"Oh, that!" said he, as if he attached little importance to it.

"He's a millionaire many times over," she reminded him. "He can afford to do it, and he should."

"I may be out of the case entirely before night," he told her, explaining that another physician would arrive on the first train from Cheyenne.

"You know best," said she, resigning hope for his big fee with a sigh.

"Smith will come over with your tent and goods today, very likely," said he, "and then we can leave. I had planned it all along, from the time we used to take those moonlight walks to the river, that we should leave this country together when it came our time to go."

"It would be wrong for you to waste your life here, even if you could make more money than elsewhere, when the world with more people and more pain in it needs you so badly," she encouraged him.

"Just so," he agreed. "It's very well for Smith to stay here, and men of his kind, who have no broader world. They are doing humanity a great service in smoothing the desert and bringing the water into it."

"We will leave it to them," she said.

They tramped across the claim until they came in sight of Hun Shanklin's tent. Its flap was blowing in the wind.

"The old rascal came over to make friends with me," said Slavens. "He claimed that he never lifted his hand against me. There's his horse, trying to make it down the slope to the river. I'll have to catch the beast and take that rope off.

"There's a man over there!" Agnes exclaimed. "Look! There among the rocks to the right of the tent! I wonder who it is?"

Slavens looked where she pointed, just as the man disappeared among the rocks.

"It's the Governor!" she whispered.

"Looked like his coat," he agreed.

"Do you suppose he's——"

"Trying to locate old Shanklin's mine," he said. "That's what he's after. If there's copper on that piece the Governor will get it, even if his son doesn't live to share with him. The difference of a figure or two in the description of a piece of land might be revised on the books, if one had the influence."

The doctor for whom Governor Boyle had sent arrived on the afternoon train from Cheyenne and reached the camp before sunset. He spoke in the highest terms of the manner in which Dr. Slavens had proceeded, and declared that it would be presumptuous meddling for him, or anyone else, to attempt to advise in the case.

Agnes heard his commendation with triumph in her eyes, and Mrs. Boyle gave Dr. Slavens her blessing in a tearful look. The doctor from Cheyenne took up his instrument-case and held out his hand with a great deal more respect in his bearing toward the unknown practitioner than he had shown upon his arrival.

"On vacation here?" he asked, puzzled to find any other excuse for so much ability running wild among the rocks in that bleak place.

"Something like that," answered Slavens noncommittally.

"When you're passing through Cheyenne, stop off and see me," giving Slavens a respectful farewell.

Dr. Slavens advanced several points in the appraisement of Governor Boyle, although, to do the Governor justice, he had seen from the beginning that the wandering physician was a master. Boyle had been weighing men for what they were worth, buying them and selling them, for too many years to place a wrong bet. He told Slavens that unlimited capital was back of him in his fight for Jerry's life, and that he had but to demand it if anything was wanted, no matter what the cost.

Dr. Slavens told him bluntly that his son was in a fix where one man's money would go as far as another's to get him clear, and that it had very little weight in the other end of the scales against the thing they were standing in front of, face to face.

"Save him to me, Doctor! For God's sake save him!" begged the old man, his face bloodless, the weight of his unshored years collapsing upon him and bowing him pitifully.

Again Slavens felt the wonder of this man's softness for his son, but pity was tinctured with the thought that if it had been applied in season to shaping the young man's life, and his conscience, and his sense of justice, it might have commanded more respect. But he knew that this was the opportunity to make the one big chance which the years had been keeping from him. At the start Slavens had told the old man that his son had a chance for life; he had not said how precariously it lay balanced upon the lip of the dark canyon, nor how an adverse breath might send it beyond the brink. The weight of the responsibility now lay on him alone. Failure would bring upon him an avalanche of blame; success a glorious impetus to his new career.

He took a walk down to the river to think about it, and breathe over it, and get himself steadied. When he came back he found Smith there, unloading Agnes' things, soaking up the details of the tragedy with as much satisfaction as a toad refreshing itself in a rain.

Smith was no respecter of office or social elevation. If a man deserved shooting, then he ought to be shot, according to Smith's logic. As he made an excuse to stay around longer by assisting the doctor to raise Agnes' tent, he expressed his satisfaction that Jerry Boyle had received part payment, at least, of what was due him.

"But I tell you," said he to the doctor in confidence, turning a wary eye to see that Agnes was out of hearing just then. "I'm glad he got it the way he did. I was afraid one time that girl over there was goin' to let him have it. I could see it in her eye."

