The Prospector

This passage opens with a young woman stung by an old woman's blunt warning that a man is about to leave. Her face warms, and she insists the idea is foolish, repeating it more forcefully when no one is there to argue. Her irritation fades into a smile as she recalls the elderly woman's fierce, proud reply, which defended the man's ability to do what others doubted he could. The excerpt is a short glimpse of the novel's emotional tone rather than a summary of its plot. The Prospector was written by Ralph Connor, the pen name of Charles William Gordon, a Presbyterian minister who wrote frontier novels set in western Canada.