BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS AUTHOR OF “KINGS IN EXILE,” “THE BACKWOODSMEN,” “THE HOUSE IN THE WATER,” ETC. New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1911 All rights reserved Copyright, 1909 and 1910, By THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, and By THE ASSOCIATED SUNDAY MAGAZINES, INCORPORATED. Copyright, 1911, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1911. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick &

It seemed to be the very roof of the world, all naked to the outer cold, this flat vast of solitude, dimly outspread beneath the Arctic night. A line of little hills, mere knobs and hummocks, insignificant under the bitter starlight, served to emphasize the immeasurable and shelterless flatness of the surrounding expanse. Somewhere beneath the unfeatured levels the sea ended and the land began, but over all lay the monotony of ridged ice and icy, wind-scourged snow. The wind, which for weeks wit

The brook, which had rattled down so gayly, with many a laughing rapid and clattering white cascade, from the sunlit granite terraces of Lost Mountain, fell silent and hung back as it drew near the swamp. Wheeling in slow, deep, purple-dark eddies, it loitered for some hundred yards or so between dim overhanging ranks of alder, then sank reluctantly beneath an arch of mossed cedar-roots, and was lost in the heavy gloom. Within the swamp the huge and ancient trunks of cedar and tamarack crowded i

Far out of the track of ships, in the most desolate stretch of the North Atlantic, walled round with ceaseless thunder of the surf and wailed about continually by innumerable sea-birds, the islet thrust up its bleak rocks beneath a pale, unfriendly sky. It was almost all rock, this little island—gray pinnacles of rock, ledges upon ledges of rock, and one high, sunrise-facing cliff of rock, seamed with transverse crevices and shelves. Only on the gentler southward slope was the rock-frame of the

When the frost is on the barrens, And the popple-leaves are thinned, And the caribou are drifting Down the wind,—— So writes one who knows all about how autumn comes to the Tobique barrens, and who claims to know as much as most men about the caribou. But the caribou do not always drift, by any means. They are rather an incalculable folk, these caribou,—and even in their name one notes their inclination to be contrary; for the herds which frequent the high, watery barrens of northern New Brunswi

Pale, shimmering green, and soaked in sun, the miles of sedge-flats lay outspread from the edges of the slow bright water to the foot of the far, dark-wooded, purple hills. Winding through the quiet green levels came a tranquil little stream. Where its sleepy current joined the great parent river, a narrow tongue of bare sand jutted out into the golden-glowing water. At the extreme tip of the sand-spit towered, sentry-like, a long-legged gray-blue bird, as motionless as if he had been transplant

Although in the open clearings it was full noon—the noon of early September, hot and blue and golden—here in the lofty aisles of the forest it was all cold twilight. Such light as glimmered down through the thick-leaved tree-tops was of a mellow shadowy brown and a translucent green, changing from the one tone to the other mysteriously as the eye shifted its backgrounds. One tall trunk, long ago shattered and broken off just below the crown by a stroke of lightning, stood pointing bleakly toward

From their cave in the cleft of Red Rock, where the half-uprooted pine-trees swung out across the ravine, the two panthers came padding noiselessly down the steep trail. In the abrupt descent their massive shoulders and haunches worked conspicuously under the tawny and supple hide, in a loose-jointed way that belied their enormous strength. Where the trail came out upon a patch of grassy level, starred with blossoms, beside the tumbling mountain stream, they parted company—the female turning off

The deep copper-red channel of the little tidal river wound inland through the wide yellowish levels of the salt marsh. Along each side of the channel, between the waving fringes of the grass and the line of usual high tide, ran a margin of pale yellowish-brown sand-flats, baked and seamed with sun cracks, scurfed with wavy deposits of salt, and spotted with meagre tufts of sea-green samphire, goose-tongue, and sea-rosemary. Just at the edge of the grass-fringe an old post, weather-beaten and ti

The blue kingfisher, flying over the still surface of the lake, and peering downward curiously as he flew, saw into its depths as if they had been clear glass. What he hoped to see was some small fish—chub, or shiner, or yellow perch, or trout, basking incautiously near the surface. What he saw was a sinister dark shape, elongated but massive, darting in a straight line through the transparent amber, some three or four feet below the surface. Knowing well enough what that meant—no fish so foolis

The island was a mere sandbank off the low flat coast. Not a tree broke its bleak levels, not even a shrub. But the long, sparse, gritty stalks of the marsh-grass clothed it everywhere above tide-mark, and a tiny rivulet of sweet water, flowing from a spring at its centre, drew a riband of inland herbage and tenderer green across the harsh and sombre yellow-gray of the grass. One would not have chosen the island as an alluring place to set one’s habitation, yet at its seaward end, where the chan

Through the thick drive of the snowflakes—small, hard, bitter flakes, borne on the long wind of the terrible Coppermine barrens—the man and the beast stood staring at each other, motionless. In the beast’s eyes was a heavy wonder, mixed with curiosity and dread. Never before had he seen any being like this erect slim shape, veiled and vague and dark in the whirling drift. He felt it to be dangerous, but he was loath to tear himself away from the scrutiny of it. The man, on the other hand, had ne

Through the broad, indolent, green-purple swells, ruffled and crisped along their tops by a mild breeze, the cow-orca went wallowing contentedly, her calf swimming close at her side. From time to time it rubbed against her, as if apprehensive in face of the vast and perilous spaces of the ocean, and seeking covert behind her short powerful flipper. And from time to time, being one of the most devoted and assiduous of all the mothers of the wild, she would gather it caressingly to her side with t

Gray Lynx went ahead. His mate, almost as large as he, and even more savage in her lightning ferocity, was at the same time more shy of approaching the habitations of man. Full of suspicions, but driven by the pangs of midwinter famine, she followed at a little distance, while Gray Lynx, stealthily, crouching close to the snow, led the way across the open to the low, snow-muffled outbuildings of the lonely wilderness farm. He was a strange, sinister figure, this great Canadian lynx, a kind of gi

It was in the first full, ardent rush of the Arctic spring. Thrilling to the heat of the long, long days of unobstructed sun, beneath the southward-facing walls of the glaciers, the thin soil, clothing the eternal ice, burst into green and flowering life. In the sunward valleys brooks awoke, with a sudden filming of grass along their borders, a sudden passionate unfolding of star-like blooms, white, yellow, and blue. As if summoned from sleep by the impetuous blossoms, eager to be fertilized, ca