"You can see almost anything in a woman's eye if your imagination is working right," the doctor told him, rather crabbedly.

"You don't need to believe it if you don't want to," returned Smith, somewhat offended, "but I tell you that girl'd shoot a man in a minute if he got too fresh!"

"I believe you're right about that, Smith," agreed the doctor, "so let's you and I be careful that we don't get too fresh."

Smith said no more, but he kept turning his eye upon the doctor as he got his wagon ready to set off on his return, with a good deal of unfriendliness in it. Evidently it had come into his mind only then that Dr. Slavens was assuming a sort of proprietary air around Agnes.

With his foot on the brake and his lines drawn up, Smith looked down and addressed her.

"Well, I don't suppose you'll be back on the river for some time?"

"I expect it will be a long time," she replied, evading exposition of her plans.

"I'll keep my eye on the place for you, and see that them fellers don't cut down your timber," he offered.

She thanked him.

"When you come over that way, take a look at that sign on the front of my store," said Smith, giving her a significant, intimate glance. "The more you see that name in print the better you like it."

With that Smith threw off his brake so suddenly and violently that it knocked a little cloud of dust out of his wagon, laid the whip to his team, and drove off with almost as grand a flourish as he used to execute when setting out from Comanche on the stage.

Mrs. Boyle left her son's side, her husband relieving her, to see that Agnes was supplied with everything necessary. She had pressed Agnes to remain with her—which was well enough in accord with the girl's own inclination—and help her care for her "little boy," as she called him with fond tenderness.

"Isn't she sweet?" whispered Agnes, as Mrs. Boyle went to her own tent to fetch something which she insisted Agnes must have. "She is so gentle and good to be the mother of such a wolf!"

"But what did she think about her precious son going to turn the whole United States out after you because you wouldn't help him pull the plank out from under an unworthy friend?"

"I didn't tell her that," said Agnes, shaking her head. "I told the Governor as we came over, and she isn't to know that part of it."

Their tents made quite a little village, and the scene presented considerable quiet activity, for the Governor had brought a man over from Comanche to serve the camp with fuel and water and turn a hand at preparing the food. Agnes was cook-in-extraordinary to the patient and the doctor. She and Slavens took their supper together that night, sitting beside the fire.

There they talked of the case, and the prospect of the fee, and of the future which they were going to fix up together between them, as confidently as young things half their age. With the promised fee, life would be one way; without it another. But everything was white enamel and brass knobs at the poorest, for there was confidence to give hope; strength and love to lend it color.

Striking the fire with a stick until the sparks rose like quail out of the grass, Dr. Slavens vowed solemnly that he would win that fee or take in his shingle—which, of course, was a figurative shingle only at that time—and Agnes pledged herself to stand by and help him do it as faithfully as if they were already in the future and bound to sustain each other's hands in the bitter and the sweet of life.

"It would mean a better automobile," said he.

"And a better surgery, and a nicer chair for the consulting-room," she added, dreaming with wide-open eyes upon the fire.

"And a better home, with more comfort in it for you."

"Oh, as for that!" said she.

"I've got my eye on a place with old elms in front of it, and moss on the shingles, and a well where you pull the bucket up with a rope over a pulley," said he. "I've got it all laid out and blooming in my heart for that precious mother of yours. It is where mine used to live," he explained; "but strangers are in it now. We'll buy them out."

"It will be such a burden on you. And just at the beginning," she sighed. "I'm afraid, after all, that I'll never be coward enough to consent to it at the last."

"It's out of your hands now, Agnes," said he; "entirely out of your hands."

"It is strange how it has shaped out," she reflected after a little silence; "better, perhaps, than we could have arranged it if we had been allowed our own way. The one unfortunate thing about it seems to be that this case is isolated out here in the desert, where it never will do you a bit of good."

"Except the fee," he reminded her with a gentle smile.

"Oh, the fee—of course."

"But there is a big hurdle to get over before we come to even that."

"You mean——"

She looked at him with a start, the firelight catching her shining eyes.

"The crisis."

"Day after tomorrow," said she, studying the fire as if to anticipate in its necromancy what that day offered to their hopes.

The shadow of that grave contingency fell upon them coldly, and the plans they had been making with childlike freedom of fancy drew away and grew dim, as if such plans never had been. So much depended on the crisis in Jerry Boyle's condition, as so much devolves upon the big if in the life of every man and woman at some straining period of hopes and schemes.

