The Foreigner

The Foreigner

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Title: The Foreigner
Author: Ralph Connor
Release Date: October, 2002 [EBook #3466] [This file was last updated
on February 2, 2003]
Edition: 11a

Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
FOREIGNER ***

This etext was produced by Andrew Sly

THE FOREIGNER A TALE OF SASKATCHEWAN
Ralph Connor

PREFACE
In Western Canada there is to be seen to-day that most fascinating of all
human phenomena, the making of a nation. Out of breeds diverse in
traditions, in ideals, in speech, and in manner of life, Saxon and Slav,
Teuton, Celt and Gaul, one people is being made. The blood strains of
great races will mingle in the blood of a race greater than the greatest of
them all.
It would be our wisdom to grip these peoples to us with living hooks of
justice and charity till all lines of national cleavage disappear, and in
the Entity of our Canadian national life, and in the Unity of our
world-wide Empire, we fuse into a people whose strength will endure
the slow shock of time for the honour of our name, for the good of
mankind, and for the glory of Almighty God.
C.W.G. Winnipeg, Canada, 1909.

CONTENTS
I The City on the Plain II Where East meets West III The Marriage of
Anka IV The Unbidden Guest V The Patriot's Heart VI The Grip of
British Law VII Condemned VIII The Price of Vengeance IX Brother
and Sister X Jack French of the Night Hawk Ranch XI The Edmonton
Trail XII The Making of a Man XIII Brown XIV The Break XV The
Maiden of the Brown Hair XVI How Kalman found His Mine XVII
The Fight for the Mine XVIII For Freedom and for Love XIX My

Foreigner

CHAPTER I
THE CITY ON THE PLAIN

Not far from the centre of the American Continent, midway between
the oceans east and west, midway between the Gulf and the Arctic Sea,
on the rim of a plain, snow swept in winter, flower decked in summer,
but, whether in winter or in summer, beautiful in its sunlit glory, stands
Winnipeg, the cosmopolitan capital of the last of the Anglo-Saxon
Empires,--Winnipeg, City of the Plain, which from the eyes of the
world cannot be hid. Miles away, secure in her sea-girt isle, is old
London, port of all seas; miles away, breasting the beat of the Atlantic,
sits New York, capital of the New World, and mart of the world, Old
and New; far away to the west lie the mighty cities of the Orient,
Peking and Hong Kong, Tokio and Yokohama; and fair across the
highway of the world's commerce sits Winnipeg, Empress of the
Prairies. Her Trans-Continental railways thrust themselves in every
direction, --south into the American Republic, east to the ports of the
Atlantic, west to the Pacific, and north to the Great Inland Sea.
To her gates and to her deep-soiled tributary prairies she draws from all
lands peoples of all tribes and tongues, smitten with two great race
passions, the lust for liberty, and the lust for land.
By hundreds and tens of hundreds they stream in and through this
hospitable city, Saxon and Celt and Slav, each eager on his own quest,
each paying his toll to the new land as he comes and goes, for good or
for ill, but whether more for good than for ill only God knows.
A hundred years ago, where now stands the thronging city, stood the
lonely trading-post of The Honourable, The Hudson's Bay Company.
To this post in their birch bark canoes came the half-breed trapper and
the Indian hunter, with their priceless bales of furs to be bartered for
blankets and beads, for pemmican and bacon, for powder and ball, and
for the thousand