An early moon stuck a pallid rim over the crest of the big, hill-like plateau as Parsons sat on his horse in the basin, and Parsons watched it rise in its silvery splendor and bathe the world with an effulgent glow. It threw house and timber on the plateau crest in bold relief, a dark silhouette looming against a flood of shimmering light, and Parsons could see the porch he knew so well, and could even distinguish the break in the timber that led to the house, which merged into the trail that stretched to Dawes.
Parsons was still laboring with the devils of indecision and doubt. He knew why Carrington had captured Marion, and he yearned to take the girl from the man—for her own sake, and for the purpose of satisfying his vengeance. But he knew that certain death awaited him up there should he venture to show himself to Carrington. And yet a certain desperate courage stole into Parsons as he watched from the basin, and when, about half an hour after he had seen the flicker of light filter out of one of the windows of the house, he saw a man emerge, mount a horse, and ride away, he drew a deep breath of resolutionand urged his own horse up the slope. For the man who had mounted the horse up there was Carrington—there could be no doubt of that.
Shivering, though still obeying the courageous impulse that had seized him, Parsons continued to ascend the slope. He went half way and then halted, listening. No sound disturbed the solemn stillness that had followed Carrington’s departure.
Reassured, though by this time he was sweating coldly, Parsons accomplished the remainder of the intervening space upward. Far back in the timber he brought his horse to a halt, dismounted, and again listened. Hearing nothing that alarmed him, except a loud, angry voice from the rear of the house—a voice which he knew as Martha’s—he cautiously made his way to the front porch, tiptoed across it, and peered stealthily into the room out of which the light still shone, its flickering rays stabbing weakly into the outside darkness.
Looking into the room, Parsons could see Marion sitting in a chair. Her hands were bound, and she was leaning back in the chair, her hair disheveled, her face chalk-white, and her eyes filled with a haunting, terrible dread. Near the door, likewise seated on a chair, his back to the big room that adjoined the one in which he sat, was a villainous-looking man who was watching the girl with a leering grin.
The sight brought a murderous passion into Parsons’heart, nerving him for the deed that instantly suggested itself to him. He crept off the porch again, moving stealthily lest he make the slightest sound that would warn the watcher at the door, and searched at a corner of the porch until he found what he was looking for—a heavy club, a spoke from one of the wheels of a wagon.
Parsons knew about where to find it, for during the days that he had sat on the porch nursing his resentment against Carrington, he had gazed long at the wagon-spoke, wishing that he might have an opportunity to use it on Carrington.
He took it, balancing it, testing its weight. And now a hideous terror seized him, almost paralyzing him. For though Parsons had robbed many men, he had never resorted to violence; and for a time he stood with the club in his hand, unable to move.
He moved at last, though, his face transformed from the strength of the passion that had returned, and he carefully stepped on the porch, crossed it, and stood, leaning forward, peering into the room through the outside door left open by Carrington. The outside door opened from the big room adjoining that in which the watcher sat, and Parsons could see the man, who, with his back toward the door, was still looking at Marion.
Entering the big room, Parsons saw Marion’s eyes widen as she looked full at him. He shook his head ather; her face grew whiter, and she began to talk to the other man.
Only a second or two elapsed then until Parsons struck. The man rolled out of his chair without a sound, and Parsons, leaping over him, trembling, his breath coming in great gasps, ran to Marion and unbound her hands.
Together they flew outside, where they found the girl’s horse tethered near a tree, and Parsons’ animal standing where he had left it.
Mounting, the girl whispered to Parsons. She was trembling, and her voice broke with a wailing quaver when she spoke:
“Where shall we go, Elam—where? We—I can’t go back to the Arrow! Oh, I just can’t! And Carrington will be back! Oh! isn’t there anywayto escape him?”
“We’ll go to Dawes, girl; that’s where we’ll go!” declared Parsons, his dread and fear of the big man equaling that of the girl. “We’ll go to Dawes and tell them there just what kind of a man Carrington is—and what he has tried to do with you tonight! There must be some men in Dawes who will not stand by and see a woman persecuted!”
And as they rode the river trail toward the town, the girl, white and silent, riding a little distance ahead of him, Parsons felt for the first time in his life the tingling thrills that come of an unselfish deed courageously performed.And the experience filled him with the spirit to do other good and unselfish deeds.
They rode fast for a time, until the girl again spoke of Carrington’s announced intention to return shortly. Then they rode more cautiously, and it was well they did. For they had almost reached Dawes when they heard the whipping tread of a horse’s hoofs on the trail, coming toward them. They rode well back from the trail, and, concealed by some heavy brush, saw Carrington riding toward the big house. He went past them, vanishing into the shadows of the trees that fringed the trail, and for a long time the girl and Parsons did not move for fear Carrington might have slowed his horse and would hear them. And when they did come out of their concealment and were again on the Dawes trail, they rode fast, with the dread of Carrington’s wrath to spur them on.
Ithadbeen Martha’s voice that Parsons had heard when he had been standing in the timber near the front of the house. The negro woman was walking back and forth in the room where her captor had confined her, vigorously berating the man. She was a dusky thundercloud of wrath, who rumbled verbal imprecations with every breath. Her captor—a small man with a coarse voice, a broken nose, and a scraggy, drooping mustache—stood in the doorway looking at her fiercely, with obvious intent to intimidate the indignant Amazon.
At the instant Parsons heard her voice she was confronting the man, her eyes popping with fury.
“You let me out of heah this minute, yo’ white trash! Yo’ heah! An’ doan’ you think I’s scared of you, ’cause I ain’t! If you doan’ hop away from that do’, I’s goin’ to mash yo’ haid in wif this yere chair! You git away now!”
The man grinned. It was a forced grin, and his face whitened with it, betraying to Martha the fear he felt of her—which she had suspected from the moment he had brought her in and the light from the kitchen lamp shone on his face.
She took a threatening step toward him; a tentative movement, a testing of his courage. And when she saw him retreat from her slightly, she lunged at him, raising the chair she held in her hands.
Possibly the man was reluctant to resort to violence; he may have had a conviction that the detaining of Martha was not at all necessary to the success of Carrington’s plan to subjugate the white girl, or he might have been merely afraid of Martha. Whatever his thoughts, the man continued to retreat from the negro woman, and as she pursued him, her courage grew, and the man’s vanished in inverse ratio. And as he passed the center of the kitchen, he wheeled and ran out of the door, Martha following him.