Words fell away from them; they let the fire grow pale from neglect, and gray ashes came over the dwindling coals, like hoarfrost upon the bright salvia against a garden wall. Silence was over the camp; night was deep around them. In Jerry Boyle's tent, where his mother watched, a dim light shone through the canvas. It was so still there on that barren hillside that they could hear the river fretting over the stones of the rapids below the ford, more than half a mile away.

After a while her hand sought his, and rested warm upon it as she spoke.

"It was pleasant to dream that, anyway," said she, giving up a great sigh.

"That's one advantage of dreams; they are plastic material, one can shape them after the heart's desire," he answered.

"But it was foolish of me to mingle mine with yours so," she objected. "And it was wrong and selfish. I can't fasten this dead weight of my troubles on you and drag you back. I can't do that, dear friend."

He started at the word, laying hold of her hand with eager grip.

"Have you forgotten the other word—is that all there is to it?" he asked, bending toward her, a gentle rebuke in his trembling voice.

"There is so much more! so much more!" she whispered. "Because of that, I cannot be so selfish as to dream those splendid dreams again—wait," she requested, as she felt that he was about to speak.

"If I thought only of myself, of a refuge for others and myself, then I would not count the penalty which would attach to you to provide it. But unless we win the Governor's fee, my dear, dear soul, don't you see how impossible it will be for us to carry out even the most modest of our fond schemes?"

"Not at all," he protested.

"It would drag you back to where you were before, only leaving you with a greater burden of worry and expense," she continued, unheeding. "I was rapt, I was deadened to selfish forgetfulness by the sweet music of those dreams. I am awake now, and I tell you that you must not do it, that I shall never permit you to ruin your life by assuming a load which will crush you."

"Agnes, the chill of the night is in your heart," said he. "I will not listen to such folly! Tomorrow, when the sun shines, it will be the same as yesterday. I have it all arranged; you can't change it now."

"Yes. You took charge of me in your impetuous generosity, and I was thoughtless enough to interpose no word. But I didn't mean to be selfish. Please remember above it all that I didn't mean to be selfish."

"I have it all arranged," he persisted stubbornly, "and there will be no turning back. Tomorrow it will not look so gloomy to you. Now, you'd better go to bed."

He rose as he spoke, gave her his hand, and helped her to her feet. As they stood face to face Agnes placed her hand upon his shoulder gravely.

"I am in sober earnest about this, Doctor," said she. "We must not go on with any more planning and dreaming. It may look as if I feared the future with you for my own sake, putting the case as I do, all dependent on the winning of that fee. But you would not be able to swim with the load without that. It would sink you, and that, too, after you have fought the big battle and won new courage and hope, and a new vision to help you meet the world. Unless we weather the crisis, I must ride away alone."

"I'd be afraid of the future without you; it would be so bleak and lonesome," said he simply. He gave her good night before her tent.

"And for that reason," said he, carrying on his thought of a minute before, "we must weather the crisis like good sailormen."



CHAPTER XXI

THE CRISIS

Brave words are one thing, and inflammation in a gunshot wound is another. Infection set up in Jerry Boyle's hurt on the day after that which the doctor had marked as the critical point in his battle for life.

Dr. Slavens was of the opinion that the bullet had carried a piece of clothing into the wound, which it was not able to discharge of itself. An operation for its removal was the one hope of saving the patient, and that measure for relief was attended by so many perils as to make it very desperate indeed.

The doctor viewed this alarming turn in his patient with deep concern, not so much out of sympathy for the sufferer and his parents, perhaps, as on his personal account. The welfare of Jerry Boyle had become the most important thing in life to him, for his own future hinged on that as its most vital bearing.

Agnes was firm in her adherence to the plan of procedure which she had announced. She declared that, as matters stood, she would not become a burden, with all her encumbrances, upon his slender resources. If mischance wrested the promised fee out of his hands, then they must go their ways separately. She repeated her determination to abide by that on the morning when Dr. Slavens announced the necessity of the operation.

Slavens was hurt and disappointed. It seemed that his faith in her suffered a blighting frost.

"In plain words," he charged, "you will refuse to marry me because I am poor."

"There's no other way to put it," she admitted. "But I refuse only out of my boundless esteem and tenderness for you and your success. I am putting down happiness when I do this, and taking up an additional load of pain. But what peace or self-respect would ever be mine again if I should consent to add the burden of two helpless old people to what you will have to carry on your own account?"

"My back is broad enough to be Atlas to your little world," he declared.

