The Promise A Tale of the Great Northwest

The thaw that ruined the iced surface of the skid-ways was followed by several days of freezing weather that put a hard, smooth finish on the deep snow of the longer road, over...

During the infinitesimal interim between the shock which hurled him into the air, and the closing of the waters of Blood River over his head, Bill Carmody's brain received a con...

Bill Carmody wheeled against the solid rock wall and frantically felt his way along its broken surface. His groping hands encountered a cleft barely wide enough to admit the pas...

All day he had tramped northward, guided through the maze of abandoned roads by the frozen ruts of Moncrossen's tote wagons, and it was long after dark when he camped in the nor...

The walls of the room seemed the restraining bars of a prison, shutting her apart from life and the right to love. She lifted the latch and flung open the door, standing upon th...

Through the window, in the yellow lamplight of the interior, he could see the form of the old man as he hobbled back and forth between the stove and the table.

At their conclusion the others sought their blankets, while Jacques took the trail for the camp of old Wabishke whose help was needed in the undertaking which was to involve no...

The following morning the camp looked out upon a white world. The threatened snow which began during the night was still falling, and from the windows the dark walls of the clea...

But the very audacity of his act--and the god of chance--favored him, for as the axe whizzed through the air the keen edge of the whirling bit caught one of the larger wolves fu...

The feel of spring filled the air; the sun swung higher and higher; and the snow turned dark and lay soggy with water. With the increasing warmth of the longer days, men's thoug...

When Bill awoke, yellow lamplight flooded the room and Daddy Dunnigan was busy about the stove, from the direction of which came a cheerful sizzling and the appetizing odor of f...

The violence of the storm precluded the use of horses about the camp, and the trail that slanted from the clearing to the water-hole was soon drifted high with snow, rendering u...

In the days that followed Bill threw himself into the work with a vigor that won the approval of the men. A "top" lumber crew is a smooth-running machine of nice balance whose w...

The setting sun shone weak and coppery above the pines as the big four-horse tote-team dashed with a flourish into the wide clearing of the new camp on upper Blood River. The me...

William Carmody had scarcely completed his careful grooming when, with a tap at the door, his father entered, closely followed by a rather burly individual in citizen's clothing...

The brute in Moncrossen held subservient the more human emotions, else he must surely have betrayed his surprise when, twelve hours ahead of schedule, the greener swung the long...

It was broad daylight when Creed pulled the team up before a tumbled-down stable in the rear of one of the outstraggling cabins at the end of Hilarity's single street. Hastily h...

They found LaFranz waiting in fear and trembling. The heavy snow-plow was left in readiness for the morrow's trail-breaking, and the horses hitched to a rough sled and headed fo...

Again the interest centered upon the two big men who faced each other on the trodden ground of the clearing. Other men came--the ones who had fled from the rollway, their curios...

The events incident to the wedding of Bill Carmody and Ethel Manton are indelibly stamped upon the memory of every person present. The day was warmer than any preceding one, wit...

A certain story in the morning paper arrested her attention, and she reread it with flushed face and tightening lips. It was well done, as newspaper stories go, this account of...

The air was heavy with the promise of snow, and one by one the Indian took up his traps and hung them in saplings that they might not be buried.

"And, to think," whispered Mrs. Appleton as she wiped a tear from her eye, after the half-breed's departure, "that in New York this same man had earned the name of 'Broadway Bil...

"Oh, you can drink yours black if you want to, little girl," he grinned; "but, remember 'way back when we were first married and I was bossing camps for old Jimmie Ferguson, and...

In the filthy office of the camp on the Lower Blood River, Buck Moncrossen sat at his desk and glowered over his report sheets. The ill-trimmed lamp smoked luridly, and the ligh...

Not a man in the crew but swore by the boss, and each day threw himself into the work with a will that made for success. And each night, as he rolled into his bunk, not a man bu...