Outside, the man ran toward the stable. For an instantMartha stood looking after him. Then, thinking Carrington was still in the house, and that there was no hope of her frightening him as she had frightened the little man who had stood guard over her, she ran to where her horse stood, clambered into the saddle, and sent the animal down the big slope toward Mullarky’s cabin, where she hoped to find Mullarky, to send him to the big house to rescue the girl from Carrington.
By the time Bud Hemmingway had finished his grotesque expression of the delight that had seized him, and had got to his knees and was grinning widely at Taylor, the horses of the Arrow outfit were running down the neck of the gorge, their hoofs drumming on the hard floor of the bottom, awakening echoes that filled the gorge with an incessant rumbling clatter that might have caused one to think a regiment of cavalry was advancing at a gallop.
Bud turned his gaze up the gorge and saw them.
“Ain’t they great!” he yelled at Taylor. The leap in Bud’s voice betrayed something of the strained tenseness with which the man had endured his besiegement.
And now that there was an even chance for him, Bud’s old humorous and carefree impulses were again ascendant. He got to his feet, grinning, the spirit of battle in his eyes, and threw a shot at a Keats man, far up on a hillside, who had left his concealment and was running upward. At the report of the rifle the man reeled, caught himself, and continued to clamber upward, another bullet from Bud’s rifle throwing up a dust spray at his feet.
Other figures were now running; the slopes of the hills in the vicinity were dotted with moving black spots as the Keats men, also hearing the clattering of hoofs, and divining that their advantage was gone, made a concerted break for their horses, which they had hidden in a ravine beyond the hills.
Taylor did not do any shooting. While Bud was standing erect among the pile of rocks which had served as a shelter for him during the afternoon, his rifle growing hot in his hands, and picturesque curses issued from his lips, Taylor walked to Spotted Tail and tightened the saddle cinches. This task did not take him long, but by the time it was finished the Arrow outfit had dispersed the Keats men, who were fleeing toward Dawes in scattered units.
Bothwell, big and grim, rode to where Taylor was standing, his voice booming as he looked sharply at Taylor.
“I reckon we got here just in time, boss!” he said. “They didn’t git you or Bud? No?” at Taylor’s grin. “Well, we’re wipin’ them out—that’s all! That Keats bunch can’t run in no raw deal like that on the Arrow—not while I’m range boss. Law? Bah! Every damned man that runs with Keats would have stretched hemp before this if they’d have been any law in the country! A clean-up, eh—that’s what they tryin’ to pull off. Well, watch my smoke!”
His voice leaping with passion, Bothwell slapped his horse sharply, and as the animal leaped down the trail toward Dawes, Bothwell shouted to the other men of the outfit, who had halted at a little distance back in the gorge:
“Come a runnin’, you yaps! That ornery bunch can’t git out of this section without hittin’ the basin trail!”
Bothwell and the others fled down the gorge like a devastating whirlwind before Taylor could offer a word of objection.
As a matter of fact, Taylor had paid little attention to Bothwell’s threats. He knew that the big range boss was in a bitter rage, and he had been aware of the ill-feeling that had existed for some time between Keats and his friends and the men of the Arrow outfit.
But the deserved punishment of Keats was not the burden his mind carried at this instant. Dominating every other thought in Taylor’s brain was the obvious, naked fact that Carrington had struck at him again; that he had struck underhandedly, as usual; and that he would continue to fight with that method until he was victorious or beaten.
And yet Taylor was not so much concerned over the blow that had been aimed at him as he was of its probable effect upon Marion Harlan. For of course the girl had heard of the charge by this time—or she would hear of it. It would be all the same in the end. And at a blowthe girl’s faith in him would be destroyed—the faith that he had been nurturing, and upon which he had built his hopes.
To be sure he had Larry Harlan’s note to show her, to convince her of his innocence, but he knew that once the poison of suspicion and doubt got into her heart, she could never give him that complete confidence of which he had dreamed. She might, now that Carrington had spread his poison, conclude that he had forged the note, trusting in it to disarm the suspicions of herself and of the world. And if she were to demand why he had not shown her the note before—when she had first come to the Arrow—he could not tell her that he had determined never to show it to her, lest she understand that he knew her mother’s sordid history. That secret, he had promised himself, she would never know; nor would she ever know of the vicious significance of that conversation he had overheard between Carrington and Parsons on the train coming to Dawes. He was convinced that if she knew these things she would never be able to look him in the eyes again.
Therefore, knowing the damage Carrington had wrought by bringing the charge of murder against him, Taylor’s rage was now definitely centered upon his enemy. The pursuit and punishment of Keats was a matter of secondary consideration in his mind—Bothwell and the men of the outfit would take care of the man. But Taylor could no longer fight off the terrible rage that had seizedhim over the knowledge of Carrington’s foul methods, and when he mounted Spotted Tail and urged him down the trail toward the Arrow ranchhouse, there was a set to his lips that caused Norton, who had brought his horse to a halt near him, to look sharply at him and draw a quick breath.
Not speaking to Norton, nor to Bud—who had also remained to watch him—Taylor straightened Spotted Tail to the trail and sent him flying toward the Arrow. Taylor looked neither to the right nor left, nor did he speak to Norton and Bud, who rode hard after him. Down the trail at a point where the neck of the gorge broadened and merged into the grass level that stretched, ever widening, to the Arrow, Spotted Tail and his rider flashed past a big cluster of low hills from which came flame-streaks and the sharp, cracking reports of rifles, the yells of men in pain, and the hoarse curses of men in the grip of the fighting rage.
But Taylor might not have heard the sounds. Certainly he could not have seen the flame-streaks, unless he glimpsed them out of the corners of his eyes, for he did not turn his head as he urged Spotted Tail on, speeding him over the great green sweep of grass at a pace that the big horse had never yet been ridden.
Laboring behind him, for they knew that something momentous impended, Norton and Bud tried their best to keep up with the flying beast ahead of them. But thesorrel ridden by Norton, and even the great, rangy, lionhearted King, could not hold the pace that Spotted Tail set for them, and they fell slowly back until, when still several miles from the Arrow, horse and rider vanished into the dusk ahead of them.