"But there's no use strangling success," she argued. "It can't be many years, at the longest, until time and nature relieve my tottering charges of their dependence on me. If you would care to wait, and if I might not be too old——"

"If there's nothing better for it, then we'll wait," he cut in almost sharply. "Do you remember how I showed you to hold that cone?"

She had consented to assist him in the operation to the extent of keeping the patient under the ether after he had administered it.

"This way," said she, placing the cotton-filled paper cone over the nostrils.

From the physician's standpoint, the operation was entirely successful. A successful operation, as the doctor defines it, means that the doctor gets what he starts after. Frequently the patient expires during the operation, but that does not subtract anything from the sum of its success.

In the case of Jerry Boyle the matter wore a brighter aspect all around. The doctor found the bit of coat-lining which the bullet had carried in with it, and removed it. The seat of inflammation was centered around it, as he had foreseen, and the patient was still alive, even though the greater part of the day had passed since the tormenting piece of cloth was removed.

The camp was hushed in the depression of despair. Until that day they had heard Mrs. Boyle's hopeful voice cheering her husband, upon whom the foreboding of disaster seemed to weigh prophetically. Sometimes she had sung in a low voice as she watched beside her son. But now her courage seemed to have left her, and she sat in the tent with the Governor, huddled like two old tempest-beaten birds hiding under a frail shelter which could not shield them from the last bitter blow. They had given the care of their son over to the doctor and Agnes entirely, watching their coming and going with tearful eyes, waiting for the word that would cut the slender stay of hope.

On the afternoon of the second day after the operation, Agnes entered the tent and looked across the patient's cot into Dr. Slavens' tired eyes. He shook his head, holding the sufferer's wrist, his finger on the fluttering pulse. It seemed to Agnes that Boyle had sunk as deep into the shadow of the borderland as human ever penetrated and drew breath. From all appearances he was dead even that moment, and the solemn shake of the head with which the doctor greeted her seemed to tell her it was the end.

She went to her own tent and sat in the sun, which still fell hot and bright. The Governor and his wife had let down the flap of their tent, as if they could no longer bear the pain of watching. Tears came into Agnes' eyes as she waited there in the wreckage of so many human hopes; tears for the mother who had borne that unworthy son, but whose heart was tender for him as if his soul had been without a stain; tears for the old man whose spirit was broken, and tears for herself and her own dreams, and all the tender things which she had allowed to spring within her breast.

After a long time Dr. Slavens came out of the hospital-tent and let the flap down after him. The sun was striking long, slanting shadows across the barrens; the fire was dying out of its touch. Agnes' heart sank as she saw the doctor draw away a little distance, and then turn and walk a little beat, back and forth, back and forth, his head bowed, his hands clasped behind him in an attitude of thorough disappointment and deep gloom. She got up and went to him, a feeling that all was over.

"Never mind," she consoled, lifting her tear-streaked face to meet his haggard look. "You've lost, but I have come to tell you that it makes no difference between us. We will go on with our life together as we planned it; we will take up our dreams."

"Agnes, you have come in good time," said he, lifting his hand to his forehead wearily.

"I am not noble enough to sacrifice my happiness for your good," she continued. "I am too weak and common, and womanly frail for that. I cannot carry out my brave resolution, now that you've lost. We will go away together, according to your plan, and I will live by your plan, always and forever."

"You have come in good time—in good time," said he again, as one speaking in a daze.

Then he drew her to his breast, where her head lay fair and bright, her straying hair, spread like a shattered sunbeam, lifting in the young wind that came from the hills beyond the river.

There she rested against the rock of his strength, his hand caressing her wild tresses, the quiver of her sobbing breast stirring him like a warm and quickening draught.

"You did well to come and tell me this," said he, "for, as I love you, my dear, dear woman, I would not have had you on the other terms. But I have not lost. Jerry Boyle has emerged from the shadow. He will live."

* * * * *

After that day when his adventuring soul strayed so near the portal which opens in but one direction, Boyle's recovery was rapid. Ten days later they loaded him into a wagon to take him to Comanche, thence to his father's home by rail.

Young Boyle was full of the interest of life again, and his stock of audacity did not appear to be in the least diminished by his melancholy experience. He treated Dr. Slavens on the footing of an old friend, and if there was any shame in his heart at his past behavior toward Agnes, his colorless cheeks did not betray it.

