19 JANUARY 1907, Page 22

Ralph Connor's pictures of life in the remote parts of

Canada. His present book, if not quite equal to "The Prospector," will at any rate prove interesting to all those who enjoyed the former story. The plot is a little involved and intricate, and therefore not easy to follow, and the character drawing is not very strongly marked. It is, for instance, rather difficult to believe in Barney Boyle, the doctor of Crow's Nest, and there is a hiatus between his early history and his appearance as a full-fledged doctor which the reader will find rather confusing. Iola, too, the beautiful schoolmistress, is not a very credible figure, her faults being those of the artistic: temperament, and therefore not of a kind which are generally open to sudden conversions. But although the details of the work may be found fault with, Mr. Connor, as is usual with him, gives an interesting and vivid picture of the development of the distant provinces of Canada, and his book should be read by all English people who take a real interest in the daughter-nation.