Twice descending the long slope leading to the basin, Martha’s horse stumbled. The first time the negro woman lifted him to his feet by jerking sharply on the reins, but when he stumbled the second time, Martha was not alert and the horse went to his knees. Unprepared, Martha was jolted out of the saddle and she fell awkwardly, landing on her right shoulder with a force that knocked the breath out of her.
She lay for a short time, gasping, her body racked with pain, and at last, when she succeeded in getting to her feet, the horse had strayed some little distance from her and was quietly browsing the tops of some saccaton.
It was several minutes before Martha caught the animal—several minutes during which she loosed some picturesque and original profanity that caused the experienced range horse to raise his ears inquiringly.
Then, when she caught the horse, she had some trouble getting into the saddle, though she succeeded after a while, groaning, and grunting, and whimpering.
But Martha forgot her pains and misery once she was in the saddle again, and she rode fast, trembling witheagerness, her sympathies and her concern solely for the white girl who, she supposed, was a prisoner in the hands of the ruthless and unprincipled man that Martha, with her limited vocabulary, had termed many times a “rapscallion.”
Martha headed her horse straight for the Mullarky cabin, guided by a faint shaft of light that issued from one of its windows.
When she reached the cabin she found no one there but Mrs. Mullarky. Ben, Mrs. Mullarky told Martha, had gone to Dawes—in fact, he had been in Dawes all day, she supposed, for he had left home early that morning.
Martha gasped out her news, and Mrs. Mullarky’s face whitened. While Martha watched her in astonishment, she tore off the gingham apron that adorned her, threw it into a corner, and ran into another room, from which she emerged an instant later carrying a rifle.
The Irishwoman’s face was pale and set, and the light of a great wrath gleamed in her eyes. Martha, awed by the woman’s belligerent appearance, could only stand and blink at her, her mouth gaping with astonishment.
“You go right on to the Arrow!” she commanded Martha, as she went out of the door; “mebbe you’ll find somebody there by this time, an’ if you do, send them to the big house. I’m goin’ over there right this minute to take that dear little girl away from that big brute!”
She started while Martha was again painfully mountingher horse, and the two women rode away in opposite directions—Martha whimpering with pain, and Mrs. Mullarky silent, grim, with a wild rage gripping her heart.
Taylor, on Spotted Tail, was approaching the Arrow ranchhouse at a speed slightly greater than that into which the big horse had fallen shortly after he had left the gorge. The spirited animal was just warming to his work, and he was doing his best when he flashed past the big cattle corral, going with the noise of rushing wind. In an instant he was at the long stretch of fence which formed the ranchyard side of the horse corral, and in another instant he was sliding to a halt near the edge of the front porch of the ranchhouse itself. There he drew a deep breath and looked inquiringly at his master, while the latter slid off his back, leaped upon the porch, and with a bound crossed the porch floor, knocking chairs helter-skelter as he went.
The house was dark, but Taylor ran through the rooms, calling sharply for Parsons and Marion, but receiving no reply. When he emerged from the house his face, in the light of the moon that had climbed above the horizon some time before, was like that of a man who has just looked upon the dead face of his best friend.
For Taylor was convinced that he had looked upon death in the ranchhouse—upon the death of his hopes. He stood for an instant on the porch, while his passionsraged through him, and then with a laugh of bitter humor he leaped on Spotted Tail.
Half-way to the Mullarky cabin, with the big horse running like the wind, Taylor saw a shape looming out of the darkness ahead of him. He pulled Spotted Tail down, and loosed one of his pistols, and approached the shape warily, his muscles stiff and taut and ready for action.
But it was only Martha who rode up to him. Her fortitude gone, her pains convulsing her, she wailed to Taylor the story of the night’s tragic adventure.
“An’ Carrington’s got missy in the big house!” she concluded. “She fit him powerful hard, but it was no use—that rapscallion too much fo’ her!”
She shouted the last words at Taylor, for Spotted Tail had received a jab in the sides with the rowels that hurt him cruelly, and, angered, he ran like a deer with the hungry cry of a wolf-pack in his ears.
Like a black streak they rushed by Mrs. Mullarky, who breathed a fervent, “Oh, thank the Lord, it’s Taylor!” and before the good woman could catch her breath again, Spotted Tail and his rider had opened a huge, yawning space between himself and the laboring horse the woman rode.
Riding with all his muscles taut as bowstrings, and a terrible, constricting pressure across his chest—so mighty were the savage passions that rioted within him—Taylorreached the foot of the long slope that led to the big house, and sent Spotted Tail tearing upward with rapid, desperate leaps.
When Carrington reached the big house soon after he had unknowingly passed Marion Harlan and Parsons on the river trail, he was in a sullen, impatient mood.
For no word concerning Keats’s movements had reached Dawes, and Carrington was afflicted with a gloomy presentiment that something had happened to the man—that he had not been able to locate Taylor, or that he had found him and Taylor had succeeded in escaping him.
Carrington did not go at once into the house, for captive though she was, and completely within his power, he did not want the girl to see him in his present mood. Lighting a cigar, and chewing it viciously, he walked to the stable. There, standing in the shadow of the building, he came upon the guard Martha had routed. He spoke sharply to the man, asking him why he was not inside guarding the “nigger.”
The man brazenly announced that Martha had escaped him, omitting certain details and substituting others from his imagination.
“If she hadn’t been a woman, now,” added the man in self-extenuation.
Carrington laughed lowly. “We didn’t needher, anyway,” he said, and the other laughed with him.
The laugh restored Carrington’s good-nature, and he left the man and went into the front room of the house. Had he paused on the porch to listen, or had he glanced toward the big slope that dropped to the basin, he would not have entered the house just then. And hewouldhave paused on the porch had it not been that the intensity of his desires drove him to concentrate all his senses upon Marion.
He crossed the porch and entered the room, and then halted, staring downward with startled eyes at the body of the guard huddled on the floor, a thin stream of blood staining the carpet beneath his head.
Cursing, Carrington stepped into the other room—the room in which he had fought with Taylor—the room in which he had left Marion Harlan bound and sitting on a chair. The lamp on the shelf was still burning, and in its light Carrington saw the rope he had used to bind the girl’s hands.
