The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wrecked but not Ruined, by R.M. Ballantyne

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Title: Wrecked but not Ruined

Author: R.M. Ballantyne

Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23388]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WRECKED BUT NOT RUINED ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Wrecked but not Ruined, by R.M. Ballantyne.

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Set in the outback of Canada this book unfolds in the area with which
Ballantyne was so familiar. If you like to read about this area you
will find lots in this book to amuse you. It makes a good audiobook,
too.

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WRECKED BUT NOT RUINED, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE OUTPOST.

On the northern shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence there stood, not
very long ago, a group of wooden houses, which were simple in
construction and lowly in aspect. The region around them was a vast
uncultivated, uninhabited solitude. The road that led to them was a
rude one. It wound round a rugged cliff, under the shelter of which the
houses nestled as if for protection from the cold winds and the
snowdrifts that took special delight in revelling there.

This group of buildings was, at the time we write of, an outpost of the
fur-traders, those hardy pioneers of civilisation, to whom, chiefly, we
are indebted for opening up the way into the northern wilderness of
America. The outpost was named the Cliff after the bold precipice, near
the base of which it stood. A slender stockade surrounded it, a
flag-staff rose in the centre of it, and a rusty old ship's carronade
reared defiantly at its front gate. In virtue of these warlike
appendages the place was sometimes styled "the Fort."

When first established, the Cliff Fort lay far beyond the outmost bounds
of civilised life, but the progress of emigration had sent forward wave
after wave into the northern wilderness, and the tide rose at last until
its distant murmur began to jar on the ears of the traders in their
lonely dwelling; warning them that competition was at hand, and