Part 24
“Because, cruel as you were, I knew that you were right and that I was wrong. I hated you that night--hated you because you made me such a pitiful thing; but-- Oh, I loved you, too, more than ever. If only you hadn’t been so hard--so bitter. If you had been gentle then, you might have taken me in your arms and crushed me if you liked. I shouldn’t have cared.”
“Sh--that was only in the dream, Jane.” And then: “You never cared for _him_?” he asked quickly.
“Never.”
“Then why----?”
“My pride, Phil. Poor Coley!”
He echoed the words heartlessly.
“Poor Coley!”
A pause. “Who else is in camp?”
“Colonel Broadhurst, Mr. Worthington, Mr. and Mrs. Pennington----”
“Nellie! Here?”
“Yes, she had never been in the woods before. Why, what is the matter, Phil?”
Gallatin straightened, one hand to his forehead.
“I have it,” he said.
“Have what?”
“It was Nellie. I might have guessed it.”
“Guessed----?”
“It was _her_ plan--coming up here--to the woods. Before we left New York she and John Kenyon were as thick as thieves--and----”
“Oh!”
“Good old Uncle John! He did it. I remember now--a hundred things.”
It was Jane’s turn to be surprised.
“Yes--yes. It’s true, Phil. Oh, how cleverly they managed! But how could Nellie have known that I would come here? I only told Johnny Challón.”
Phil laughed.
“Nellie Pennington is a remarkable woman. She knew. She knows everything.”
“Yes, I think she does,” said Jane. “We’ve been in camp a week. I started with Challón four days ago. He said he had lost the trail, and I gave it up. This morning--I can see it all now. Father--and Nellie started me off themselves at sunrise. They knew I’d come here and----”
She stopped and took him abruptly by the arm. “Phil! Those wicked people had even fixed the day and hour of our meeting.”
He nodded.
“Of course! I wanted to come yesterday, but they wouldn’t let me. If I had--I should have missed you.”
“Oh--how terrible!”
Her accents were so genuine, her face so distressed at this possibility, that he laughed and caught her in his arms again.
“But I _didn’t_ miss you, Jane. That’s the point. Even if I had, Nellie would have managed somehow. She’s an extraordinary woman.”
“She is, Phil. She chaperoned me until Coley was at the point of exasperation.”
“Quite right of her, too.”
“But why has she taken such an interest in you--in us?”
“Because she’s an angel, because she has the wisdom of the centuries, because she is a born matchmaker, because she always does what she makes up her mind to do, and, lastly--and most important, Jane, she has a proper sense of the eternal fitness of things.”
“That’s true. Nothing else was possible, was it, Phil?”
“No. It was written--a thousand years ago.”
She turned in his arms.
“Have you thought that--always?” she asked.
“I never gave up hoping.”
“Nor I.”
She was silent a moment.
“Phil.”
“What, Jane?”
“Would you have come here to Arcadia, alone, even if----”
“Yes. I would have come here--alone. I was planning it all spring. This place is redolent of you. Your spirit has haunted it for a year. I wanted to be here to share it with Kee-way-din, if I couldn’t have--yourself.”
“What would you have done if I had not been here?”
“I don’t know--waited for you, I think.”
“But it was I--who waited----”
“You didn’t wait long. What were you thinking of, there by the fire?”
“Of my dream.”
“You dreamed of me?”
“Yes. The night we came into camp I dreamed of you. I saw you poling a canoe upstream. I followed you across a portage. There was a heavy pack upon your back, but you did not mind the weight, for your step was light and your face happy. There was a shadow in your eyes, the same shadow, but your lips were smiling. Night fell and still you toiled in the moonlight, and I knew that you were coming here. There were voices, too, and you were singing with them; but I wasn’t afraid, because you seemed so joyful.”
“I _was_ joyful.”
“I saw the shack--and the ashes of the fire and I saw you coming through the bushes toward it. But when you came to the fire I was not there. You called me, but I couldn’t answer. I tried to, but I seemed to be dumb--and then--and that was all.”