A bitter rage seized him as he looked at the rope, and he threw it from him, cursing. In an instant he was outside the house and had leaped upon his horse. He headed the animal toward the long slope leading to the Arrow trail, for he suspected the girl would go straight back there, despite any conviction she might have of Taylor’s guilt—for there she would find Parsons, who would give her what comfort he could. Or she might stop at the Mullarky cabin. Certainly she would not go to Dawes,for she must know thatheruled Dawes—Parsons must have told her that—and that if she went to Dawes, she would be merely postponing her surrender to him.
He had plenty of time, even if she were in Dawes, he meditated as he sent his horse over the crest of the slope, for there were no trains out of the town during the night, and if she were not at the Arrow or Mullarky’s, he was sure to catch her later.
He was half-way down the slope, his horse making slow work of threading its way through the gnarled chaparral growth, when, looking downward, he saw another horse leaping up the slope toward him.
In the glare of the moon that was behind Carrington, he could see horse and rider distinctly, and he jerked his own horse to a halt, cursing horribly. For the horse that was leaping toward him like a black demon out of the night was Spotted Tail. And Spotted Tail’s rider was Taylor. Carrington could see the man’s face, with the terrible passion that distorted it, and Carrington wheeled his horse, making frenzied efforts to escape up the slope.
Carrington was not more than a hundred feet from the big black horse and its indomitable rider when he wheeled his own animal, and he had not traveled more than a few feet when he realized that Spotted Tail was gaining rapidly.
Cursing again, though his face was ghastly with the fear that had seized him, Carrington slipped from hishorse, and, running around so that the animal was between him and Taylor, he drew a heavy pistol from a hip-pocket. And when the oncoming horse and rider were within twenty-five or thirty feet of him, Carrington took deliberate aim and fired.
He grinned vindictively as he saw Taylor reel in the saddle, and he fired again, and saw Taylor drop to the ground beside Spotted Tail.
Carrington could not tell whether his second shot had struck Taylor, and before he could shoot again, Taylor dove headlong toward a jagged rock that thrust a bulging shoulder upward. Carrington threw a snapshot at him as he leaped, but again he could not have told whether the bullet had gone home.
Keeping the horse between himself and the rock behind which Taylor had thrown himself, Carrington leaped behind another that stood near the edge of the chaparral clump through which he had been riding when he had seen Taylor coming up the slope. Seeming to sense their danger, both horses slowly moved off out of the line of fire and proceeded unconcernedly to browse the clumps of grass that dotted the side of the slope.
And now began a long, strained silence. Carrington could see Taylor’s rock, but it was at the edge of the chaparral, and Taylor might easily slip into the chaparral and begin a circling movement that would bring him behind Carrington. The thought brought a damp sweatout upon Carrington’s forehead, and he began to cast fearing glances toward the chaparral at his side. He watched it long, and the longer he watched, the greater grew his fear. And at last, at the end of half an hour, the fear grew to a conviction that Taylor was stalking him in the chaparral. No longer able to endure the suspense, Carrington left the shelter of his rock and began to work his way around the edge of the chaparral clump.
Taylor had felt the heat and the shock of Carrington’s first bullet, and he knew it had gone into his left arm. The second bullet had missed him cleanly, and he landed behind the rock, with all his senses alert, paying no attention to his wound.
He had recognized Carrington, and with the cold calm that comes with implacable determination, Taylor instantly began to take an inventory of the hazards and the advantages of his position. And after his examination was concluded, he dropped to his hands and knees and began to work his way into the chaparral.
He moved cautiously, for he knew that should he disturb the rank growth he would disclose his whereabouts to Carrington, should the latter have gained a vantageous point from where he could watch the thicket for just such signs of Taylor’s presence.
But Taylor made no such signs; he had not spent the greater part of his life in the open to be outdone in thisgrim strategy by an eastern man. He grinned wickedly at the thought.
He suspected that Carrington might try the very trick he himself was trying, and that thought made him wary.
Working his way into the thicket, he at last reached a point near its center, upon a slight mound surrounded by stunt oak and quivering aspen. There, concealed and alert, he waited for Carrington to show himself.
Carrington, though, did not betray his presence in the thicket. For Carrington was not in the thicket when Taylor reached its center. Carrington had started into the thicket, but he had not proceeded very far when he began to be afflicted with a dread premonition of Taylor’s presence somewhere in the vicinity.
A clammy sweat broke out on the big man; a panic of fear seized him, and he began to creep backward, out of the thicket. And by the time Taylor reached his vantagepoint, Carrington was crouching at the thicket’s edge, near the rock where he had been concealed, oppressed with a conviction that Taylor was working his way toward him through the thicket.
The big man waited, his nerves taut, his muscles quivering and cringing at the thought that any instant a bullet sent at him by Taylor might strike him. For he knew that Taylor had come for him; he was now convinced that Marion Harlanhadgone to the Arrow, that she had told Taylor what had happened to her, and thatTaylor had come straight to the big house to punish him for his misdeeds.
And Carrington had a dread of the sort of punishment Taylor had dealt him upon a former occasion, and he wanted no more of it. That was why he had used his pistol instantly upon recognizing Taylor. He wished, now, that he had not been so hasty; for he had taken the initiative, and Taylor would not scruple to imitate him.
In fact, he was so certain that at that moment Taylor was creeping upon him from some point with the fury of murder in his heart, that he got to his feet and, looking over the top of the rock, searched with wild eyes for his horse. And when he saw the animal not more than twenty or thirty feet from him, he could not longer resist the panic that had seized him. Crouching, he ran for several yards on his hands and feet and then, nearing his horse, he stood upright and ran for it.
As he ran he cringed, for he expected a pistol-shot to greet his appearance at the side of his horse. But no report came, and he reached the horse, threw himself into the saddle and raced the animal down the slope.
He was conscious of a pulse of elation, for he thought he had eluded Taylor, but just as his horse struck the edge of the big level Carrington looked back, to see Spotted Tail slipping down the slope with a smooth swiftness that terrified the big man.
He turned then and began to ride as he had never ridden before. The animal under him was strong, courageous, and speedy; but Carrington knew he would have need of all those sterling qualities if he hoped to escape the iron-hearted horse Taylor bestrode. And so Carrington leaned forward, trying to lighten the load, slapping the beast’s neck with the palm of his hand, urging him with his voice—coaxing him to the best endeavors. For Carrington knew that somewhere in the vast expanse of grass land and spread before him Keats and his men must be. And his only hope lay in reaching them before the avenger, astride the big horse that was speeding on his trail like a black thunderbolt, could bring his rider within pistol-shot distance of him.
