welcome change. Here at least--on a minor scale, to be sure--was that
which she craved, and to which she had been accustomed--life, stir,
human activity, the very antithesis of the lonely mountain fastnesses.
She bestowed a glad pressure on her husband's arm as they walked up the
street, Bill carrying the sack of gold perched carelessly on one
shoulder.

"Say, their enterprise has gone the length of establishing a branch
bank here, I see."

He called her attention to a square-fronted edifice, its new-boarded
walls as yet guiltless of paint, except where a row of black letters
set forth that it was the Bank of British North America.

"That's a good place to stow this bullion," he remarked. "I want to
get it off my hands."

So to the bank they bent their steps. A solemn, horse-faced Englishman
weighed the gold, and issued Bill a receipt, expressing a polite regret
that lack of facility to determine its fineness prevented him from
converting it into cash.

"That means a trip to Vancouver," Bill remarked outside. "Well, we can
stand that."

From the bank they went to the hotel, registered, and were shown to a
room. For the first time since the summit of the Klappan Range, where
her tiny hand glass had suffered disaster, Hazel was permitted a clear
view of herself in a mirror.

"I'm a perfect fright!" she mourned.

"Huh!" Bill grunted. "You're all right. Look at me."

The trail had dealt hardly with both, in the matter of their personal
appearance. Tanned to an abiding brown, they were, and Hazel's
one-time smooth face was spotted with fly bites and marked with certain
scratches suffered in the brush as they skirted the Kispiox. Her hair
had lost its sleek, glossy smoothness of arrangement. Her hands were
reddened and rough. But chiefly she was concerned with the sad state
of her apparel. She had come a matter of four hundred miles in the
clothes on her back--and they bore unequivocal evidence of the journey.

"I'm a perfect fright," she repeated pettishly. "I don't wonder that
people lapse into semi-barbarism in the backwoods. One's manners,
morals, clothing, and complexion all suffer from too close contact with
your beloved North, Bill."

"Thanks!" he returned shortly. "I suppose I'm a perfect fright, too.
Long hair, whiskers, grimy, calloused hands, and all the rest of it. A
shave and a hair cut, a bath and a new suit of clothes will remedy
that.