A. M. Chisholm

“ As my hands closed on barrel and stock with a desperate grip, Ignace Mountain came alive. His limp body whipped forward with the quickness of a striking snake, and the big knife drove straight at Siwash George's stomach.
But the old squaw man jumped back just beyond the thrust, dragging me with him, wrenching furiously to break my hold on the weapon, to which I clung like a puppy to a root. He swung me between himself and the Indian. Ignace struck at him over my shoulder, but again he saved himself, though the blade ripped his shirt diagonally across his chest. ”

“ The little boy that lay on a lake shore years ago and watched the old stone hookers wallowing through the long swells doesn't seem to be Casey Dunne. And yet I can smell the wet sand and the clean lake breezes now. These are the things that keep our hearts young. You were born in the West, Sheila, and I in the East; but the roots of our beings fed on the clean things of the earth that mothered us some thousands of miles apart, and the taste will never be forgotten. In the years to come we will think of the years here as to-night we think of our childhood. ”

“ So for three days McLeod put all his splendid strength into the paddle from daylight to dark; driving the slim craft downstream swiftly and steadily, taking bad water with the good, surging through rapids where the teeth of sunken rocks tore the racing current not a handbreadth from the frail skin of the flying canoe, and the upflung spray from great, blockading bowlders blew across his face. ”

“ McGregor had a dirty rag, stained with blood, around his head. Louis' black poll was matted with blood, and a dried trickle of it ran down his cheek. Ballou's left arm was bandaged. And Nootka Charlie stood stripped to the waist, his beautiful torso gleaming in the firelight, while his squaw washed a red furrow along his ribs. Their reception had been warmer than they had anticipated, and luck had gone against them. And so they snarled at each other across the dead man; but, with the exception of Conover, none seemed to give him a second thought. ”

“ Ever the nights grew colder. The ponds were skinned over with new ice, clear and tough, which rang musically to the impact of a blow as a thin goblet rings when tapped gently with the knife blade. The ground was a carpet of leaves, rustling noisily beneath the softest foot But Bill killed a blacktail, and so they had meat. Fish were plentiful. And so with the larder full they waited for the snow; for until it should come, revealing the telltale trails and runways of the furred peoples, it would be waste of time to set many traps. ”

“ The flirtation, however, progressed. One night the moon, rising gorgeous and serene above a notch in the hills, discovered Edith Garwood and Joe Kent seated prosaically upon a huge log by the river side, both very tongue-tied, and both apparently absorbed in the engrossing pastime of tossing pebbles into the black water and seeing the rings spread. In fact it had come to a showdown. It was distinctly Joe’s play, but he held up his hand. It was provoking, from Miss Garwood’s standpoint.
“I think,” she said, “that we should go home.”
“Oh, not yet; it’s early,” said Joe. ”