“A dream. It was all true--except the last.”
“That’s why I came. I wanted to be here, so that if you _did_ come, you might not be disappointed. I had failed you before. I did not want it to happen again. I brought Challón to show me the way. I was coming here again--and again--until you found me.”
He raised her chin and looked into her eyes.
“Dream again, dear.”
“I’m dreaming now,” she sighed. “It is so sweet. Don’t let me wake, Phil. It--it mightn’t be true.”
“Yes, it’s true, all true. You’ll marry me, Jane?”
“Whenever you ask me to.”
He looked away from her down the stream where the sunlight danced in the open.
“I told you once that I would come for you some day--when I had conquered myself,” he said slowly, “when I had made a place among the useful men of the world, when I could look my Enemy in the eye--for a long while and not be defeated--to stare him down until he stole away--far off where I wouldn’t ever find him.”
“Yes.”
“He has gone, Jane. He does not trouble me and will not, I know. It was a long battle, a silent battle between us, but I’ve won. And I’m ready to take you, Jane.”
“Take me, then.”
Her lips were already his.
“You could have had me before, Phil,” she murmured. “I would have fought the Enemy with you he was my Enemy, too, but you would not have me.”
He shook his head.
“Not then. It was my own fight--not yours. And yet if it hadn’t been for you, perhaps I shouldn’t have fought at all.”
She drew away from him a little.
“No--I didn’t help you. I only made it harder. I’ll regret that always. It was your own victory--against odds.”
He smiled.
“What does it matter now. I _had_ to win--not that battle alone--but others.”
“Yes, I know,” she smiled. “Father is mad about you.”
Gallatin threw up his chin and laughed to the sky.
“He ought to be. I’d be mad, too, in his place.”
His joy was infectious, and she smiled at him fondly.
“You’re a very wonderful person, aren’t you?”
“How could a demigod be anything else but wonderful? You created me. Aren’t you pleased with your handiwork?”
“Immensely.”
He paused a moment and then whispered into her ear.
“You’ll marry me--soon?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Whenever you want me, Phil.”
“This summer! They shall leave us here!” he said.
She colored divinely.
“Oh!”
“It can be managed.”
“A wedding in the woods! Oh, Phil!”
“Why not? I’ll see----”
But she put her fingers over his lips and would not listen to him.
“Yes, dear,” he insisted, capturing her hands, “it shall be here. All this is ours--_our_ forest, _our_ stream, _our_ sunlight, yours and mine, _our_ kingdom. Would you change a kingdom for a villa or a fashionable hotel?”
“No, no,” she whispered.
“We will begin life together here--where love began--alone. You shall cook and I shall kill for you, and build with my own hands another shack, a larger one with two windows and a door--a wonderful shack with chairs, a table----”
“And a porcelain bathtub?”
“No--the bath is down the corridor--to the right.”
She had used it.
“It will do,” she smiled. “May I have a mirror?”
“The pool----”
Her lips twisted.
“I tried it once, and fell in. A mirror, _please_,” she insisted.
“Yes--a mirror--then.”
“And a--a small, a very tiny steamer trunk?”
He laughed.
“Oh, yes, and a French maid, smelling salts and a motor----”
“Phil! What shall I cook with?”
“A frying pan and a tin coffeepot.”
“But I can make such beautiful muffins.”
“I’ll build an oven.”
“And cake----”
“We’ll live like gods----”
“Demigods----”
“And goddesses.”
It was sweet nonsense but nobody heard it but themselves.
The shadows lengthened. The patches of light, turned to gold, were lifting along the tree trunks when from the deeps of the ancient forest below them there came three flutelike notes of liquid music of such depth and richness that they sat spellbound. In a moment they heard it again, the three cadenced notes of unearthly beauty and then the pause, while all nature held its breath and waited to hear again.
“The hermit thrush,” he whispered.
“Oh, Phil. It’s from the very soul of things.”
“Sh----”
But they did not hear it again. The hermit thrush, sings seldom and then only to those who belong to the Immortal Brotherhood of the Forest.
