Alton of Somasco
By Harold Bindloss
It was snowing slowly and persistently, as it had done all day when Henry Alton of Somasco ranch stood struggling with a half-tamed Cayuse pony in a British Columbian settlement. The Cayuse had laid its ears back and was describing a circle round him, scattering mud and snow, while the man who gripped the bridle in a lean, brown hand watched it without impatience, admiringly.
“Game!” he said. “I like them that way. Still, it isn’t every man could seize a pack on him, and you’ll have to let up three dollars on the price you asked me.”
Now three dollars is a considerable proportion of the value of an Indian pony fresh from the northern grasslands, with the devil that lurks in most of his race still unsubdued within him, but the rancher who owned him did not immediately reject the offer. Possibly he was not especially anxious to keep the beast.
“Oh, yes,” said a bystander. “He’s game enough, and I’d ask the boys to my funeral if I meant to drive him at night over the lake trail. After being most kicked into wood-pulp Carter hasn’t any more use for him, and I’ll lay you a dollar, Alton, you and your partner can’t put the pack on him.”
Perhaps the Cayuse was tired, or desirous of watching for an opportunity, for it came to a standstill, snorting, with its wicked eyes upon the man, who laughed a little and shoved back the broad hat from his forehead as he straightened himself. The laugh rang pleasantly, and the faint twinkle in Alton’s eyes was in keeping with it. They were grey, and steady when the light sank out of them, and the rest of the bronzed face was shrewd and quietly masterful. He wore a deerskin jacket fancifully embroidered, blue canvas overalls, and gum boots to the knee, while, though all of them needed repair, the attire was picturesque, and showed its wearer’s lean symmetry. The man’s age was twenty-five, and eight years’ use of the axe had set a stamp of springy suppleness upon him. He had also wrested rather more than a livelihood from the Canadian forest during them.
All around him the loghouses rose in all their unadorned dinginess beneath the somber pines, and the largest of them bore a straggling legend announcing that it was Horton’s store and hotel. A mixed company of bush ranchers, free prospectors, axemen, and miners lounged outside it in picturesque disarray, and high above rose a dim white line of never-melting snow.
“Well,” said Alton, “it’s time this circus was over, anyway, and if Carter will take my bid I’ll clinch that deal with you. Have the pack and seizings handy, Charley.”
The rancher nodded, and Alton got a tighter grip on the bridle. Then the Cayuse rose upright with fore-hoofs lifted, and the man’s arm was drawn back to strike. The hoofs came down harmlessly, but the fist got home, and for a moment or two, there was a swaying and plunging of man and beast amidst the hurled-up snow. Then the Cayuse was borne backwards until the vicinity of the hotel verandah left no room for kicking, and another man hastily flung a rope round the bundles he piled upon its back. He was also tolerably capable, and in another minute the struggle was over. The Cayuse’s attitude expressed indignant astonishment, while Alton stood up breathless, with his knuckles bleeding.
Genre: Romance Books | Western
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Harold Bindloss
Harold Edward Bindloss (6 April 1866 – 30 December 1945) was an English novelist who wrote many adventure novels set in western Canada and some West Africa and England. His writing was strongly based on his own experience, whether as a seaman, a dock worker, a farmer, or a planter.
Biography.
Bindloss was born on 6 April 1866 in Wavertree, Liverpool, England the eldest son of Edward Williams Bindloss (born c. 1838), an iron merchant with six men in his employ at the time of the 1881 census. Bindloss had three sisters and four brothers. He spent several years at sea and in various colonies, especially in Africa, before returning to England in 1896, his health was broken by malaria. Bindloss was absent from the family home in 1881, but the 1891 census found him living at home and serving as an iron merchant’s clerk, presumably for his father. He began work as a clerk in a shipping office but this did not suit his adventurous spirit, and he was at various times a farmer in Canada, a sailor, a dock worker, and a planter. He returned to England in 1896, presumably from West Africa, as he returned sick of malaria. Given that he spent more than a decade at sea and in the colonies, it seems likely that his experience abroad was in two parts, first as a youth, and then as a young man, after 1891.
After returning home in 1896 he began working as a journalist and then wrote two non-fiction books based on his travels, the first, In the Niger Country (1898, Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh) about West Africa, and the second, A Wide Dominion (1899, T. Fisher Unwin, London) about Canada. His first novel was Ainslie’s Ju-Ju, set in West Africa which Truth described as “a book that has the double interest and excitement of a story and a genuine record of travel and adventure mixed judiciously.” This was the first of nearly one hundred novels by Bindloss. The next A Sower of Wheat (1901, Chatto and Windus, London) was set in Canada. This set the pattern for Bindloss, as most of his novels were set in Canada or West Africa. The Guardian refers to him as having two strings to his bow, stories set in Canada or West Africa, with the Canadian stories being remarkably superior.
Bindloss married Mary Simpson Hossack (11 Mar 1869[2] – 2 November 1945) the youngest daughter of Captain Joseph Hossack, a marine surveyor, at St James Church in West Derby, Lancaster, on 12 June 1899. The couple appears not to have had any children as the 1911 census records them as not having had any after twelve years of marriage.
Bindloss was a prolific author. The most common obituary estimate is that he wrote over 40 novels. ABC Bookworld lists 62 books by Bindloss. Kemp states that he wrote two to three books a year in the early 1900s. The Belfast Newsletter states that he published 67 books. However, Jisc Library Hub Discover lists 89 books by Bindloss, the first two being non-fiction and the rest novels. He is remembered in the name of the town Bindloss, Alberta, Canada, established by the Canadian Pacific Railroad in 1914. Bindloss died on 30 December 1945 at Chertsey Hill Nursing Home in Carlisle, England. He had been living at Vallum, Burgh-by-Sands in Cumbria. His estate was valued at £24,774 0s. 9d.
His wife had died at home on 2 November 1945, and he was granted probate, as her executor just a fortnight before he died.
Harold Bindloss
