Category: Novels

The Greater Power

It was winter in the great coniferous forest which rolls about the rocky hills and shrouds the lonely valleys of British Columbia. A bitter frost had dried the snow to powder and bound the frothing rivers; it had laid its icy grip upon the waters suddenly, and the sound of the...

Chapters

20. Chapter 20

Darkness had settled down on Bonavista next evening when Nasmyth lay in a canvas chair on the veranda, while Gordon leaned against the balustrade in front of him with a cigar in...

16. Chapter 16

There was not a breath of wind, and the night was soft and warm, when Nasmyth lay stretched upon the _Tillicum's_ deck, with his shoulder against the saloon skylights and a pipe...

7. Chapter 7

The frost had grown keener as darkness crept over the forest, and the towering pines about the clearing rose in great black spires into the nipping air, but it was almost unplea...

18. Chapter 18

It was about eleven o'clock on a cloudy, unsettled morning when Nasmyth stood knee-deep in a swirling river-pool, holding a landing-net and watching Miss Hamilton, who stood on...

24. Chapter 24

A bitter frost had crept down from the snow-clad heights that shut the canyon in, and the roar of the river had fallen to a lower tone, when Nasmyth stood one morning shivering...

3. Chapter 3

Though he afterwards endeavoured to recall them, Nasmyth had never more than a faint and shadowy recollection of the next few days. During most of the time, he fancied he was ba...

30. Chapter 30

There was bright sunshine at Bonavista when Nasmyth, who had been told at the station that Acton had arrived from Victoria the day before, limped out from the shadow of the surr...

32. Chapter 32

Laura Waynefleet was preparing breakfast, and the door of the ranch stood open, when she heard the sharp clatter of the flung-down slip-rails in the fence across the clearing ja...

17. Chapter 17

It was with somewhat natural misgivings, the next afternoon, that Nasmyth strolled forward along the _Tillicum's_ deck toward the place where Mrs. Acton was sitting. Immaculatel...

23. Chapter 23

It was a scorching afternoon on the heights above, where rocky slope and climbing firs ran far up towards the blue heavens under a blazing sun, but it was dim and cool in the mi...

8. Chapter 8

Nasmyth's partner condescended, as she said, to give him another show, but he escaped from that dance with only a few abrasions, and, though he failed to obtain another with Lau...

15. Chapter 15

There was a full moon in the clear blue heavens, and its silvery light streamed into the pillared veranda where Nasmyth sat, cigar in hand, on the seaward front of James Acton's...

2. Chapter 2

A half-moon rose above the black tops of the pines, and a faint light, which the snow flung back, filtered down between the motionless branches upon the narrow trail that wound...

5. Chapter 5

The autumn afternoon was oppressively hot when Gordon, floundering among the whitened driftwood piled along the river-bank, came upon Nasmyth, who lay upon a slope of rock, with...

14. Chapter 14

It was with difficulty that Wisbech reached the railroad track upon which Laura Waynefleet had told him Nasmyth was occupied. From the winding waggon-road, he was forced to scra...

4. Chapter 4

It was a hot summer evening, and a drowsy, resinous fragrance stole out of the shadowy bush when Nasmyth, who had now spent six months at Waynefleet's ranch, lay among the wineb...

10. Chapter 10

There were four wet and weary men in the Siwash canoe that Nasmyth, who crouched astern, had just shot across the whirling pool with the back feathering stroke of his paddle whi...

9. Chapter 9

It was a nipping morning, and the clearing outside the ranch was flecked with patches of frozen snow, when Waynefleet sat shivering in a hide chair beside the stove. The broken...

1. Chapter 1

It was winter in the great coniferous forest which rolls about the rocky hills and shrouds the lonely valleys of British Columbia. A bitter frost had dried the snow to powder an...

6. Chapter 6

A faint grey light was creeping into the shanty when Nasmyth awoke again, and lay still for a minute or two, while his senses came slowly back to him. The first thing of which h...

21. Chapter 21

Mrs. Acton was sitting on the veranda next morning when Nasmyth, fresh from a swim in the deep cold water of the inlet, came up across the clearing. It had brought a clear glow...

29. Chapter 29

Three months had slipped away since the evening on which Wheeler had discussed the subject of shingle-splitting with his companions. Nasmyth stood outside the shanty in the dren...

19. Chapter 19

The afternoon was very hot when Nasmyth plodded down a steep hillside through the thick red dust of the waggon trail. A fire had swept the undergrowth away, and there was no sha...

28. Chapter 28

They set to work on the new heading at sunrise next morning, but it was a week or two before they had made much of an opening in the rock beneath the fall. Though Nasmyth had lo...

25. Chapter 25

Though there was bitter frost in the ranges, it had but lightly touched the sheltered forests that shut in Bonavista. The snow seldom lay long there, and only a few wisps of it...

22. Chapter 22

A cool shadow fell upon the descending trail that wound in among the towering firs, and Nasmyth checked his jaded horse as he entered on the last league of his long ride from th...

27. Chapter 27

Daylight was dying out in a flurry of whirling snow, when Nasmyth, who led a jaded horse, floundered down from the steep rock slopes of the divide into the shelter of the dark p...

13. Chapter 13

A little pale sunshine shone down into the opening between the great cedar trunks when Laura Waynefleet walked out of the shadowy Bush. The trail from the settlement dipped into...

31. Chapter 31

It was getting dusk when Wheeler swung himself from the saddle near the head of the gully and, with the bridle of the jaded horse in his hand, stood still a few moments looking...

26. Chapter 26

A shaded lamp stood on the table of Acton's room, and, as Nasmyth entered, he saw Wisbech, whom he had not met since his arrival, sitting just inside the light of it in a lounge...

12. Chapter 12

expressed the views of others in the West, and after all it was more or less warranted. Mattawa, however, gazed at them both as if such matters were beyond him, and Wheeler, who...

11. Chapter 11

The night was cold, and a frost-laden wind set the fir branches sighing as Nasmyth and his comrades sat about a snapping fire. The red light flickered upon their faces, and then...