But Carrington had not gone more than half a mile when he realized that the race was to be a short one. Twice after leaving the edge of the slope Carrington looked back. The first time Spotted Tail seemed to be far away; and the next time the big, black animal was so close that Carrington cried out hoarsely.
And then as Carrington felt the distance being shortened—as he felt the presence of the black horse almost at the withers of his own animal—heard the breathing of the big pursuing beast, he knew that he was not to be shot.
Before he could swing his own horse to escape, the big, black horse was beside his own, and one of Taylor’sarms shot out, the fingers gripping the collar of the big man’s coat. Then with a vicious pull, swinging the black horse wide, Taylor jerked Carrington out of the saddle, so that he fell sidewise into the deep grass—while the black horse, eager for a run, and not immediately responding to Taylor’s pull on the reins, ran some feet before he halted and wheeled.
And when he did finally face toward the spot where the big man had been jerked from the saddle, it was to face a succession of flame-streaks that shot from the spot where Carrington stood trying his best to send into Taylor a bullet that would put an end to the horrible presentiment of death that now filled the big man’s heart.
He emptied his pistol and saw the black horse coming steadily toward him, its rider erect in the saddle, seeming not to heed the savagely barking weapon. And when the gun was empty, Carrington threw it from him and began to run. He ran, and with grim mockery, Taylor followed him a little distance—followed him until Carrington, exhausted, his breath coming in great coughing gasps, could run no farther. And then Taylor brought the big black to a halt near him, slid easily out of the saddle, and stepped forward to look into Carrington’s face, his own stiff and set, his eyes gleaming with a passion that made the other man groan hopelessly.
“Now, you miserable whelp!” said Taylor.
He lunged forward and the bodies of the two men madea swaying blot out of which came the sounds of blows, bitter and savage.
The little broken-nosed man laughed a little in recollection of Carrington’s words about Martha. The big man had let him off easily, and he was properly grateful. And yet his gratitude did not prevent him from betraying curiosity; and he watched the front of the house for Carrington’s reappearance, wondering what he meant to do with the white girl, now that he had her.
Still watching the front porch, he saw Carrington run for his horse, leap upon it and sink down the side of the slope.
The little man then ran to the front of the house and, concealed among the trees, watched the duel that was waged in the moonlight. He saw Carrington break from the thicket, mount his horse and race out into the plain; he saw Taylor—for he had recognized him—send Spotted Tail after Carrington. But he did not see the finish of the race, nor did he see what followed. But some minutes later he saw a big, black horse tearing toward him from the spot where the race had ended. He muttered gutturally and profanely, leaped on his horse and sent it plunging down the trail toward Dawes, his face ghastly with fear.
Parsons had always been an unemotional man. His own character being immune to the little twinging impulses of humanness that grow to generous and unselfish deeds, he had looked with derision upon all persons who betrayed concern for their fellow-men. And so Parsons had lived apart from his fellows; he had watched them from across the gulf of disinterest, where emotion was foreign.
But tonight Parsons was learning what emotion is. Not from others, but from himself. Emotions—thousands of them seethed in his brain and heart. He was in an advanced state of hysteria when he rode down the Dawes trail with Marion Harlan. For there was the huge, implacable, ruthless, and murderous Carrington, whom he had just passed on the trail, to menace his very life—and he knew that just as soon as Carrington returned to the big house and found Marion gone and the guard dead, he would ride back to Dawes, seeking vengeance. And Carrington would know it was Parsons who had robbed him of the girl; for Carrington would inquire, and would discover that he had ridden into townwith Marion. And when Parsons and Marion rode into Dawes fear, stark, abject, and naked, was in the man’s soul.
Dawes was aflame with light as the two passed down the street; and Parsons left the girl to sit on her horse in front of a darkened store, while he rode down the street, peering into other stores, alight and inviting. He hardly knew what he did want. He knew, however, that there was little time, for at any minute now Carrington might come thundering into town on his errand of vengeance; and whatever Parsons did must be done quickly.
He chose the second store he came to. He thought the place was a billiard-room until he entered and stood just inside the door blinking at the lights; and then he knew it was a saloon, for he saw the bar, the back-bar behind it, littered with bottles, and many tables scattered around. More, there were perhaps a hundred men in the place—some of them drinking; and at the sight of them all, realizing the mightiness of their number, Parsons raised his hands aloft and screamed frenziedly:
“Men! There’s been a crime committed tonight! At the Huggins house! Carrington did it! He abducted my niece! I want you men to help me! Carrington is going to kill me! And I want you to protect my niece!”
For an instant after Parsons’ voice died in a breathless gasp, for he blurted his story, the words coming in a stream, with hardly a pause between them; there was anodd, strained silence. Then a man far back in the room guffawed loudly:
“Plumb loco. Too much forty-rod!”
There was a half-hearted gale of laughter at the man’s taunt; and then many men were around Parsons, ready to laugh and jeer. And while some of the men peered at Parsons, cynically inspecting him for signs of drunkenness, several others ran to the open door and looked out into the street.
“There’s somethin’ in his yappin’, boys,” stated a man who returned from the door; “there’s a gal out here, sure enough, setting on a hoss, waitin’.”
There was a concerted rush outside to see the girl, and Parsons was shoved and jostled until he, too, was forced to go out. And by the time Parsons reached Marion’s side she had been questioned by the men. And wrathful curses arose from the lips of men around her.
“Didn’t I know he was that kind of a skunk!” shouted a man near Parsons. “I knowed it as soon as he beat Taylor out of the election!”
“I’m for stringin’ the scum up!” yelled another man. “This town can git along without guys that go around abductin’ wimmen!”
There were still other lurid and threatening comments. And many profane epithets rose, burdened with menace, for Carrington. But the girl, humiliated, weak, and trembling, did not hear all of them. She saw other menemerging from doorways—all of them running toward her to join those who had come out of the saloon. And then she saw a woman coming toward her, the men making a pathway for her—a motherly looking woman who, when she came near the girl, smiled up at her sympathetically and reached up her hands to help the girl out of the saddle.
