Delilah of the Snows by Harold Bindloss

Nobody blamed Coulthurst for dispossessing Ingleby of his claim. In fact, the bluff and usually good-humoured major was more or less a favourite with the miners, who admitted that while it was rough on Ingleby no other course was open to him. For all that, the affair made an unfortunate impression when news leaked out of the part Esmond had played in it, for the latter's arrogance had gone a long way to gain him the hearty dislike of every man in the valley.

The Canadian is, as a rule, a sturdy imperialist with democratic tendencies, a type of citizen which would elsewhere probably be thought an anachronism. There were, however, as Sewell had pointed out, a good many men in the North just then who had no country, and a vague unrest and discontent, that once or twice came near producing unpleasant results, spread sporadically across the wilderness that season. Nobody was pleased with the mining regulations, and there were quiet Canadian bushmen who thought the drafting of detachments of the Northwest Police into that country not only unnecessary, but a reflection upon them. There were also other men, who had carried the memory of their wrongs with them from lands ruled by the mailed fist, to whom this symbol of imperial authority was as a red rag to a bull, and here and there a heavy responsibility was laid on the agents of the Crown.