The Project Gutenberg EBook of Michael McGrath, Postmaster, by Ralph Connor

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Title: Michael McGrath, Postmaster

Author: Ralph Connor

Release Date: September 12, 2006 [EBook #19257]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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MICHAEL McGRATH,

POSTMASTER

BY RALPH CONNOR

_Author of "The Sky Pilot," "Black Rock," Etc._

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

CHICAGO NEW YORK TORONTO

COPYRIGHT 1900

BY

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

MICHAEL McGRATH, POSTMASTER.

Some men and some scenes so fasten themselves into one's memory that the
years, with their crowding scenes and men, have no power to displace
them. I can never forget "Ould Michael" and the scene of my first
knowing him. All day long I rode, driving in front my pack-pony laden
with my photograph kit, tent and outfit, following the trail that would
end somewhere on the Pacific Coast, some hundreds of miles away. I was
weary enough of dodging round the big trees, pushing through underbrush,
scrambling up and down mountain-sides, hugging cliffs where the trail
cut in and wading warily through the roaring torrent of "Sixty-mile
Creek." As the afternoon wore on, the trail left the creek and wound
away over a long slope up the mountain-side.

"Ginger," said I to my riding pony, "we are getting somewhere"--for our
trail began to receive other trails from the side valleys and the going
was better. At last it pushed up into the open, circled round a shoulder
of the mountain, clinging tight, for the drop was sheer two hundred
feet, and--there before us stretched the great Fraser Valley! From my
feet the forest rolled