THE END
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JOHN FOX, JR.’S STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.
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The “lonesome pine” from which the story takes its name was a tall tree that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of the pine lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the _foot-prints of a girl_. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and the trail of these girlish foot-prints led the young engineer a madder chase than “the trail of the lonesome pine.”
THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME.
Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as “Kingdom Come.” It is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which often springs the flower of civilization.
“Chad.” the “little shepherd” did not know who he was nor whence he came--he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery--a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better than anyone else in the mountains.
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND.
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The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland, the lair of moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner’s son, and the heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened “The Blight.” Two impetuous young Southerners fall under the spell of “The Blight’s” charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the love making of the mountaineers.
Included in this volume is “Hell fer-Sartain” and other stories, some of Mr. Fox’s most entertaining Cumberland valley narratives.
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STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER
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THE HARVESTER.
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“The Harvester,” David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man, with his sure grip on life, his superb optimism, and his almost miraculous knowledge of nature secrets, it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his “Medicine Woods,” and the Harvester’s whole sound, healthy, large outdoor being realizes that this is the highest point of life which has come to him--there begins a romance, troubled and interrupted, yet of the rarest idyllic quality.
FRECKLES.
Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford.
Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with “The Angel” are full of real sentiment.
A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST.
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The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.
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AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.
Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp. Design and decorations by Ralph Fletcher Seymour.
The scene of this charming, idyllic love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love; the friendship that gives freely without return, and the love that seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.
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THE NOVELS OF STEWART EDWARD WHITE
THE RULES OF THE GAME.
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The romance of the son of “The Riverman.” The young college hero goes into the lumber camp, is antagonized by “graft” and comes into the romance of his life.
ARIZONA NIGHTS.
Illus. and cover inlay by N. C. Wyeth.
A series of spirited tales emphasizing some phases of the life of the ranch, plains and desert. A masterpiece.
THE BLAZED TRAIL.
With illustrations by Thomas Fogarty.
A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines.
THE CLAIM JUMPERS. A Romance.
The tenderfoot manager of a mine in a lonesome gulch of the Black Hills has a hard time of it, but “wins out” in more ways than one.
CONJUROR’S HOUSE.
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Dramatized under the title of “The Call of the North.”
“Conjuror’s House” is a Hudson Bay trading post where the head factor is the absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and won a bride on this forbidden land.
THE MAGIC FOREST. A Modern Fairy Tale.
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THE RIVERMAN.
Illus. by N. C. Wyeth and C. Underwood.
The story of a man’s fight against a river and of a struggle between honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the other.
THE SILENT PLACES.
Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin.
The wonders of the northern forests, the heights of feminine devotion, and masculine power, the intelligence of the Caucasian and the instinct of the Indian, are all finely drawn in this story.
THE WESTERNERS.
A story of the Black Hills that is justly placed among the best American novels. It portrays the life of the new West as no other book has done in recent years.
THE MYSTERY.
In collaboration with Samuel Hopkins Adams.
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THE HAPPY FAMILY.
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HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT.
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THE RANGE DWELLERS.
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THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS.
A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among the cowboys of the West, in search of “local color” for a new novel. “Bud” Thurston learns many a lesson while following “the lure of the dim trails” but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, is that of love.
THE LONESOME TRAIL.
“Weary” Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional city life palls on him. A little branch of sage brush, pungent with the atmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of a pair of large brown eyes soon compel his return. A wholesome love story.
THE LONG SHADOW.
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BEN HUR. A Tale of the Christ. By General Lew Wallace.
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THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By General Lew Wallace.
A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, showing, with vivid imagination, the possible forces behind the internal decay of the Empire that hastened the fall of Constantinople.
The foreground figure is the person known to all as the Wandering Jew, at this time appearing as the Prince of India, with vast stores of wealth, and is supposed to have instigated many wars and fomented the Crusades.
Mohammed’s love for the Princess Irene is beautifully wrought into the story, and the book as a whole is a marvelous work both historically and romantically.
