The San Francisco call., 1906-06-10
ALTON OF SOMASCO, TALE
OF THE NORTHWEST.


A stirring tale of the great North
west is ALTON of Somasco." by Harold
Bindloss. It's about the life of bold
and magnanimous young Canadian
who, though holding a right to large
estate and fine social position in Eng
land, prefers the rough and adven-
turous existence in the wilderness.
The author has attempted to portray
a man of almost ideal strength and
nobleness, and he has done well at the
effort; but to many the main charm of
the book Will be the eloquent and sym
pathetic descriptions of the wild and
beautiful scenery amid which the story
is enacted BlindIoss has the skill of
taking you in Imagination to the place
and making you feel the romantic
grandeur of the environment wherein
the romance of the characters he evil
IDENTIFY likes very heartily is being
wrought out.
You go into big primevaI forests and
pass through them along narrow and
dangerous miners trails, and look up
at the snow-capped mountains, and
hear beneath your feet the splash and
roar of foaming torrents, while the
healthful scent of the fir trees fills the
air. The log cabins, the little orchards
begun in the midst of the wilderness,
the whirr of an occasional swiftly
working sawmill, the picturesque pack
curling smoke from some hidden silver
mine, are elements of the fine picture
he keeps constantly before your eyes
while he tells of the progress of the
love affair of the strenuous Canadian
| backwoodsman for a refined young
English girl who accompanies her
father out into the Canadian wilds.
This young girl, Alice Deringham, is
kinswoman of Alton and an Indirect
heir-apparent to the big English estate
in which Alton has prior claim if he
cares to take the trouble to insist on
| his rights. Her father is a promoter
and director of English mining and
real estate companies. and being
somewhat INSCRIPTIONS schemer, he is
anxious to keep control OF the estate,
Carnaby, which is the one Harry Alton
has claim upon and which Deringham
managed during the life of a former
! owner. He has mismanaged in this
4 trust, and his accounts are not in shape
4 to be locked into by an expert book
keeper. and so he comes out from Eng
land to Harry Atoms wilderness home
and mines of Somasco in order to plot
and plan some way to maintain his
habitual business of living by his wits
His daughter Alice is not so bad but
still she lacks great deal OF pessess-
ing the high ideals OF conduct that
come natural as breathing to the big
I
her mind before seeing him that she
will dislike him, and her pride is much
hurt at the thought of the cherished
| family estate of Carnaby possibly fall
ing into the possession of a man whom
she has decided must be a boorish per-
son and unfit to represent Carnaby.
How this antagoninin was gradually
overcome by the sterling worth Of the
young Canadian who was thorough
gentleman in spite of his rough ex-
terror, is one of the features OF the
story.
The glimpses given of rough back
woods life are very interesting and
some OF them amusing. One of the
amusing incidents was when Dering-
ham. a painpered and somewhat fnicky
gentlapan, arrived at the Somasco
4 rancfhfter long and toward the
last very tiresome trip from England
and found only the cook at home at
the ranch house. Presently he found
man plucking fowls in a galvanized
| iron shed There was a row of them
before him. all without heads, while
| an ensanguined ak close by indi-
Gated the fashion of their execution.
He glanced at Deringham a moment.
and then fell TO work again
"Oh, yes, this is Somasco, and the
finest ranch this side of the Fraser"
he said. Can you see Mr. Alton? We'll
I figure he's busy. and you had better
wait little. Get hold of this It's
your supper"
Deringham recoiled pace when a
somewhat CORY fowl struck him on the
/ knee.
What are you going to do with it?
Well, you can pull the feathers off II
and fix it for cooking, unless you like
them better with their insides in.''
The book is full of exciting adven-
lures which Bindloss describes in a
very stirring fashion Harry Alton is.
of course, the hero of most of them.
One of these adventures Is the shooting
of rapids in a canoe IT takes several
pages to fully describe IL. but here
are some Elimpses from 1t. 1t is a