THE RED RIVER HALF-BREED

A TALE OF THE WILD NORTHWEST

BY

GUSTAVE AIMARD

AUTHOR OF "PRAIRIE FLOWER," "THE TREASURE OF PEARLS,"

"PIRATES OF THE PRAIRIES," &c., &c.

LONDON

JOHN and ROBERT MAXWELL

MILTON HOUSE, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET

AND

35, ST. BRIDE STREET LUDGATE CIRCUS

(From the Collected Novels—1860-1885. Translation by Henry Llewellyn Williams - Edited by Percy B. St John)

CONTENTS

 CHAPTER I.

THE CREST OF THE CONTINENT.

We stand on the loftiest peak of the Big Wind River Mountains, that highest and longest chain of the Northern Rockies, a chaos of granite fifteen thousand feet towards the firmament from the sea.

Around us the lesser pinnacles hold up heads as fantastic in shape as an Indian's plumed for battle, and, below a little, diamonds of ice deck the snowy ermine of the colossal giant's robe.

Far beneath, the mosses are grown upon by sparse grasses, and they by scrub evergreens, gradually displaced in the descent to the warm alcoved valleys by taller and taller pines, spruce, larch, and cedar. But the 

  P 1/181 next