Marion slipped down, and the woman’s arms went around her. And with many grimly pitying glances from the men in the crowd about her, which parted to permit her to pass, she was led into a private dwelling at a little distance down the street, into a cozy room where there were signs of decency and refinement. The woman placed the girl in a chair, and stood beside her, smoothing her hair and talking to her in low, comforting tones; while outside a clamor rose and a confused mutter of many voices out of which she began to catch sentences, such as:
“Let’s fan it to the big house an’ git him!”
“There’s too many crooks in this town—let’s run ’em out!”
“What in hell did he come here for?”
“Judge Littlefield is just as bad—he cheated Taylor out of the election!” “That’s right,” answered another voice. “Taylor’s our man!”
“They are all wrought up over this, my dear,” said the woman. “For a long time there has been an undercurrent of dissatisfaction over the way they cheated Quinton Taylor out of the mayoralty. I don’t think itwas a bit fair. And,” she continued, “there are other things. They have found out that Carrington is behind a scheme to steal the water rights from the town—something he did to the board of directors of the irrigation company, I believe. And he has had his councilmen pass laws to widen some streets and open new ones. And the well-informed call it a steal, too. Mr. Norton has stirred up a lot of sentiment against Carrington and Danforth, and all the rest of them. Secretly, that is. And there is that murder charge against Quinton Taylor,” went on the woman. “That is preposterous! Taylor was the best friend Larry Harlan ever had!”
But the girl turned her head, and her lips quivered, for the mention of Taylor had brought back to her the poignant sense of loss that she had felt when she had learned of the charge against Taylor. She bowed her head and wept silently, the woman trying again to comfort her, while outside the noise and tumult grew in volume—threatening violence.
By the time Marion Harlan had dropped into the chair in the room of the house into which the woman had taken her, the crowd that had collected in the street was packed and jammed against the buildings on each side of it.
Those who had come late demanded to be told what had happened; and some men lifted Parsons to the back of his horse, and with their hands on his legs, bracinghim, Parsons repeated the story of what had occurred. More—yielding to the frenzy that had now taken possession of his senses, he told of Carrington’s plotting against the town; of the man’s determination to loot and steal everything he could get his hands on. He told them of his own culpability; he assured them he had been as guilty as Carrington and Danforth—who was a mere tool, though as unscrupulous as Carrington. He gave them an account of Carrington’s stewardship of his own money; and he related the story of Carrington’s friendship with the governor, connecting Carrington’s trip to the capital with the stealing of the election from Taylor.
It is the psychology of the mob that it responds in some measure to the frenzy of the man who agitates it. So it was with the great crowd that now swarmed the wide street of Dawes. Partisan feeling—all differences of opinion that in other times would have barred concerted action—was swept away by the fervent appeal Parsons made, and by his complete and scathing revelation of the iniquitous scheme to rob the town.
A great sigh arose as Parsons finished and was drawn down, his hat off, his hair ruffled, his eyes gleaming with the strength of the terrible frenzy he was laboring under. The crowd muttered; voices rose sharply; there was an impatient movement; a concerted stiffening of bodies and a long pause, as of preparation.
Aroused, seething with passion, with a vindictive desire for action, swift and ruthless, the crowd waited—waited for a leader. And while the pause and the mutterings continued, the leader came.
It was the big, grim-faced Bothwell, at the head of the Arrow outfit. With his horse in a dead run, the other horses of the outfit crowding him close, Bothwell brought his horse to a sliding halt at the edge of the crowd.
Bothwell’s eyes were ablaze with the light of battle; and he stood in his stirrups, looming high above the heads of the men around him, and shouted:
“Where’s my boss—Squint Taylor?” And before anyone could answer—“Where’s that damned coyote Carrington? Where’s Danforth? What’s wrong here?”
It was Parsons who answered him. Parsons, again clambering into the saddle from which he had spoken, now shrieking shrilly:
“It’s Carrington’s work! He abducted Marion Harlan, my niece. He’s a scoundrel and a thief, and he is trying to ruin this town!”
There was a short silence as Parsons slid again to the ground, and then the man growled profanely:
“Let’s run the whole bunch out of town! Start somethin’, Bothwell!”
Bothwell laughed, a booming bellow of grim mirth that stirred the crowd to movement. “We’ve been startin’somethin’! This outfit is out for a clean-up! There’s been too much sneakin’ an’ murderin’; an’ too many fake warrants flyin’ around, with a bunch like them Keats guys sent out to kill innocent men. Damn their hides! Let’s get ’em—all of ’em!”
He flung his horse around and leaped it between the other horses of the Arrow outfit, sending it straight to the doors of the city hall. Closing in behind him, the other members of the Arrow outfit followed; and behind them the crowd, now able to center its passion upon something definite, rushed forward—a yelling, muttering, turbulent mass of men intent to destroy the things which the common conscience loathes.
It seemed a lashing sea of retribution to Danforth and Judge Littlefield, who were in the mayor’s office, a little group of their political adherents around them. At the first sign of a disturbance, Danforth had attempted to gather his official forces with the intention of preserving order. But only these few had responded, and they, white-faced, feeling their utter impotence, were standing in the room, terror-stricken, when Bothwell and the men of the Arrow outfit, with the crowd yelling behind them, entered the door of the office.
The little, broken-nosed man had done well to leave the vicinity of the big house before Taylor arrived there. For when Taylor emerged from the front room, in whichthe light still burned, his soul was still in the grip of a lust to slay.
He was breathing fast when he emerged from the house, for what he saw there had puzzled him—the guard lying on the floor and Marion gone—and he stood for an instant on the porch, scanning the clearing and the woods around the house with blazing eyes, his guns in hand.
The silence around the house was deep and solemn now, and over Taylor stole a conviction that Carrington had sent Marion to Dawes in charge of some of his men; having divined that he would come for her. But Taylor did not act upon the conviction instantly. He ran to the stable, stormed through it—and the other buildings in the cluster around the ranchhouse; and finding no trace of men or girl, he at last leaped on Spotted Tail and sent him thundering over the trail toward Dawes.
When he arrived in town a swaying, shouting, shooting mob jammed the streets. He brought his horse to a halt on the edge of the crowd that packed the street in front of the city hall, and demanded to know what was wrong.
The man shouted at him:
“Hell’s to pay! Carrington abducted Marion Harlan, an’ that little guy—Parsons—rescued her. An’ Parsons made a speech, tellin’ folks what Carrington an’ Danforth an’ all the rest of the sneakin’ coyotes havedone, an’ we’re runnin’ the scum out of town!” And then, before Taylor could ask about the girl, the man raised his voice to a shrill yell:
“It’s Squint Taylor, boys! Squint Taylor! Stand back an’ let ol’ Squint take a hand in this here deal!”
