The Heart of Unaga

There are some personalities which never fail to permeate their neighbourhood with their presence. Of such was Dr. Ian Ross. His presence never failed to impress itself. The mom...

It was boasted of Seal Bay that its inhabitants produced more wealth per head than any other community in the Northern world, not even excluding the gold cities of Alaska and th...

A roar of fury echoes through the primeval forest. It plays amidst the countless aisles of jack-pine. It loses itself in the dense growing tamarack, or dies amidst the softer pl...

The ladder of crime has its bottom rung in Mallard's. Those who essay the perilous descent inevitably gravitate, sooner or later, at Mallard's. It was Saney who was responsible...

Years ago Steve had drunk to the dregs a despair that left life shorn of everything but a desolate existence. The effect of that time had remained in him. It would remain so lon...

An-ina watched them pass out of the store together, her dark eyes following them until they vanished beyond the range of the doorway. Her regard for both was intense. The untame...

Steve and his wife were in the parlour of their little home. It was the home which Steve had had built to replace his bachelor shanty, and which together they had watched grow,...

For a moment astonishment robbed Steve of speech. Julyman was, perhaps, less affected. He stood beside his boss grinning down at the apparition till his eyes were almost entirel...

Steve was confronted with six months of desperate winter on the plateau of Unaga. It was an outlook that demanded all the strength of his simple faith. He was equal to the tasks...

Keeko had beaten the winter where Marcel had failed. But then Keeko's journey had been southward towards the sun, where the forest sheltered, and the river pursued a deep-cut co...

Beyond the river, the trees came down to the water's edge, where roots lay bare to the lap of the stream which frothed about them. They shadowed the wide waters with a reflectio...

It was all so drab, so cheerless. Outside the snow was still piled to the depth of many feet, the ice still held the river in its chill embrace. But the temperature was rising....

An-ina smoothed her brown hand over the superfine surface of the spread of buckskin where it lay on the counter in the store. Her dark eyes were critically contemplating it, whi...

It was a moment when memories were stirring. An-ina searched the distance with eyes untroubled and full of a glad content. Had she not every reason for content? Oh, yes. She knew.

The enclosure of the fort was at last cleared of snow. It was now ready, waiting for the elements to render abortive in a few short hours the labour of many days. Julyman and St...

Delight and excitement were running high. It was a game. In Marcel's child-mind there was nothing better in the world. And it was An-ina's invention. It was the gopher hunt.

Steve gave no sign. He saw no reason to admit anyone to the secret of that which had transpired in the store-house. He waited for the approach of an accompanying outfit, he sear...

The horrible aroma of a gently smouldering smudge fire, battling with invading mosquitoes; the pleasant smell of tobacco, adding to the enjoyment of the crisp Northern air; the...

The daylight was lengthening. Very slowly the lolling sun was returning to life and power. A sense of revivifying was in the air. As yet the grip of winter still held. The snow...

It was the last of the night watch. The depths of the primeval forest were alive with sound, those sounds which are calculated to set the human pulse athrob. Steve Allenwood cro...

The men crouched for warmth and the shadow of comfort over a miserable fire. The dogs were beyond, herded far within the shelter, their fierce eyes agleam with a reflection of t...

Ian Ross raised a hand and swept it across the back of his muscular neck. Then he wiped his palm on his cord breeches leaving there the stain of his own blood, and the crushed r...

Steve Allenwood raked the fire together. A shower of sparks flew up and cascaded in the still air of the summer night. A moment later his smiling eyes were peering through the t...

For days the journey continued through the ever deepening gorge. The stern grey walls remained unbroken, except for occasional sentry trees which had survived the years of storm...

Steve was lying in his blankets propped into a half-sitting position. A candle, stuck in the neck of a bottle, lit the tent sufficiently for Ian Ross to complete his work.

Marcel and Keeko were standing at the dawn of a new life. The man had looked into a woman's wide, blue eyes. He had gazed upon softly rounded cheeks, as perfect as physical well...

The youth in Marcel was abundant, it was even headlong. But even so, there was a strong steadying strain of wisdom in him, the wisdom of the Northland, bought at a price that fe...

Winter with all its deadly perils had become a memory. Life was supreme again on the plateau of Unaga. It was in the air, in the breezes sweeping down from the Northern hills, w...

A burden of grey hung depressingly over the world. A bleak north wind came down the river gorge. The sun's power had weakened before the advance of the Arctic night. Beaten, dis...

Steve pushed back from the table in An-ina's kitchen. The woman was standing ready to minister to his lightest demands. She had waited on him throughout the meal, and remained s...

Steve's dream of triumph was brief. Born at the moment of his first sight of the burning heart of Unaga it lived to provide a stimulant for jaded mind and body at a time of need...

It was the hospital hut at the police headquarters at Reindeer. A cheerless, primitive place of healing, severe but adequate, as were most things which concerned the lives of th...

The brief daylight had nearly passed. Accompanied by its fiery Satellites the sun was lolling moodily to its rest. Steve was searching the near distance for a sight of Oolak and...

Marcel flung the fuel upon the fire, and gravely watched the flames lick about the fresh-hewn timber, and the pillar of smoke rolling heavily upwards on the breath of an almost...

Alone in the great silence. Without even the cry of desolation wrung from starving wolf, or the howl of depression which ever seems to haunt the heart of the coyote world. Alone...

Nicol was standing there. He had entered the room at that moment, but with a quiet unusual to him. She gazed at him without reply. Perhaps the activity of her brain was dulling....