lack enough to give a true picture of
that bit of Western life of which the writer was some small part. The
men of the book are still there in the mines and lumber camps of the
mountains, fighting out that eternal fight for manhood, strong, clean,
God-conquered. And, when the west winds blow, to the open ear the sounds
of battle come, telling the fortunes of the fight.

Because a man's life is all he has, and because the only hope of the
brave young West lies in its men, this story is told. It may be that the
tragic pity of a broken life may move some to pray, and that that divine
power there is in a single brave heart to summon forth hope and courage
may move some to fight. If so, the tale is not told in vain.

C.W.G.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHRISTMAS EVE IN A LUMBER CAMP

CHAPTER II

THE BLACK ROCK CHRISTMAS

CHAPTER III

WATERLOO. OUR FIGHT--HIS VICTORY

CHAPTER IV

MRS. MAVOR'S STORY

CHAPTER V

THE MAKING OF THE LEAGUE

CHAPTER VI

BLACK ROCK RELIGION

CHAPTER VII

THE FIRST BLACK ROCK COMMUNION

CHAPTER VIII

THE BREAKING OF THE LEAGUE

CHAPTER IX

THE LEAGUE'S REVENGE

CHAPTER X

WHAT CAME TO SLAVIN

CHAPTER XI

THE TWO CALLS

CHAPTER XII

LOVE IS NOT ALL

CHAPTER XIII

HOW NELSON CAME HOME

CHAPTER XIV

GRAEME'S NEW BIRTH

CHAPTER XV

COMING TO THEIR OWN

CHAPTER I

CHRISTMAS EVE IN A LUMBER CAMP

It was due to a mysterious dispensation of Providence, and a good deal
to Leslie Graeme, that I found myself in the heart of the Selkirks for
my Christmas Eve as the year 1882 was dying. It had been my plan to
spend my Christmas far away in Toronto, with such Bohemian and boon
companions as could be found in that cosmopolitan and kindly city. But
Leslie Graeme changed all that, for, discovering me in the village of
Black Rock, with my traps all packed, waiting for the stage to start
for the Landing, thirty miles away, he bore down upon me with resistless
force, and I found myself recovering from my surprise only after we had
gone in his lumber sleigh some six miles on our way to his camp up in
the mountains. I was surprised and much delighted, though I would not
allow him to think so, to find that his old-time power over me was still
there. He could always in the old 'Varsity days--dear, wild days--make
me do what he liked. He was so handsome and so reckless, brilliant in
his class-work, and the prince of half-backs on t