The Wilderness Trail

"I'm glad you came," was the simple reply. "They'd have done for us in another half-minute. I don't see why Seguis threw away so many lives trying to capture that fort."

Morning found the world swathed in a great blanket of white. Snow that started as Donald made camp had fallen steadily through the dark hours, so that now rock and windfall and...

Four hundred and fifty miles southwest of Sturgeon Lake, as the hawk flies, is Winnipeg--formerly the Fort Carry of Hudson Bay fame, and before that the Fort Douglas of battle,...

It was, perhaps, an hour later when Donald, just beginning to drowse before his little fire, heard someone approach and unlock his door, for the second time that night. In antic...

All the next day, the two prepared for their departure. Donald strengthened the little sledge, and made their goods into a solid pack, convenient for him to carry when Jean shou...

Arrived back at the little shanty, they set about their housekeeping at once. The situation might have been delicate in other periods and climes, but here no false sentimentalit...

It was an hour before sunset, but so uniform had been the darkness all day that neither Donald nor his two companions realized that night was close upon them. Hour after hour th...

Into the minds and hearts of the folk who live their lives in the wild, there are bred certain animal traits. The good trapper learns that, like rabbit or bob-cat, he must be ab...

One by one, exhausted, but joyful, the trappers of the Free-Traders' Brotherhood straggled into their long-sought camp. Nearly all had small packs on their backs, as though the...

There was in Donald, as in all who battle with the monstrous moods of nature, a certain calm fatalism, or acceptance of the inevitable. When he had recovered his self-possession...

Charley Seguis entered the council chamber of the huge log house in the free-trader's camp at the lower end of Sturgeon Lake, and looked about him with satisfaction. Now, the sq...

Though a hundred yards away, the amazement depicted on the half-breed's face was apparent. The men behind the barricade had thrust the long, black barrels of their guns through...

But in this, Seguis had counted without Buxton. Because of the passive actions of the two men upon his appearance the half-breed considered them cowards, and, after disarming th...

For nearly the whole night, Donald McTavish had paced the bare little room that had been set aside for him. Now, he looked at his watch. It was four o'clock.

It was the old battle between love and duty. The pile of covered newspapers lay unheeded beside the young man's chair. He pictured Jean Fitzpatrick in every conceivable peril of...

It was with a strange mixture of emotion that Donald McTavish approached the rough log cabin where lay Angus Fitzpatrick. The morning was one of bitter cold, and the smoke from...

Donald found Peter Rainy gossiping with a couple of the Indian servants in the barracks, and informed his attendant of the intended departure next morning. Then, he returned to...

Donald sat at the dinner table in Fort Dickey with John Buller and Pierre Cardepie, his two assistants. A roaring log fire barely fought off the cold as they ate their caribou s...

Darkness had just fallen over the snow-enshrouded fort. Three hours ago, Maria, with her stoical Indian son, had pulled out behind a dog-train with fresh supplies. The old squaw...

From Voudrin's tumble-down shanty Sturgeon Lake was nearly a hundred miles southwest. Given rivers and lakes to traverse, McTavish could almost do the distance in a day, for Mis...

Stretched on a rough bed of blanket-covered branches, in a low, squat log cabin, a man lay smoking his pipe, and conversing in snatches with two other men who sat by the door, a...

"Good-evening," said Donald, courteously, in the Ojibway tongue. With all his impatience, he knew better than to be precipitate. Tom and Maria responded in kind to his salutatio...

Without a word, Rainy made preparations for moving. A lesser woodsman or lazier servant would have demurred, for, while the blizzard lasted, there was scarcely a chance in a mil...

For two days, affairs in the camp remained unchanged. Donald, unobtrusively watching events, saw Charley Seguis often in conference with old Maria. The faces of both were lighte...

Jean Fitzpatrick rose from the breakfast-table at Fort Severn, and asked for the Winnipeg papers. Three days before, the mail-carrier had dashed in with dogs on the gallop, and...

Donald McTavish glared down into the heavy, ugly face of his superior--a face that concealed behind its mask of dignity emotions as potent and lasting as the northland that bred...