With the exception of one flying visit to the capital city of the state, Governor Boyle had remained in camp faithfully since the day of the tragedy. But the slow days in those solitudes were galling to his busy mind once the safety of his boy's life was assured. He became in a measure dictatorial and high-handed in his dealings with the doctor, and altogether patronizing.

Dr. Slavens considered his duty toward the patient at an end on the morning when they loaded him into the spring wagon to take him to Comanche. He told the Governor as much.

"He'll be able to get up in a few days more," said the doctor, "and inside of a month he'll be riding his horse as if daylight never had been let through him."

Governor Boyle took this announcement as the signal for him to produce his checkbook, which he did with considerable ostentation and flourish.

"How much did you expect to get out of this pile of rocks?" he asked the doctor, poising his fountain-pen over the page.

Dr. Slavens colored under the question, which came so sharply and indelicately, although he had rehearsed in his mind for that moment an uncounted number of times. He said nothing, fumbling as he was for a reply.

Jerry, lying back on his cot in the wagon, his head propped up, laughed shortly and answered for him.

"It was about twenty thousand, wasn't it, Doctor?"

"Somewhere around there," admitted Slavens, as if confessing some wild folly.

"Well, I said I'd give you half as much as you expected to get out of it if you pulled Jerry through, and I'm here to keep my word," said the Governor, beginning to write.

Agnes looked at the doctor, indignant amazement in her face. Then she turned to the Governor sharply.

"I beg your pardon, Governor Boyle, but I was present when you made that promise; you said you'd pay him twice as much as he hoped to get out of the claim if he saved Jerry's life," said she.

Governor Boyle raised his eyes with a cold, severe look on his bearded face.

"I beg your pardon!" said he with withering rebuke, which carried with it denial and challenge of proof. That said, he bent to his writing again.

Jerry Boyle laughed.

"Oh, jar loose a little, Governor—be a sport!" he urged.

"Here is my check for ten thousand dollars, Doctor," said the Governor, handing the slip to Slavens; "I consider that pretty good pay for two weeks' work."

The Governor mounted his horse, and gave the driver the word to proceed slowly to the station.

"And if I croak on the road over the Governor'll stop payment on the check," said Jerry facetiously.

"Well, unless you get busy with that little gun of yours and somebody puts another hole through you on the way," the doctor assured him, "I'll make it to the bank door with a perfectly good check in my hand."

Young Boyle held out his hand in farewell, his face suddenly sober and serious.

"The gun has been cached," said he. "I promised mother I'd never sling it on a man again, and I'm going to stick to it. I'm going to get a bill put through the Legislature making it a felony to pack one, if it can be done. I'm cured, Doctor, in more ways than one."

The cavalcade moved off down the winding road. Agnes was ablaze with indignation.

"The idea of that man going back on his solemn word, given in the very presence of death!"

"Never mind; that's the way he made his money, I suppose," said the doctor. "I've got more out of it than I ever expected to get without a row, and I'm going to make a line for that bank in Cheyenne and get the money on his check before he changes his mind. He may get to thinking before he gets home that Jerry isn't worth ten thousand dollars."

As they rode up to the rise of the hill, Agnes reined in and stopped.

"Here is where we changed places on the coach that day when Smith thought there was going to be a fight," she recalled.

"Yes, this is the place," he said, looking around with a smile. "Old Hun Shanklin was up here spying out the land."

"Smith called you to the box to help him, he told me later, because he picked you out as a man who would put up a fight," said she.

"Well, let us hope that he made a good guess," Slavens said, "for here's where we take up the racket with the world again."

"We changed places on the coach that day; you took the post of danger," she reflected, her eyes roaming the browning hills and coming back to his face with a caress in their placid depths.

"Yes," he said, slowly, gravely; "where a man belongs."

Dr. Slavens gathered up his reins to go, yet lingered a little, looking out over the gray leagues of that vast land unfolded with its new adventures at his feet. Agnes drew near, turned in her saddle to view again the place of desolation strewn over with its monumental stones.

"This is my Gethsemane," she said.

"It was cursed and unholy when I came to it; I leave it sanctified by my most precious memory," said he.

He rode on; Agnes, pressing after, came yet a little way behind, content to have it so, his breast between her and the world. And that was the manner of their going from the place of stones.



* * * * *



EDGAR RICE BURROUGH'S NOVELS

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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THE LAMP IN THE DESERT

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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."

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The story of a "bad man's" soul revealed by a woman's faith.

