nce Bill left, she felt
so utterly at peace.

CHAPTER XXXIII

HOME AGAIN

Twelve months works many a change on a changing frontier. Hazel found
this so. When she came to plan her route she found the G. T. P.
bridging the last gap in a transcontinental system, its trains
westbound already within striking distance of Fort George. She could
board a sleeping car at Granville and detrain within a hundred miles of
the ancient trading post--with a fast river boat to carry her the
remaining distance.

Fort George loomed up a jumbled area of houses and tents, log
buildings, frame structures yellow in their newness, strangers to paint
as yet. On every hand others stood in varying stages of erection.
Folks hurried about the sturdy beginning of a future greatness. And as
she left the boat and followed a new-laid walk of planks toward a
hotel, Jake Lauer stepped out of a store, squarely into her path.

His round face lit up with a smile of recognition. And Hazel, fresh
from the long and lonesome journey, was equally glad to set eyes on a
familiar, a genuinely friendly face.

"I am pleased to welgome you back to Gott's country, Mrs. Vagstaff," he
said. "Und let me carry dot suid case alretty."

They walked two blocks to the King's Hotel, where Lauer's family was
housed. He was in for supplies, he told her, and, of course, his wife
and children accompanied him.

"Not dat Gredda iss afraid. She iss so goot a man as I on der ranch
ven I am gone," he explained. "But for dem it iss a change. Und I
bring by der town a vaigonloat off bodadoes. By cosh, dem bodadoes iss
sell high."

It flashed into Hazel's mind that here was a Heaven-sent opportunity to
reach the cabin without facing that hundred miles in the company of
chance-hired strangers. But she did not broach the subject at once.
Instead, she asked eagerly of Bill. Lauer told her that Bill had
tarried a few days at the cabin, and then struck out alone for the
mines. And he had not said when he would be back.

Mrs. Lauer, unchanged from a year earlier, welcomed her with pleased
friendliness. And Jake left the two of them and the chubby kiddies in
the King's office while he betook himself about his business. Hazel
haled his wife and the children to her room as soon as one was assigned
to her. And there, almost before she knew it, she was murmuring
brokenly her story into an ear that listened with sympathy and
understanding. Only a woman can grasp s