FICTION.
CINDERELLA OF SKOOKLM CREEK.*
IT is a far cry from Glasgow, the scene of Mr. Niven's last novel, to Skookum Creek, a " flag-station " out West, but his picture of the small but strangely mixed society at a " one-horse tie camp " out in the wilds of the Yukon is not less vivid and much more attractive than his sombre study of Scots family life in a great commercial centre. Skookum Creek was not exactly a " Roaring Camp " (Campo Clarnoroso, as an Italian translation has it), though in its blend of culture and anarchy it sometimes recalls the atmosphere of Bret Harte's early romances. The life led up there was comparatively easy : "a little fishing ; a little hunting ; a little prospecting ; a little placering ; a little sticking in (of late) of apple trees ; a little off-hand cattle-raising; a little poker ; a little euchre ; a little ' jag' (for some of them) now and then ; a little sitting around, spinning and swapping yarns—they enjoyed all that." What is more, the people who enjoyed it most were not the lawless, broken men, but men of education and character, men of science and even learning, who had been impelled by wayward- ness, curiosity, or discontent with the routine of civilization to go " hoboing in the backwoods," as their relatives described it. Such was Lazy. Lake, student and philosopher, originally a member of a geological expedition, who quarrelled with his chief, struck out for himself into the wilderness, and married the daughter of a Nevada " tough," a woman with a formidable vocabulary, a voice like a bald-headed eagle, and a heart of gold. Such again was Stewart, the agent of the Native Reser- vation, who had married an Indian woman of mixed Oneida and Okana- gan blood ; grim and taciturn as a rule, but, when he chose to unbend, a delightful companion who talked in the style of Stevenson's letters. And such finally was the jeune premier of the story, Cyrus Archer, son of a prosperous Eastern manufacturer, who refused to have his life arranged for him at home, and after failing to "petrify his tutors" at his Uni- versity, though they dimly recognized his talents, drifted West to plant tomatoes, drive ore wagons from the mines to the concentrator, study the ways of the Indians, make his name as an ethnologist, and discover his true affinity in the charming but unconventional heroine Mamie Lake, niece of the lazy geologist. Mamie was the orphan child of his brother, a distinguished man of science, and on his death was sent West. How the aquiline aunt brought her up, according to her lights. repressing all thoughts of vanity while determined to give her a fair chance ; how Mamie developed into a capable, sensible, frank, and courageous young woman ; how she saved Archer's life and how he repaid the service in kind ; how their comradeship ripened into affec- tion ; and how Archer's Eastern fiancée most considerately threw him over with the happiest results for all concerned—will be found in the pages of a story fresh in its surroundings, genial in treatment, and written in a style which harmonizes exactly with the dualism of the society described, in which primitive vengeance still calls for the methods of the Sheriff and his posse, plain living is combined with high thinking, euchre with ethics, and the cult of the gramophone with the study of Sir Thomas Browne. The glamour of the life and the landscape is brought home by- many touches ; its limitations and privations are perhaps extenuated. But Mr. Nivea is very far from recommending every one to seek happiness in Skookum Creek. Cyrus Archer started with the great advantage of being able to " handle 'losses." Stewart and Lake were both incurably unorthodox. And Mamie was largely a product of the Creek, just as the admirable Punchy Jones, the freighting boss, -was a product of Skoolium, City at its best • CiNdettla of Sloshes Creek. By Frederick ..-Niven, London : Eveletsti Nam. lb. net,'
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