THE FAIR GOD. By General Lew Wallace. A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico. With Eight Illustrations by Eric Pape.
All the annals of conquest have nothing more brilliantly daring and dramatic than the drama played in Mexico by Cortes. As a dazzling picture of Mexico and the Montezumas it leaves nothing to be desired.
The artist has caught with rare enthusiasm the spirit of the Spanish conquerors of Mexico, its beauty and glory and romance.
TARRY THOU TILL I COME or, Salathiel, the Wandering Jew. By George Croly. With twenty illustrations by T. de Thulstrup.
A historical novel, dealing with the momentous events that occurred, chiefly in Palestine, from the time of the Crucifixion to the destruction of Jerusalem.
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STORIES OF WESTERN LIFE
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RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE. By Zane Grey.
Illustrated by Douglas Duer.
In this picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago, we are permitted to see the unscrupulous methods employed by the invisible hand of the Mormon Church to break the will of those refusing to conform to its rule.
FRIAR TUCK. By Robert Alexander Wason.
Illustrated by Stanley L. Wood.
Happy Hawkins tells us, in his humorous way, how Friar Tuck lived among the Cowboys, how he adjusted their quarrels and love affairs and how he fought with them and for them when occasion required.
THE SKY PILOT. By Ralph Connor.
Illustrated by Louis Rhead.
There is no novel, dealing with the rough existence of cowboys, so charming in the telling, abounding as it does with the freshest and the truest pathos.
THE EMIGRANT TRAIL. By Geraldine Bonner.
Colored frontispiece by John Rae.
The book relates the adventures of a party on its overland pilgrimage, and the birth and growth of the absorbing love of two strong men for a charming heroine.
THE BOSS OF WIND RIVER. By A. M. Chisholm.
Illustrated by Frank Tenney Johnson.
This is a strong, virile novel with the lumber industry for its central theme and a love story full of interest as a sort of subplot.
A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP. By Harold Bindloss.
A story of Canadian prairies in which the hero is stirred, through the influence of his love for a woman, to settle down to the heroic business of pioneer farming.
JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS. By Harriet T. Comstock.
Illustrated by John Cassel.
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AMELIA E. BARR’S STORIES
DELIGHTFUL TALES OF OLD NEW YORK
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THE BOW OF ORANGE RIBBON.
With Frontispiece.
This exquisite little romance opens in New York City in “the tender grace” of a May day long past, when the old Dutch families clustered around Bowling Green. It is the beginning of the romance of Katherine, a young Dutch girl who has sent, as a love token, to a young English officer, the bow of orange ribbon which she has worn for years as a sacred emblem on the day of St. Nicholas. After the bow of ribbon Katherine’s heart soon flies. Unlike her sister, whose heart has found a safe resting place among her own people, Katherine’s heart must rove from home--must know to the utmost all that life holds of both joy and sorrow. And so she goes beyond the seas, leaving her parents as desolate as were Isaac and Rebecca of old.
THE MAID OF MAIDEN LANE; A Love Story.
With Illustrations by S. M. Arthur.
A sequel to “The Bow of Orange Ribbon.” The time is the gracious days of Seventeen-hundred and ninety-one, when “The Marseillaise” was sung with the American national airs, and the spirit affected commerce, politics and conversation. In the midst of this period the romance of “The Sweetest Maid in Maiden Lane” unfolds. Its chief charm lies in its historic and local color.
SHEILA VEDDER.
Frontispiece in colors by Harrison Fisher.
A love story set in the Shetland Islands.
Among the simple, homely folk who dwelt there Jan Vedder was raised; and to this island came lovely Sheila Jarrow. Jan knew, when first he beheld her, that she was the one woman in all the world for him, and to the winning of her love he set himself. The long days of summer by the sea, the nights under the marvelously soft radiance of Shetland moonlight passed in love-making, while with wonderment the man and woman, alien in traditions, adjusted themselves to each other. And the day came when Jan and Sheila wed, and then a sweeter love story is told.
TRINITY BELLS.
With eight Illustrations by C. M. Relyea.