Fort Desolation: Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land

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Robert Michael Ballantyne. Fort Desolation: Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land

Chapter One. Or, Solitude in the Wilderness. The Outskirter

Chapter Two. The Letter, and its Consequences

Chapter Three. Domestic and Personal Matters

Chapter Four. Taming a Bully

Chapter Five. The Salmon Fishery

Chapter Six. Jack has a Desperate Encounter

Chapter Seven. Solitude

Chapter Eight. Horrors

Chapter Nine. The Bully receives a Lesson

Chapter Ten. Strangers and Strange Events

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One fine spring morning Jack was sitting, smoking his pipe after breakfast, at the door of his log cabin, looking pensively out upon the tree-stump-encumbered field which constituted his farm. He had facetiously named his residence the Mountain House, in consequence of there being neither mountain nor hill larger than an inverted wash-hand basin, within ten miles of him! He was wont to defend the misnomer on the ground that it served to keep him in remembrance of the fact that hills really existed in other parts of the world.

Jack was in a desponding mood. His pipe would not “draw” that morning; and his mind had been more active than usual for a few days past, revolving the past, the present, and the future. In short, Jack was cross. There could be no doubt whatever about it; for he suddenly, and without warning, dashed his pipe to pieces against a log, went into the house for another, which he calmly filled, as he resumed his former seat, lit, and continued to smoke for some time in sulky silence. We record this fact because it was quite contrary to Jack’s amiable and patient character, and showed that some deep emotions were stirring within him.

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“What do you call the new fort?” inquired Jack.

“Well, it has not yet got a name. We’ve been so much in the habit of styling it the New Fort that the necessity of another name has not occurred to us. Perhaps, as you are to be its first master, we may leave the naming of it to you.”

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