Romance Bindloss, Harold: Thurston of Orchard Valley. V1. 6 Jul 2011

[crutledge]

Harold Edward Bindloss was an English novelist who wrote many adventure novels set in western Canada. Bindloss was born in Liverpool in 1866. He was more than 30 years old before he began writing. Previously he worked as a farmer in Canada and as a cargo heaver, a planter, and at other jobs in southern climes. He returned to London. In 1898, he published his first book, a non-fiction account based on his travels in Africa, called In the Niger Country. This was followed by dozens of novels. He was a popular writer. One reviewer writes: "A new book by Harold Bindloss is always welcome. He tells a story well indeed, but one likes his books best perhaps for the environment which he knows so well how to sketch. He has written charming stories of the Canadian Northwest and one remembers with pleasure his novels Prescott of Saskatchewan and Winston of the Prairie", (Oakland Tribune, 1915). Bindloss' most famous works include: Ranching for Sylvia (1912), The Gold Trail (1910) and Vane of the Timberlands (1911).

Excerpt
It was a pity that Geoffrey Thurston was following in his grandfather's footsteps, the sturdy dalefolk said, and several of them shook their heads solemnly as they repeated the observation when one morning the young man came striding down the steep street of a village in the North Country. The cluster of gray stone houses nestled beneath the scarred face of a crag, and, because mining operations had lately been suspended and work was scarce just then, pale-faced men in moleskin lounged about the slate-slab doorsteps. Above the village, and beyond the summit of the crag, the mouth of a tunnel formed a black blot on the sunlit slopes of sheep-cropped grass stretching up to the heather, which gave place in turn to rock out-crop on the shoulders of the fell. The loungers glanced at the tunnel regretfully, for that mine had furnished most of them with their daily bread.

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