TO
The Twenty-eight Boys in My Sunday School Class
at Port Nelson, Ontario, whose joys and
sorrows I try somewhat to share—this
story of real men and
women is dedicated
Your battle of Life, boys, has just begun. If you have the courage to be fair, honest, strong and clean now, and if you follow along the paths your conscience indicates, you will have the strength of character which produces heroes, in your years of manhood
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| Foreword | [9] |
| CHAPTER I. | |
| Leaving Home | [13] |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| The Voyage | [21] |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| New Experiences in a New Land | [44] |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
| An Application of Principles | [57] |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| Stirring Adventure in the North | [72] |
| CHAPTER VI. | |
| New Duties Lead to Larger Tests | [77] |
| CHAPTER VII. | |
| Sandy’s Visit Home | [97] |
| CHAPTER VIII. | |
| Hopes Realized and the Journey Ended | [106] |
| How “Kid” Made Good | [133] |
| An Appeal to Play the Game Fairly | [149] |
ILLUSTRATIONS
| PAGE | |
| “Robert Grabbed the Savage by the Throat” | [Frontispiece] |
| Hearing the Story of Opportunity | [14] |
| Saying Good-Bye to the Home-Folk | [19] |
| “He Leaped from the Deck” | [32] |
| “For the First Time Saw Polar Bears” | [38] |
| “The First Man to Grasp the Hand of the Captain” | [40] |
| Starting Out from Fort Churchill | [44] |
| “With a Farewell Wave of the Hand” | [46] |
| “Companionship in the Temple of God’s Great Solitude” | [50] |
| “The Animals Rushed to One Side” | [53] |
| The Party Leaving Fort Garry | [63] |
| Starting a Fifteen-Hundred-Mile Journey | [77] |
| “Wolf After Wolf Fell from the Blows” | [88] |
| “You’re a Coward” | [91] |
| “For a Moment He Hesitated” | [100] |
| “No Letter from Sandy” | [103] |
| “One Morning a Youth Started Out” | [106] |
| “He Cooked His Supper Over the Fire” | [109] |
| “With a Prayer of Thankfulness” | [117] |
| “Thus Were Robert’s Early Hopes and Plans Realized” | [128] |
| A Scene in the Lumber Woods Thirty Years Ago | [143] |
| Dressing a Pine Monarch for Shipment | [143] |
| Some of Canada’s Big Men | [149] |
| “Men of To-Morrow” | [151] |
| Boys and Girls of the Burlington Public School | [153] |
FOREWORD
The story within these covers has been written from impressions received in boyhood days, ideas which time could not erase and which the passing of the years has developed and strengthened. It is perhaps only fair to state frankly that the story is largely founded on fact, though, for purposes which will be obvious, the characters have been treated from a general rather than a particular sense.
The aim has been to follow a young man’s life from his home in the Orkney Islands, one hundred years ago, through his experiences in what was then an untravelled country in the Canadian West, and to show how, in his humble, commonplace way, he took hold of the opportunities which presented themselves, small though they might seem to us to be, and built up a character and a place for himself in the community which stood the test of time.