A backwoods princess

Spring was in full tide at Blackburn’s Post, but Laurentia Blackburn and the four Marys were confined to the Women’s House by rain. There sat the girlish Princess surrounded by...

Hector Blackburn’s own room revealed a beautiful austerity fitting to the chamber of death. It was plastered and ceiled like the room of Loseis, but the color was a cool stone g...

Rousing herself, Loseis said wearily: “Jimmy, you must fix up the counter in the store. Fix it with split poles until we can make some plank. Mary-Lou, fetch a hatchet and come...

At Fort Good Hope on the big river, the free trader Andrew Gault and his financial backer David Ogilvie, stood by the flagpole concluding their business, while the steam-launch...

Loseis sat on a bench at the door of the store. The Princess was very pale, and her lips were pressed tight together. In her brave, proud eyes was to be seen the piteous, questi...

Gault and Conacher returned to the Women’s House for dinner. Gault had changed to a well-cut black suit with linen of the finest quality, and a little discreet but handsome jewe...

Gault had several sheets of paper in his hand. “If, as I suspect,” he began in the smooth voice which so exasperated Loseis without her knowing why, “Blackburn has sums of money...

At noon of the fourth day after his setting-out, Gault’s messenger returned from Fort Good Hope driving several laden pack-horses before him. The horses were unpacked at the doo...

“No?” said Gault sarcastically. “I am keeping the girl out of her father’s papers, am I not? . . . I know what I am doing. Suppose some one should come in here? Everything would...

All night long Loseis and her girls listened in trepidation, but none approached their house. In the morning, Loseis, disdaining to remain under cover any longer, sallied out of...

Alongside a vast inland sea whose further shores were lost under the horizon, a tall young white man was cooking his supper in the open. The meal was going to be better than usu...

Quite early in the morning, Loseis, issuing out of her house, was greatly astonished to see the door of the little fur warehouse standing open, and the bales of fur being carrie...

“How could you be expected to know!” said Conacher. He mused. “I wonder how in thunder he expects to use those signatures. . . . Were they at the top, in the middle or at the bo...

Dawn was rosy in the East when Loseis got home; but the moon had set, and the little square within the buildings was full of shadows. There was no stir of life about the men’s h...

Loseis and Mary-Lou rode hard through the river-meadows and over the gravelly ridges. There was no danger that anyone who followed would be able to pick out the prints of their...

Conacher’s spirits rose somewhat with the sun. It was impossible for a healthy man to be altogether miserable under that tender, beaming sky. The lovely, changing prospects of t...

Three hours later the two horses were still jogging in the same manner along the forest trail. In the beginning the prisoner had sought to make as much trouble as possible by be...

When he came to the Slavi village after his long walk, Etzooah crossed the ford, and sticking his head inside the first tepee, awakened the sleepers with a yell. He demanded to...

As soon as Moale rode away Loseis, Conacher and Mary-Lou held a council. The sense of common danger drew them very close together; their hearts were soft towards each other. The...

A little tent of pale green silk, trim and elegant, was pitched for Gault in the meadow below, a short distance from the big fire built by the Crees. After supper they could see...

On the third morning following, Loseis and Conacher were seated at a little table in the kitchen of the Women’s House, with a scarcely touched meal between them. In the inner ro...

Loseis could never have described the sensations of that mad roll down the cut-bank. As a matter of fact all sensation was whirled clean out of her; and the first thing she knew...

Nature! They were to discover during the days that followed that she was no mean antagonist. At first everything went delightfully; the sun warmed and cheered them by day; the s...

As they descended by imperceptible degrees towards the river, they could no longer make out the line of its valley ahead. The bald-headed prairie now began to take on a parklike...

The meeting at the mouth of the Mud River was the beginning of a still longer journey for Loseis. But it was never again allowed to become an arduous one for her. All hands, whi...