Love of the Wild

Had Colonel Hallibut known that the Bushwhackers had awaited the melting of the snows quite as impatiently as he himself had, it might have surprised him. And had he known that...

Logging-bees were not uncommon events among the Bushwhackers. But usually logging-bees were held after the winter snows had fallen, when with oxen and sleds the men moved the gr...

The men plunged through the timber toward the settlement. The ground was soft with snow now and the darkness was so dense that only their unerring sense of directions made progr...

Daft Davie lived with an aged grandmother in a small hut close to the edge of the bay. She was a very old woman. Her features were rugged and piercing; and she hated everything...

Paisley paddled slowly across the creek, drew his skiff into the willow bushes, and picking up his rifle, walked along the edge of the creek until he reached the bay. It slept g...

This sign creaked and complained against a dingy little building of unplaned boards. It was gray and forsaken-looking, being one of about two hundred others just like it, of glo...

It was nearly mid-day when Paisley sought his skiff once more and made to cross to Bushwhackers’ Place. It had turned bitterly cold within the last couple of hours and the ice u...

Just at that particular moment the widow was frying the potatoes for supper. She was singing, and snapped the words out as though determined to do what was right under any circu...

Mr. Smythe stood with, his back to the fireplace, his long arms behind his back, with sharp elbows almost touching, and claw-like hands clasped together. The evenings were getti...

Next morning, before daybreak, Mr. Smythe started for St. Thomas. He reached the settlement just as Colonel Hallibut, with brows puckered into a scowl, came riding slowly up the...

Colonel Hallibut rode the lone trail, his hounds at his heels. A spent moon draggled across a spiteful, crumpled sky, low down above the fringe of ravished forest. The wind had...

Spring held the world of the Bushwhackers in her soft arms. She awoke the sleeping things with her warm breath. Her light shone on land and marsh and sky. The great trees shiver...

“You might just keep your eyes on the soap-fire, Gloss. I’m goin’ down to the swale to cut some sassafras for the yearlin’s—they seem ailin’. While I’m down there I might as wel...

Colonel Hallibut sat before the fire smoking and dreaming. The monotonous winter had proven drear enough for him, accustomed as he was to out-of-doors exercise, and now the spla...

There was a smile on her lips and her eyes were alive with the light of genuine girlish happiness. She did not know why she should be so glad; but to-day she felt like singing;...

That night winter came and gripped the bush-world, and now as far as the eye could span distance she held the Wild in her white embrace, and all the life of nature’s wood, marsh...

Next morning at break of day Paisley and Boy, laden with rat-traps, struck out toward the creek. Big McTavish accompanied them as far as the stable and gave them a parting send-...

A big man, past middle age, and seated astride a small white horse, came picking his way between the huge beech and maple trees, down through the quiet morning of the woods. He...

For the first night since the long nights had come Big McTavish’s fiddle was silent. It hung on the wall and the man sat before the fire, his chin in his hands. Mrs. McTavish re...

The hazy October sunlight sifted through the trees and lay, here and there, golden bits of carpet on the mossy woodland. A glossy black squirrel paused on one of these splashes...

The early autumn twilight had fallen when Bill Paisley stepped from the wood into the fallow. He dropped the long muzzle-loading rifle into the hollow of his arm and peered down...

Even in this golden, hazy dawn it was with him, as he stood gazing across the creek. The crimson sun warmed his cheeks and the heavy scent of over-ripe woods-plants stole to his...

On that triangular forestland of extreme south-western Ontario there was a block of hardwood timber, consisting of something over two thousand acres. This was known as Bushwhack...

“Best go to bed, Boy,” he yawned, picking up the huge clasp-knife with which he had been shaping the ax-handle and putting it in his pocket. When he withdrew his hand it held a...

Watson, his feet on the table and his pipe alight, glanced across at Smythe, who was standing before the window. It was evening, and the falling rain made soothing, swishing mus...

Boy opened the door and passed silently inside. Beside the wide fireplace the long gaunt figure of a man was bent almost double. He had a thick shock of sandy hair tinged with g...

The cold dawn was stealing across the lake when Colonel Hallibut rode into his yard and, dismounting, turned the horse over to Dick. The hounds leaped and fawned upon him and he...

Colonel Hallibut did not return to St. Thomas that night as had been his intention. Indeed, in his great and newly found happiness he forgot that he had cautioned Dick, his man,...

White splashes of foam clipped and swayed on the slate-blue waters. A hundred yards out from the rushes a clay-hued slash across the turmoiled face of the bay marked the yellow...

“Guess I’ll step through the oak ridge here and look in on Bill Paisley for a minute or so,” said Jim Peeler, as the three found the path leading to the creek.

It was early twilight when the old Indian once again reached Bushwhackers’ Place. All day he had kept to the trail, jogging along without a mouthful to eat, simply tightening hi...