There was a wild, concerted screech of joy. It rose like the shrieking of a gale; it broke against the buildings that fringed the street; it echoed and reechoed with terrific resonance back and forth over the heads of the men in the crowd. It penetrated into the cozy room of a private dwelling, where sat a girl who started at the sound and sat erect, her face paling, her eyes, glowing with a light that made the motherly looking woman say to her, softly:
“Ah, then youdobelieve in him, my dear!”
It was when the noise and the tumult had subsided that Taylor went to her. For he had been told where he might find her by men who smiled sympathetically at his back as he walked down the street toward the private dwelling.
She was at the door as soon as he, for she had been watching from one of the front windows, and had seen him come toward the house.
And when the motherly looking woman saw them in each other’s arms, the moon and the light from within the house revealing them to her, and to the men in thecrowd who watched from the street, she smiled gently. What the two said to each other will never be known, for their words were drowned in the cheer that rose from hoarse-voiced men who knew that words are sometimes futile and unnecessary.
A month later, Taylor walked to the front door of the Arrow ranchhouse and stood on the threshold looking out over the great sweep of green-brown plain that reached eastward to Dawes.
A change had come over Taylor. His eyes had a gentler light in them—as though they had seen things that had taken the edge off his sterner side; and there was an atmosphere about him that created the impression that his thoughts were at this moment far from violence.
“Mr. Taylor!” said a voice behind him—from the front room. There had been an undoubted accent on the “Mr.” And the voice was one that Taylor knew well; the sound of it deepened the gentle gleam in his eyes.
“Mrs. Taylor,” he answered, imparting to the “Mrs.” exactly the emphasis the voice had placed on the other.
There was a laugh behind him, and then the voice again, slightly reproachful: “Oh, that sounds soawfullyformal, Squint!”
“Well,” he said, “you started it.”
“I like ‘Squint’ better,” said the voice.
“I’m hoping you keep on liking Squint all the days of your life,” he returned.
“I was speaking of names,” declared the voice.
“Doan’ yo’ let her fool yo’, Mr. Squint!” came another voice, “fo’ she think a heap mo’ of you than she think of yo’ name!”
“Martha!” said the first voice in laughing reproof, “I vow I shall send you away some day!”
And then there was a clumping step on the floor, and Martha’s voice reached the door as she went out of the house through the kitchen:
“I’s goin’ to the bunkhouse to expostulate wif that lazy Bud Hemmingway. He tole me this mawnin’ he’s gwine feed them hawgs—an’ he ain’t done it!”
And then Mrs. Taylor appeared at the door and placed an arm around her husband’s neck, drawing his head over to her and kissing him.
She looked much like the Marion Harlan who had left the Arrow on a night about a month before, though there was a more eloquent light in her eyes, and a tenderness had come over her that made her whole being radiate.
“Don’t you think you had better get ready to go to Dawes, dear?” she suggested.
“I like that better than ‘Squint’ even,” he grinned.
For a long time they stood in the doorway very close together. And then Mrs. Taylor looked up with grave eyes at her husband.
“Won’t you please let me look atallof father’s note to you, Squint?” she asked.
“That can’t be done,” he grinned at her. “For,” he added, “that day after I let you read part of it I burnt it. It’s gone—like a lot of other things that are not needed now!”
“But what did it say—that part that you wouldn’t let me read?” she insisted.
“It said,” he quoted, “‘I want you to marry her, Squint.’ And I have done so—haven’t I?”
“Was thatall?” she persisted.
“I’d call that plenty!” he laughed.
“Well,” she sighed, “I suppose that will have to be sufficient. But get ready, dear; they will be waiting for you!” She left him and went into a room, from where she called back to him: “It won’t take me long to dress.” And then, after an interval: “Where do you suppose Uncle Elam went?”
He scowled out of the doorway; then turned and smiled. “He didn’t say. And he lost no time saying farewell to Dawes, once he got his hands on the money Carrington left.” Taylor’s smile became a laugh, low and full of amusement.
Shortly Mrs. Taylor appeared, attired in a neat riding-habit, and Taylor donned coat and hat, and they went arm in arm to the corral gate, where their horses were standing, having been roped, saddled, and bridled by the“lazy” Bud Hemmingway, who stood outside the bunkhouse grinning at them.
“Well, good luck!” Bud called after them as they rode toward Dawes.
Lingering much on the way, and stopping at the Mullarky cabin, they finally reached the edge of town and were met by Neil Norton, who grinned widely when he greeted them.
Norton waved a hand at Dawes. As in another time, Dawes was arrayed in holiday attire, swathed in a riot of color—starry bunting, flags, and streamers, with hundreds of Japanese lanterns suspended festoonlike across the streets. And now, as Taylor and the blushing, moist-eyed woman at his side rode down the street, a band on a platform near the station burst into music, its brazen-tongued instruments drowning the sound of cheering.
“We got that from Lazette,” grinned Norton. “We had to havesomenoise! As I told you the other day,” he went on, speaking loudly, so that Taylor could hear him above the tumult, “it is all fixed up. Judge Littlefield stayed on the job here, because he promised to be good. He hadn’t really done anything, you know. And after we made Danforth and the five councilmen resign that night, and saw them aboard the east-bound the next morning, we made Littlefield wire the governor about what had happened. Littlefield went to the capital shortly afterward and told the governor some things thatastonished him. And the governor appointed you to fill Danforth’s unexpired term. But, of course, that was only an easy way for the governor to surrender. So everything is lovely.”
Norton paused, out of breath.
And Taylor smiled at his wife. “Yes,” he said, as he took her arm, “this is a mighty good little old world—if you treat it right.”
“And if you stay faithful,” added the moist-eyed woman.
“And if you fall in love,” supplemented Taylor.
“And when the people of a town want to honor you,” added Norton significantly.
And then, arm in arm, followed by Norton, Taylor and his wife rode forward, their horses close together, toward the great crowd of people that jammed the street around the band-stand, their voices now raised above the music that blared forth from the brazen instruments.
EDGAR RICE BURROUGH’S NOVELS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
TARZAN THE UNTAMED
Tells of Tarzan’s return to the life of the ape-man in his search for vengeance on those who took from him his wife and home.
JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN
Records the many wonderful exploits by which Tarzan proves his right to ape kingship.
A PRINCESS OF MARS
Forty-three million miles from the earth—a succession of the weirdest and most astounding adventures in fiction. John Carter, American, finds himself on the planet Mars, battling for a beautiful woman, with the Green Men of Mars, terrible creatures fifteen feet high, mounted on horses like dragons.
THE GODS OF MARS
Continuing John Carter’s adventures on the Planet Mars, in which he does battle against the ferocious “plant men,” creatures whose mighty tails swished their victims to instant death, and defies Issus, the terrible Goddess of Death, whom all Mars worships and reveres.
THE WARLORD OF MARS
Old acquaintances, made in the two other stories, reappear, Tars Tarkas, Tardos Mors and others. There is a happy ending to the story in the union of the Warlord, the title conferred upon John Carter, with Dejah Thoris.
THUVIA, MAID OF MARS
The fourth volume of the series. The story centers around the adventures of Carthoris, the son of John Carter and Thuvia, daughter of a Martian Emperor.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK.
ZANE GREY’S NOVELS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
THE MAN OF THE FORESTTHE DESERT OF WHEATTHE U. P. TRAILWILDFIRETHE BORDER LEGIONTHE RAINBOW TRAILTHE HERITAGE OF THE DESERTRIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGETHE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARSTHE LAST OF THE PLAINSMENTHE LONE STAR RANGERDESERT GOLDBETTY ZANE
LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS
The life story of “Buffalo Bill” by his sister Helen Cody Wetmore, with Foreword and conclusion by Zane Grey.
ZANE GREY’S BOOKS FOR BOYS
KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLETHE YOUNG LION HUNTERTHE YOUNG FORESTERTHE YOUNG PITCHERTHE SHORT STOPTHE RED-HEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD’S STORIES OF ADVENTURE
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
THE RIVER’S END
A story of the Royal Mounted Police.
THE GOLDEN SNARE
Thrilling adventures in the Far Northland.
NOMADS OF THE NORTH
The story of a bear-cub and a dog.
KAZAN
The tale of a “quarter-strain wolf and three-quarters husky” torn between the call of the human and his wild mate.
BAREE, SON OF KAZAN
The story of the son of the blind Grey Wolf and the gallant part he played in the lives of a man and a woman.
THE COURAGE OF CAPTAIN PLUM
The story of the King of Beaver Island, a Mormon colony, and his battle with Captain Plum.
THE DANGER TRAIL
A tale of love, Indian vengeance, and a mystery of the North.
THE HUNTED WOMAN
A tale of a great fight in the “valley of gold” for a woman.
THE FLOWER OF THE NORTH
The story of Fort o’ God, where the wild flavor of the wilderness is blended with the courtly atmosphere of France.
THE GRIZZLY KING
The story of Thor, the big grizzly.
ISOBEL
A love story of the Far North.
THE WOLF HUNTERS
A thrilling tale of adventure in the Canadian wilderness.
THE GOLD HUNTERS
The story of adventure in the Hudson Bay wilds.
THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE
Filled with exciting incidents in the land of strong men and women.
BACK TO GOD’S COUNTRY
A thrilling story of the Far North. The great Photoplay was made from this book.
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
FLORENCE L. BARCLAY’S NOVELS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER
A novel of the 12th Century. The heroine, believing she had lost her lover, enters a convent. He returns, and interesting developments follow.
THE UPAS TREE
A love story of rare charm. It deals with a successful author and his wife.
THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE
The story of a seven day courtship, in which the discrepancy in ages vanished into insignificance before the convincing demonstration of abiding love.
THE ROSARY
The story of a young artist who is reputed to love beauty above all else in the world, but who, when blinded through an accident, gains life’s greatest happiness. A rare story of the great passion of two real people superbly capable of love, its sacrifices and its exceeding reward.
THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE
The lovely young Lady Ingleby, recently widowed by the death of a husband who never understood her, meets a fine, clean young chap who is ignorant of her title and they fall deeply in love with each other. When he learns her real identity a situation of singular power is developed.
THE BROKEN HALO
The story of a young man whose religious belief was shattered in childhood and restored to him by the little white lady, many years older than himself, to whom he is passionately devoted.
THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR
The story of a young missionary, who, about to start for Africa, marries wealthy Diana Rivers, in order to help her fulfill the conditions of her uncle’s will, and how they finally come to love each other and are reunited after experiences that soften and purify.
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
ETHEL M. DELL’S NOVELS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
THE LAMP IN THE DESERT
The scene of this splendid story is laid in India and tells of the lamp of love that continues to shine through all sorts of tribulations to final happiness.
GREATHEART
The story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals a noble soul.
THE HUNDREDTH CHANCE
A hero who worked to win even when there was only “a hundredth chance.”
THE SWINDLER
The story of a “bad man’s” soul revealed by a woman’s faith.
THE TIDAL WAVE
Tales of love and of women who learned to know the true from the false.
THE SAFETY CURTAIN
A very vivid love story of India. The volume also contains four other long stories of equal interest.
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
“STORM COUNTRY” BOOKS BY GRACE MILLER WHITE
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
JUDY OF ROGUES’ HARBOR
Judy’s untutored ideas of God, her love of wild things, her faith in life are quite as inspiring as those of Tess. Her faith and sincerity catch at your heart strings. This book has all of the mystery and tense action of the other Storm Country books.
TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY
It was as Tess, beautiful, wild, impetuous, that Mary Pickford made her reputation as a motion picture actress. How love acts upon a temperament such as hers—a temperament that makes a woman an angel or an outcast, according to the character of the man she loves—is the theme of the story.
THE SECRET OF THE STORM COUNTRY
The sequel to “Tess of the Storm Country,” with the same wild background, with its half-gypsy life of the squatters—tempestuous, passionate, brooding. Tess learns the “secret” of her birth and finds happiness and love through her boundless faith in life.
FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING
A haunting story with its scene laid near the country familiar to readers of “Tess of the Storm Country.”
ROSE O’ PARADISE
“Jinny” Singleton, wild, lovely, lonely, but with a passionate yearning for music, grows up in the house of Lafe Grandoken, a crippled cobbler of the Storm Country. Her romance is full of power and glory and tenderness.