The Prescott daily news., 1918-04-09


 Hazel sat down and actually smiled when. Kitty was gone. Somehow a grievous burden had fallen of her mind. Likewise, by some psycholog- ical quirk, the idea of leaving Gran vile and making her home elsewhere no longer struck her as running away under fire. She felt that she could adventure forth among strangers in a strange country with better heart, knowing that Kitty Brooks would put a swift quietus on any gossip that came her way.
 So that Hazel went down to the din- ing room light-heartedly, and when the meal was finished came back and fell to reading her papers. The first of the Western papers was Vancouver World. In real-estate mans half page she found diminutive sketch plan of the city on the shores of Bur rard inlet, Canada's principal outpost on the far Pacific.
 Its quite a big place." she mur- mured absently. "One would be far enough away there. goodness knows"
 Then she turned to the Help Wanted" advertisements. And down near the bottom of the column she happened on an inquiry for a school teacher. female preferred. in m out of-the-way district in the interior of the province.
 "Now, that" Hazel thought.
 She had second-class certificate tucked away among her belongings. Originally 1t had been her intention to teach. and she had done so one term in backwoods school when she was eighteen. With the ending of the term she had returned to Granville. studied that winter, and got her second cer- tif1cate; but at the same time she had taken a business-college course. and the following June found her clack- ing a typewriter at nine dollars week. And her teachers diploma had remained in the bottom of her trunk ever since.
 Unaccountably. since Kitty Brooks visit. she found herself itching to turn her back on Granville and its unpleas- ant associations. She did not attempt to analyze the feeling. Strange lands, and most of all, the West, held alluring promise. One thing was certain: Granville, for all she had been born there, and grown to womanhood there, was now no place for her. The very people who knew her best would make her suffer most.
 She spent that evening going thor oughly over the papers and writing letters to various school boards, taking a chance at one or two she found in the Manitoba paper, but centering her hopes on the country west of the Rockies. Her savings in the bank amounted to three hundred odd dol lars, and cash in hand brought the sum to total of three hundred and sixty-five. At any rate, she had sufii- cient to insure her living for quite long time. And she went to bed feeling better than she had felt for two weeks.
 Very shortly thereafter-almost, 1t seemed, by return mail-Hazel got re- plies to her letters of inquiry. The fact that each and every one seemed bent on securing her services aston- ished her.
 But the replys from CaribOO Mead ows, B. C.. the first place sine had thought of, decided her. The member of the school board who replied held try as much as he did the advantages of the position. The thing that per haps made the strongest appeal to Ha- gel was little kodak print inclosed in the letter. showing the schoolhouse.
 The building itself was primitive enough, of logs. with pole-and-sod roof. But 1t was the huge back ground, the timbered mountains rising to snowclad heights against cloud less sky, that attracted her.
 She sat for a long time looking at the picture, thinking. Here was the concrete, visible presentment of some thing that drew her strongly. She found an atlas, and looked up Cari- boo Meadows on the map. It was not to be found, and Hazel judged 1t to be a purely local name. But the letter told her that she would have to stage it hundred and sixty-five miles north from Ashcroft, B. C.. where the writer would meet her and drive her to the Meadows.
 What a country!" she whispered. Its wild; really, truly wild; and ev- erythlng I've ever seen has been tanned and smoothed down, and made eminently respectable and conven- finnal long aqn- That,s fha r,Iana