A Gentleman of Courage: A Novel of the Wilderness

It was the blue jay that mellowed the fear of death in the swiftly beating heart of Peter McRae. He had always been a friend of the blue jays, and this particular bird had perch...

In that moment Mona felt for the first time in her life the giving way of living tissue under the sudden overwhelming stress of complete shock. Strength left her body, her arms...

Beyond the thicket of young jack pines Peter did not hurry. His feet dragged, and he listened, hoping he would hear his father's voice calling him back. In half an hour he did n...

The moon did not come up that night. Darkness shut in the earth, and with it came a warm and sullen stillness, broken only by low intonations of distant thunder, advancing over...

Mona Guyon was not afraid. She was startled, and thrilled by an instant intuitive sensing of the unusual and the significant in the man's unexpected appearance. Yet the color di...

Where the shadow of Pierre Gourdon's cabin fell deepest a man had dragged himself and lay like a dark and lifeless blot. Since Peter had tapped at the window this man had scarce...

Nine days Peter and his father spent in their hiding-place under the walls of the lagoon. At the end of that time Donald's burns were healed and his strength had returned. He ha...

Under the ash tree, for a few moments Peter was the boy again; the boy of yesterday, of years ago, when the world had held nothing for him but his father; and there was no chang...

As long as men remain to tell the story of the Inland Seas the great autumn storm of 1900 will not be forgotten. It has been set down as a matter of history, and a hundred tales...

The golden autumn, with its soft Indian summer and its radiance of color, died almost before it was born. The birch leaves did not turn yellow and gold but stopped at a rusty br...

Peter awoke with the dawn, and with that dawn he saw Five Fingers rousing itself into life. All the sweetness of spring was in the air. The delicious morning song of the robins...

Pierre Gourdon had the love of God in his heart, a man's love for a man's God, and it seemed to him that in this golden sunset of a July afternoon the great Canadian wilderness...

In the long days and weeks which followed Peter's return to the cabin and the death of his father a change which seemed to him a little short of a miracle came over the man-hunt...

Carter, as usual, had made his bed in deep shadow, and there after a time he slept. The moon rose, but still the shadow enveloped him, while Peter lay in a glow of light when th...

For a few minutes after leaving the shore Peter did not trust himself to speak. He could see nothing but a gray chaos except landward, where the red sky and the darker blot of t...

Quietly Mona went out to meet Peter. "He is sleeping," she said, as Peter's arm closed about her in the thickening darkness. "If he can only pass the night that way he will be s...

His first night in Five Fingers would always remain an unchangeable page in the history of Peter McRae. Time would not dim nor obliterate it but would only mellow the memory of...

Peter was conscious of the fact that he had lived a long time in the last three days and four nights. His adventures during that brief period of time had run the entire gamut of...

In the weeks and months following the plague at Five Fingers Father Albanel did not forget his promise to Peter, and back in the shelter of the woods, where their secret was saf...

For a long time they stood in the shadow of the cabin, and the sleepy stillness of the night with its soft chirping of crickets and gentle murmuring of the lake surf brought a s...

It was almost noon when Peter left Mona and returned to Simon McQuarrie's cabin. His head was in a whirl and his heart stirred uneasily between joy and grief. Not for many minut...

It was many minutes before Peter looked up and saw Father Albanel standing at his side. The little missioner made no movement except to place a hand gently on the boy's head. Mo...

Peter did not know when he fell asleep. He was buried in the sweet-scented cedar and balsam when his father awakened him. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, and it came to him quick...

be a schoolhouse, and they would have to see to it the schoolhouse had a teacher, for if Dominique and Jeremie and Poleon kept up the pace they were going there surely must be t...

It was five years later that Simon McQuarrie and Herman Vogelaar came to Five Fingers. They were a queer but lovable combination. Simon was a Scotchman, tall and spare, with a t...