The newspaper prediction of the forthcoming announcement of the engagement of Miss Ethel Manton and Gregory St. Ledger was published, not without color of authority, nor was it...

Thus a week passed, in the course of which the heart of the girl was torn by conflicting emotions. Love clashed with hate and self-pity with self-reproach. Was it true--what he...

Late in the following afternoon Ethel awoke and lay for a long time revelling in her new-found happiness, and thinking of the big man who had come once more into her life, this...

That Blood River Jack's fear for the safety of Jeanne was well founded was borne home to Bill Carmody in the story the girl poured into his ears as they pushed on in the directi...

"My crew's full," the boss growled. "I don't need no men, let alone a greener that don't know a peavey from a bark spud. Wha'd the old man send you up here for, anyhow?"

Both slept. The fever-flushed face of the man pillowed upon the bare arm of the girl, whose body had settled wearily forward until her head, with its mass of black tresses, rest...

The sun of mid-forenoon cast a golden rhombus on the thick carpet, and through the open windows the autumnal air, stirred by just the suspicion of a breeze, was wafted delicious...

"Clickity-click, clickity-click, clickity-click," the monotonous song of the rails told off the miles as the heavy train rushed westward between the endless cornfields of a flat...

Before daylight next morning the two men dragged the little flat boat to the water's edge. The river had risen to full flood during the night and out of the darkness came the cr...

His camps varied from year to year in no slightest detail. He made no suggestions for facilitating or systematizing the work, nor would he listen to any. He roared mightily at t...

With only one-half of his journey behind him and the chill night-wind whipping through the unchinked crevices of the deserted shack; with the prospect of an unsavory supper of s...

It required three days of hard labor to remove the fifty-two bird's-eye maple logs to a position of safety. Jacques made a trip to the log camp, returning with a stout rope and...

Bill Carmody was no coward; but neither was he a fool, and for the first time the seriousness of his position dawned upon him. Other shapes appeared and ranged themselves beside...

William Carmody opened his eyes to a sense of drowsy contentment and well-being. That the elegantly appointed room over which his glance traveled was not his room, disturbed him...

At twelve o'clock, when the men crowded into the grub-shack, the air was filled with fine particles of flinty snow, and the roar of the wind through the pine-tops was the mighty...

The black expanse of country became more thickly studded with lights. They flashed in the foreground in regular constellations as the train whizzed with undiminished speed past...

"Thank you, sir, but I could not think of it. I am already deeply indebted to you. If it were only a temporary embarrassment I wouldn't mind. But I have no definite plans. I mus...

The following morning Bill parted from his friends. As he was about to step into the canoe Jeanne appeared at the water's edge bearing the mackinaw which he had worn when they d...

It was a merry party that clambered into the big tote-wagon in the little town of Creighton one morning in early November. Upon request of Appleton and Sheridan, two of the road...

Darkness settled over the North country. The sky had cleared, the wind gone down, and the air was soft and balmy with the feel of spring. A million stars sparkled overhead and a...

Bill quickly made his purchases, and shouldering the roll of blankets, followed Irish to the head of a rollway, where the two seated themselves on the bunk of a log sled.

He dropped the butt of his rifle to the hard-packed snow of the clearing and glanced upward, where a thin sprinkling of stars winked feebly in the first blush of morning.

"A man who is a thief!" The words fell distinctly from Carmody's lips with the studied quiet of desperation. Ethel stared wild-eyed at the speaker, and in the frozen silence of...

Old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta treated him with cold deference, anticipating his needs with a sagacity that was almost uncanny. She appeared hardly to be aware of his presence, yet many tim...

Bill Carmody opened his eyes. A weird darkness surrounded him through which dancing half-lights played upon a close-thrown screen. Dully he watched the grotesque flickering of l...

The silent, shadowy figure swayed toward Bill Carmody, who met the stabbing glare of the black eyes with the steady gaze of his gray ones. For long, tense moments their eyes hel...