Away in the Wilderness

Description

While they are thus engaged I will introduce the reader to John Heywood. This individual was a youth of nineteen or twenty years of age| who was by profession a painter of landscapes and animals. He was tall and slender in person| with straight black hair| a pale haggard-looking face| an excitable nervous manner| and an enthusiastic temperament. Being adventurous in his disposition| he had left his father’s home in Canada| and entreated his friend| Jasper Derry| to take him along with him into the wilderness. At first Jasper was very unwilling to agree to this request; because the young artist was utterly ignorant of everything connected with a life in the woods| and he could neither use a paddle nor a gun. But Heywood’s father had done him some service at a time when he was ill and in difficulties| so| as the youth was very anxious to go| he resolved to repay this good turn of the father by doing a kindness to the son.