CHAPTER VI
A WANDERER RETURNS
Florence stirred uneasily beneath the blankets. Morning was coming. A faint light was creeping in over the cabin loft where she and Mary slept in a great, home-made bed.
More often than not it is a sound that disturbs our late slumbers. Florence had never become quite accustomed to the morning sounds about their little farm. All her life she had lived where boats chug-chugged in the harbor and auto horns sounded in the streets. Here more often than not it was the croak of a raven, the song of some small bird, the wild laugh of a loon on the lake that awoke her.
Now, as a sharp suggestion of approaching winter filled the air, on more than one morning it was the quack-quack of some old gander of the wild duck tribe, flown to the lake from the far North, or the honk-honk of geese.
All this was music to the nature-loving girl’s ear. And, of late, all of life seemed to her a great symphony full of beautiful melodies. The hard battle of summer was over. Bravely the battle had been fought. The Hughes family had come to this valley to win themselves a home. She was one of them, in spirit at least. The beginning they had made surpassed their expectations. Now, as she opened her eyes to find herself fully awake, she thought of it all.
“A ticket to adventure,” she whispered low to herself, “that’s what the man said he was giving me. It’s been a ticket to duty and endless labor. And yet,” she sighed, “I’m not complaining.” A great wave of contentment swept over her. They were secure for the winter. That surely was something.
“Adventure,” she laughed, silently. “Bill has had the adventure. He—”
Her thoughts broke off. From somewhere, all but inaudible, a sound had reached her ear. More sensation than sound, she knew at once that it was made by no wild thing. But what could it be? She listened intently, but, like a song on their little battery radio, it had faded away.
Yes—her thoughts went back to her neighbor—Bill Vale had sought adventure and had found it. With his mother still in Palmer, he had packed up a generous supply of food, charged to his mother’s account at the government commissary, and joining up with the dreamy-eyed prospector, Malcomb Dale, had gone away into the hills searching for gold.
“Not that Bill’s mother would have objected,” Florence thought. “She would have said, ‘Bill is incurably romantic. The quest for gold appeals to him. All our desires in the end must be satisfied if we are to enjoy the more abundant life. Besides, what is there to do? There are six hundred men working in gangs. They will clear up our land for us and build cabins before snow flies. We shall be charged with it all, but then we have thirty years to pay.’ Yes, that is exactly what Bill’s mother would have said,” and the thought disgusted Florence not a little.