The Gaspards of Pine Croft: A Romance of the Windermere

Of all British Columbia valleys none has a finer sweep than the spacious Windermere. The valley rolls itself on both sides of the Columbia River in wide stretches of grass lands...

“Oh, lots of times. But mostly when I lie down on my back under the big pine trees away up on the hill here, Mother, and look away up between the big tops into the clouds—no, I...

Young Paul Gaspard was eager to be gone for a run up the mountain at the back of the bungalow. Had he known how very nearly the eager light in his grey eyes and the eager emotio...

The burden upon the man’s soul grew heavier with every step homeward. He was going to meet his wife, the woman he had wronged, the woman who was to him the very centre of his be...

Hugh Gaspard rose next morning with his mind set upon the accomplishment of his tasks. First he must finish his picture, and then he must get that Indian woman away from the cou...

“I want to have the boy educated like a white man. I will pay for all. But I want him to live in the North Country with his mother. That is the best place for him just now.”

For three days the Pine Croft Ranch was plunged in gloom. In her room the lady of the ranch lay, fighting back death till her man should return. She was unwilling to pass out of...

The “big white house” was overflowing with music, or, rather, with musical acrobatics. Scales, major and minor, octaves, arpeggios, and all other musical combinations were madly...

Three years of neglect had left their mark upon the Pine Croft bungalow. The stables, the corral, the paddock for the thoroughbred riding horses were in woeful disrepair. The ga...

The semi-conscious moments of waking to a new day were filled with foreboding for the Colonel. Some horrid evil was impending. It took him some moments to clothe the thing with...

The arrangement thus happily consummated had failed to take note of a very important factor necessary to its perfect adjustment, namely Paul himself. It was Paul, with the assis...

“What was it about?” he enquired of Paul as they rode home together. But Paul was silent. His victory brought him no elation. He had done his duty. He had fought in a perfectly...

Over the wide valley the April sun was falling, warmly genial, releasing from the moist earth a thousand fragrances. Under the glorious light the valley lay in dim, neutral colo...

The Reverend Donald Fraser was pushing his buckskin broncho faster than he really liked, but he was late for his next appointment and he had to run in to Pine Croft for a hurrie...

A white plain swept by furious winds and fit for the foot of God, white with a dazzling whiteness except where the red sun half down the western slope touched the wind-ruffled s...

The Hudson’s Bay Post stood at the southern end of the lake, as did most Hudson’s Bay Posts in the North Country, and consisted of a group of log buildings, well constructed, ne...

Chief Factor MacKinroy himself would have been the first to assign to the missionary, the Rev. John Chambers, M.A., Oxon., the position of premier influence and even of authorit...

The missionary, being more man than missionary and having had large experience of the soul with its burdens of sin and terror, answered quietly, “Tell me your trouble. Do not fe...

The two men were smoking on the verandah of Sergeant Starr’s neat little house at the Mounted Police Headquarters. They were old friends, such friends as Western men become who...

From that day on Paul seemed to become more a member of the household than simply one of “the bunch.” In the McConnell living-room stood a really fine piano which the Irishman h...

The short November day was closing in a freezing drizzle of rain as old Indian Tom, milk pail in hand, set out for the cowstable to do his evening “chores.” As he turned into th...

Reverend John Wesley Robinson had just returned from his morning service in the First Methodist Church, pleasantly tired and stimulated by the exercise of his sacred office. He...

The night had fallen, black, with breaking clouds, and the moon struggling through, as Paul set out for church. Ignorant of the city’s streets, his instinct for direction, devel...

“I am afraid Jack is having trouble with his Quarterly Board. He is very late, and I am sure will be terribly tired, for he has had a hard day’s work.”

By the end of the fifth day the two young men were nearing the end of their ride through the Windermere Valley. They had made the trip in leisurely fashion, for the weather was...

Having watched his friends out of sight he turned back into the house, took down his gun and belt of cartridges and sauntered up the hill. But his mind was not on his sport. Ade...