Hearth Stone

Kirsty has grown up in the shadow of her mother Great Mairi of the Isles, who has kept her people on the Long Isle throughout the cruel Highland Clearances. When faithless Alan betrays Kirsty for her cousin, Kirsty, though pregnant, leaves the island for Canada. On the voyage, her baby is stillborn and the captain helps her bury him on a rocky island near Newfoundland. She has made three good friends on the ship and now they help and support each other finding work at a boarding house near a sawmill town in Ontario. When the captain who is married, moves to a horse ranch he owns, with his feckless brother, Kirsty flees her secret love to go to the Red River with her landlady, Meg. In Winipeg, Meg meets an old Metis friend and with his oxen pulling their cart, they go to take up land near Riding Mountain. They encounter Texas Outlaws, Indians who still hope to drive out the white settlers, and daunting blizzards. Meg, Louie, and Kirsty create a home and stopping place for travelers and shelter a widowed Icelander and his baby. Kidnapped by outlaws running guns for an uprising, Kirsty helps in their downfall. The captain's wife has died in the thwarted rebellion and though he thinks he is too old and battered to marry again, Kirsty does not.