The Cryptogram: A Story of Northwest Canada

I have long had in mind to set down the story of my early life, and now, as I draw pen and paper to me for the commencement of the task, I feel the inspiration of those who wrot...

By this time the other inmates of the house, including Mrs. Macdonald, had assembled in the doorway in various stages of attire, in a state of consternation and alarm. I had no...

I had been up late the night before, going over some tedious accounts with the clerks, and it was by no means an early hour when I opened my eyes and tumbled out of bed. It was...

It was nine o'clock on a Monday evening in the fourth week of June, and I was sitting, as was my nightly custom, in the cozy coffee room of the modest hostelry where I had taken...

For an hour or more I sat on the edge of my berth, pondering the matter first in one way and then in another. The captain's plain speech had opened my eyes, as it were, and as I...

From a distance a man had been watching us steadily--I had observed him before--and now he came quickly and with an air of bravado to where we stood. He was about my own age, bu...

I was both glad and sorry for the interruption. In our forlorn condition we needed assistance badly enough, but I would have preferred to have Flora all to myself for some time...

Never had I experienced such excitement. The scene was beyond my wildest thoughts, though I confess that I had expected the captain to prove to be the heir to some property. But...

Although the cries for help had now ceased, and were not repeated, our search was crowned with success in a brief time. Pushing up the valley for about five hundred yards, amid...

It must have been an hour past midnight when we broke from the forest into the clearing, and as we strode across toward the stockade we noted with relief that all was still and...

I went first to the highest watch-tower, the occupants of which had been better protected than those at the stockade, but for all that I found one poor fellow dead and another b...

He entered the passage first, flashing the lantern in front of him, and the others followed in double file. Captain Rudstone and I, who came last, took the precaution to replace...

I shrank from the encounter. The sight of the fair girl whom I loved so passionately made me a coward, and I felt that I could not speak the words of her doom and mine. So I lur...

With that the living tide was upon us. Screeching and veiling like demons, the horde of savages struck the weakened northeast angle of the fort. There was no checking them, thou...

When I heard Mackenzie's name pronounced by those fair lips and realized that the scoundrel had dared to force his way to Miss Hatherton's bedchamber, I was put in such a rage a...

The alarm took us by surprise, for we had expected to get the start on our enemies by at least half an hour. That the officers of the law were at the door none of us doubted. We...

Our first thought was that we had blundered into an ambuscade and that the bluffs to right and left of us swarmed with redskins. Our little column stopped short, confused and pa...

"What are you afraid of?" he cried. "Why don't you pursue the red devils? make an end of them? They've killed two of the best voyageurs that ever tramped the woods. My God! what...

A body of Indians--nine or ten in number--were advancing at a run straight for the house, and each painted savage carried wrapped in his arms a mass of bedding from the abandone...

At the time, so exciting and dangerous was the situation, I scarcely realized what had happened. The fight was still raging, and I was in the thick of it. Leaving others to rend...

We all turned round and then with one accord sprang to our feet The horror of what we saw held us spellbound and speechless. We did not feel the icy air, the swirl of fine snowf...

In all five of us assembled--five low-spirited, grave-faced men: the others were Menzies and Captain Rudstone, Dr. Knapp and an old and experienced voyageur named Carteret, whos...

I was standing so near that the three daring redskins all but fell upon me. As I dodged quickly back, one let fly a tomahawk. I felt it graze my head, and the next instant I had...

But how and where should we seek shelter? Each man, I am sure, asked himself that question uneasily, and the quest grew more hopeless as we groped our way on for a quarter of an...

It need not be said that Christopher Burley and myself accepted the factor's invitation with alacrity, though, indeed, the mere sight of the missing man's trunk promised to be b...

Above the thunder of the falls my warning was heard and understood. Glancing back to make sure, I saw the startled faces of the two women, and the grimly-set countenance of Jim...

We found a few men up, but most of them had turned in, and thus some little time was lost in selecting and rousing them. As quietly as possible--for we did not want to alarm the...

We all, more or less, shared Captain Rudstone's curiosity. For a minute we gazed in silence at the strange marks--the company men stolidly, the two voyageurs with disdainful shr...

Lieutenant Boyd was silent for an instant, and I saw that he was a little staggered by the bold daring of the accusation. Then, looking Ruthven straight in the eyes, he said, in...

Colin Macdonald, I have omitted to state, was rather more than sixty years of age; a stalwart, bearded, well-preserved Scotchman, who had grown gray in the service of the Hudson...

Flora's words, and the meaning glance that accompanied them, melted the resolve I had made but a few ours before. There was no reason, indeed, why I should keep silence at such...

I think Mr. Burley would have preferred a private audience with the factor, but he made no verbal objection to my presence. He looked rather glum, however, as he came near and s...

That night we pitched our camp on a wooded island in a small lake, erecting, as was the usual custom, a couple of lean-tos of bark and fir boughs. Gummidge owned the traveling o...

At three o'clock the next afternoon Christopher Burley and myself might have been found in the factor's private office, waiting expectantly for the door to open, and gazing mean...

I need make but brief mention of the long cruise that followed our escape, of the days that passed slowly while we worked our way down the mighty St. Lawrence, out to the open A...

A visitor of any sort was the last thing we could have expected, and the reader can imagine what a surprise and scare the interruption gave us. We leaped to our feet with such h...

It was about eleven o'clock of the forenoon when Captain Rudstone departed. I smoked a quiet pipe, and then sought out Baptiste; he had a little box of a room over the hotel kit...

The next morning, at the hour of seven, I might have been found on the landing-quay by the river. The Good Hope, I was informed, still lay a short distance below the town, where...

The attack was so sudden and unlooked for, and took us at such a disadvantage, that it was a mercy the half of us were not killed by the enemy's first straggling volley. For on...

That the redskins were making an attack in force on the stockade was my first and immediate conclusion, but it gave me no great uneasiness since I knew how stoutly we were prote...

Two things were clear to my mind--first, that Flora was lost to me, and that honor forbade me to speak one word of love to her again; second, that I could not remain permanently...

The news of so unexpected an event spread quickly through the fort, and by the time the gates had been closed and barred again, men were hurrying forward from all sides. They su...

For more than twenty-four hours I had taken no repose, and as nothing occurred to rouse me, I slept longer than I intended. When I opened my eyes languidly the room was so dark...

At first, huddled there together on the rocky spit of land, we stared at one another in dazed silence. It had been so sudden a transformation that we could not comprehend it all...

That sleepless night--I shudder as I recall it. For hours I tossed on the bed, rent by conflicting emotions, ashamed one minute of my ignoble thoughts, plunged the next into a b...

Imagine, if you can, the effect this amazing assertion had upon us. We were stupefied--struck speechless; we could only stare breathlessly, with dilated eyes, at Captain Rudston...

Nine o'clock! And I had slept several hours over my usual time of rising! This was the result of sitting up so late the night before. I was wide awake instantly. I sprang out of...

laborers, mechanics, hunters and other employees; a log hut for the clerks; the storehouses where were kept the furs, skins and pelts, and the Indian trading house where the bar...