Some men and some scenes so fasten themselves into one's memory that the years, with their crowding scenes and men, have no power to displace them. I can never forget "Ould Michael" and the scene of my first knowing him. All day long I rode, driving in front my pack-pony laden with my photograph kit, tent and outfit, following the trail that would end somewhere on the Pacific Coast, some hundreds of miles away.
University of Toronto educated Charles William Gordon, ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1890. Under the pseudonym Ralph Connor, he published more than thirty novels, including The Man from Glengarry (1901) and Glengarry School Days (1902). These novels made him an internationally best-selling author.