The Mistress of Bonaventure

The weather continued pitilessly hot and dry, when, one afternoon, Trooper Cotton, returning from a tour of fireguard inspection, sat near the window-seat in which I lay at Gasp...

Sleep had brought me a brief forgetfulness, but the awakening was not pleasant when I painfully straightened my limbs on the jolting platform, while the twin whistles shrieked a...

Lane troubled us no further, and there came a time when those who had suffered under him, and at last assisted in his overthrow, would laugh boisterously at my narrative of his...

Except when the snow lies deep one has scanty leisure on the prairie, and when Adams departed Thorn and I hurriedly recommenced our task. We had lost time to make up, and vied w...

The surroundings were depressing when, one evening, Steel and I rode home for the last time to Gaspard's Trail. The still, clear weather, with white frost in the mornings and me...

It was two days before Cotton could be sent to the police outpost in a wagon, but, so far as we could gather, the officer temporarily in charge took it for granted he had been i...

The snow had thinned a little, though it still blew hard, when, before retiring, I borrowed a lantern and made a dash for the stable. The horse which had fallen was a valuable o...

The hole in the roof of the sod-house had been insufficiently stopped, the green birch billets stored in a corner burned sulkily in the rusty stove, so that the earth-floored ro...

Dixon's prediction proved correct. When I was brought into court a second time there was still no news of Wilkins, and after further testimony of no importance the case was agai...

So Redmond came home, and we buried him the following night by torchlight on a desolate ridge of the prairie. It was his daughter who ordered this; and if some of those who held...

"We are waiting for you," said Haldane, smiling, as he stood in the doorway of the room where, with some misgivings, and by the aid of borrowed sundries, we had made the best to...

The binders were clanking through the wheat when I next met Haldane at Crane Valley. Having embarked upon his new career with characteristic energy, he rode over from Bonaventur...

Some little time had elapsed since my acquittal, when, one pleasant summer morning, I rode out from the railroad settlement bound for Bonaventure. The air was soft and balmy, th...

Early one evening, after Lane's capitulation, I sat in the hall at Bonaventure waiting its owner's return. Lucille Haldane occupied the window-seat opposite me, embroidering wit...

It was a hot morning of early summer when I rode up the low rise to my house at Gaspard's Trail. A few willows straggled behind one side of it, but otherwise it rose unsheltered...

Again I hazarded a glance about me. The shallow-draughted craft had already drifted a distance off-shore, and was listing over under the pressure of the wind upon her lofty mast...

I rose early next morning, and a stroll through the awakening city, which was cool and fresh as yet, braced me for the stress of the day. Haldane looked thoughtful at breakfast;...

Winter passed very monotonously with us in the sod-house at Crane Valley. When the season's work is over and the prairie bound fast by iron frost, the man whom it has prospered...

Whatever action the police took concerning Lane's descent upon Crane Valley was not apparent, and Thorn may have been justified in deciding that they took none at all. However t...

It was a clear starlit night when I rode across a tract of the Assiniboian prairie, some two hundred miles east of Crane Valley. A half-moon hung in the cloudless ether, and the...

They were splendid horsemen who rode to our assistance, and their beasts as fine; but a slight figure led them a clear length ahead. In another minute Gordon's men copied their...

The fires of sunset were fading low down on the verge of the prairie when I spoke for the last time with Beatrice Haldane, as it happened, beside the splendid wheat. It was chan...

The dust was rolling about the cars and the gaunt poles whirled past before I could recover breath to answer the astonished conductor. Then it was with a gasp I said: "Won't you...

It was late one sultry night when I sat moodily beside an open window in my house at Gaspard's Trail. I had risen before the sun that morning, but, though tired with a long day'...

After relaxing its iron grip a little so that we hoped for spring, winter had once more closed down on the broad Canadian prairie, and the lonely outpost was swept by icy draugh...

Haldane could command any man's attention when he chose to exert himself, and, I fancied, made a special effort on my behalf during his homeward journey. As a result of this I a...

The first day on which my attendants would treat me as a rational being was a memorable one to me. It must have been late in the morning when I opened my eyes, for the sun had r...

Some time had elapsed since the overturning of the wagon, and I had seen nothing of Lucille Haldane, when, one evening, I visited Bonaventure at her father's request. All had go...

Leyland had a weakness for what he termed hardening himself by occasional feats of endurance, from which it resulted that I spent several days in his company wandering, with a w...

beside it a silver match-box. It was pretty well worn, but anyone who will look at it close can read that it was given to H. Ormesby. Considering the prisoner must have dropped...

I had spent a number of weary days awaiting trial, when a visitor was announced, and a young, smooth-shaven man shown into my quarters. He nodded to me pleasantly, seated himsel...