St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, had given him its licentiate’s hood, the Bishop of Rupert’s Land had ordained him, and the North had swallowed him up. He had gone forth with surplice, stole, hood, a sermon-case, the prayer-book, and that other Book of all. Indian camps, trappers’ huts, and Company’s posts had given him hospitality, and had […]

When Tybalt the tale-gatherer asked why it was so called, Pierre said: “Because of the Great Slave;” and then paused. Tybalt did not hurry Pierre, knowing his whims. If he wished to tell, he would in his own time; if not, nothing could draw it from him. It was nearly an hour before Pierre, eased […]

“He stands in the porch of the world–(Why should the door be shut?)The grey wolf waits at his heel,(Why is the window barred?)Wild is the trail from the Kimash Hills,The blight has fallen on bush and tree,The choking earth has swallowed the streams,Hungry and cold is the Red Patrol:(Why should the door be shut?)The Scarlet […]

“He’ll swing just the same to-morrow. Exit Malachi!” said Freddy Tarlton gravely. The door suddenly opened on the group of gossips, and a man stepped inside and took the only vacant seat near the fire. He glanced at none, but stretched out his hands to the heat, looking at the coals with drooping introspective eyes. […]

Old Athabasca, chief of the Little Crees, sat at the door of his lodge,staring down into the valley where Fort Pentecost lay, and Mitawawahis daughter sat near him, fretfully pulling at the fringe of her finebuckskin jacket. She had reason to be troubled. Fyles the trader had puta great indignity upon Athabasca. A factor of […]

His trouble came upon him when he was old. To the hour of its coming he had been of shrewd and humourous disposition. He had married late in life, and his wife had died, leaving him one child–a girl. She grew to womanhood, bringing him daily joy. She was beloved in the settlement; and there […]

It stood on a wide wall between two small bridges. These were approaches to the big covered bridge spanning the main channel of the Madawaska River, and when swelled by the spring thaws and rains, the two flanking channels divided at the foundations of the house, and rustled away through the narrow paths of the […]

Just at the point where the Peace River first hugs the vast outpost hills of the Rockies, before it hurries timorously on, through an unexplored region, to Fort St. John, there stood a hut. It faced the west, and was built half-way up Clear Mountain. In winter it had snows above it and below it; […]

“No, no, m’sieu’ the governor, they did not tell you right. I was with him, and I have known Little Babiche fifteen years–as long as I’ve known you…. It was against the time when down in your world there they have feastings, and in the churches the grand songs and many candles on the altars. […]

“John York, John York, where art thou gone, John York?” “What’s that, Pierre?” said Sir Duke Lawless, starting to his feet and peering round. “Hush!” was Pierre’s reply. “Wait for the rest…. There!” “King of my heart, king of my heart, I am out on the trail of thy bugles.” Sir Duke was about to […]

“Fingall! Fingall!–Oh, Fingall!” A grey mist was rising from the river, the sun was drinking it delightedly, the swift blue water showed underneath it, and the top of Whitefaced Mountain peaked the mist by a hand-length. The river brushed the banks like rustling silk, and the only other sound, very sharp and clear in the […]

I “Read on, Pierre,” the sick man said, doubling the corner of the wolf-skin pillow so that it shaded his face from the candle. Pierre smiled to himself, thinking of the unusual nature of his occupation, raised an eyebrow as if to someone sitting at the other side of the fire,–though the room was empty […]

It was no use: men might come and go before her, but Kitty Cline had eyes for only one man. Pierre made no show of liking her, and thought, at first, that hers was a passing fancy. He soon saw differently. There was that look in her eyes which burns conviction as deep as the […]

I. THE SEARCH She was only a big gulf yawl, which a man and a boy could manage at a pinch, with old-fashioned high bulwarks, but lying clean in the water. She had a tolerable record for speed, and for other things so important that they were now and again considered by the Government at […]

I When old Throng the trader, trembling with sickness and misery, got on his knees to Captain Halby and groaned, “She didn’t want to go; they dragged her off; you’ll fetch her back, won’t ye?–she always had a fancy for you, cap’n,” Pierre shrugged a shoulder and said: “But you stole her when she was […]

“Swell, you see,” said Jacques Parfaite, as he gave Whiskey Wine, the leading dog, a cut with the whip and twisted his patois to the uses of narrative, “he has been alone there at the old Fort for a long time. I remember when I first see him. It was in the summer. The world […]

He lived in a hut on a jutting crag of the Cliff of the King. You could get to it by a hard climb up a precipitous pathway, or by a ladder of ropes which swung from his cottage door down the cliff-side to the sands. The bay that washed the sands was called Belle […]