Inside the story
Meet Barney Snaith
Barney Snaith is a reclusive man living on an island in Lake Mistawis, where local gossip brands him a dangerous outlaw and possible criminal. At the story’s outset, Valancy Stirling approaches him with an unexpected request to marry her, drawing him into her troubled life.
On the page
A raffish, disreputable-looking man of thirty-five with overlong tawny hair dashed with red, dark-brown eyes, ears that stick out just enough to look alert, a single straight eyebrow, and something a little grim about the jaw; often unshaven and grease-stained in muddy overalls, clean-shaven after marrying.
