Here are the best of many thrilling stories written by the late James Oliver Curwood concerning the ships that once plied America's fresh- water oceans—and the dauntless men who sailed them. These tales of the Inland Seas are reliable word-pictures of vessels and sailors now remembered only by the survivors of a generation that will soon have passed entirely away. Mr. Curwood, though better known as a writer of Canadian wilderness novels, was once regarded as an authority in such matters. Early in the present century he contributed to "American Waterways" from the Knickerbocker Press, its volume on The Great Lakes.
These narratives are substantially as the great story-teller related them. I have but arranged them into a book, each chapter of which is really a separate Curwood yarn.
Naturally, a few changes were necessary—but only a few—and not much has been added. I am confident that James Oliver Curwood's readers will find the magic spell of these stories as great as that of his colourful narrations of the men and women who live in the northern wildernesses—"God's Country," as he called it.