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THE MAN OF THE FOREST THE DESERT OF WHEAT THE U. P. TRAIL WILDFIRE THE BORDER LEGION THE RAINBOW TRAIL THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN THE LONE STAR RANGER DESERT GOLD BETTY ZANE

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KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLE THE YOUNG LION HUNTER THE YOUNG FORESTER THE YOUNG PITCHER THE SHORT STOP THE RED-HEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES

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THE RIVER'S END

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THE GOLDEN SNARE

Thrilling adventures in the Far Northland.

NOMADS OF THE NORTH

The story of a bear-cub and a dog.

KAZAN

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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

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THE DANGER TRAIL

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THE HUNTED WOMAN

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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.

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The story of Thor, the big grizzly.

ISOBEL

A love story of the Far North.

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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



ELEANOR H. PORTER'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

JUST DAVID

The tale of a loveable boy and the place he comes to fill in the hearts of the gruff farmer folk to whose care he is left.

THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING

A compelling romance of love and marriage.

OH, MONEY! MONEY!

Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the dispositions of his relatives, sends them each a check for $100,000, and then as plain John Smith comes among them to watch the result of his experiment.

SIX STAR RANCH

A wholesome story of a club of six girls and their summer on Six Star Ranch.

DAWN

The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him through the gulf of despair into a final victory gained by dedicating his life to the service of blind soldiers.

ACROSS THE YEARS

Short stories of our own kind and of our own people. Contains some of the best writing Mrs. Porter has done.

THE TANGLED THREADS

In these stories we find the concentrated charm and tenderness of all her other books.

THE TIE THAT BINDS

Intensely human stories told with Mrs. Porter's wonderful talent for warm and vivid character drawing.

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.

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Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York



KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list

SISTERS. Frontispiece by Frank Street.

The California Redwoods furnish the background for this beautiful story of sisterly devotion and sacrifice.

POOR, DEAR, MARGARET KIRBY. Frontispiece by George Gibbs.

A collection of delightful stories, including "Bridging the Years" and "The Tide-Marsh." This story is now shown in moving pictures.

JOSSELYN'S WIFE. Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert.

The story of a beautiful woman who fought a bitter fight for happiness and love.

MARTIE, THE UNCONQUERED. Illustrated by Charles E. Chambers.

The triumph of a dauntless spirit over adverse conditions.

THE HEART OF RACHAEL. Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers.

An interesting story of divorce and the problems that come with a second marriage.

THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert.

A sympathetic portrayal of the quest of a normal girl, obscure and lonely, for the happiness of life.

SATURDAY'S CHILD. Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes.

Can a girl, born in rather sordid conditions, lift herself through sheer determination to the better things for which her soul hungered?

MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

A story of the big mother heart that beats in the background of every girl's life, and some dreams which came true.

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Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York



BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are told. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

SEVENTEEN. Illustrated by Arthur William Brown.

No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal young people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent of the time when the reader was Seventeen.

PENROD. Illustrated by Gordon Grant.

This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous, tragic things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a finished, exquisite work.

PENROD AND SAM. Illustrated by Worth Brehm.

Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains some remarkable phases of real boyhood and some of the best stories of juvenile prankishness that have ever been written.

THE TURMOIL. Illustrated by G. E. Chambers.

Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts against his father's plans for him to be a servitor of big business. The love of a fine girl turns Bibbs' life from failure to success.

THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Frontispiece.

A story of love and politics,—more especially a picture of a country editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book lies in the love interest.

THE FLIRT. Illustrated by Clarence P. Underwood.

The "Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's engagement, drives one man to suicide, causes the murder of another, leads another to lose his fortune, and in the end marries a stupid and unpromising suitor, leaving the really worthy one to marry her sister.

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Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York



THE NOVELS OF GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL LUTZ

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

THE BEST MAN

Through a strange series of adventures a young man finds himself propelled up the aisle of a church and married to a strange girl.

A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

On her way West the heroine steps off by mistake at a lonely watertank into a maze of thrilling events.

THE ENCHANTED BARN

Every member of the family will enjoy this spirited chronicle of a young girl's resourcefulness and pluck, and the secret of the "enchanted" barn.

THE WITNESS

The fascinating story of the enormous change an incident wrought in a man's life.

MARCIA SCHUYLER

A picture of ideal girlhood set in the time of full skirts and poke bonnets.

LO, MICHAEL!

A story of unfailing appeal to all who love and understand boys.

THE MAN OF THE DESERT

An intensely moving love story of a man of the desert and a girl of the East pictured against the background of the Far West.

PHOEBE DEANE

A tense and charming love story, told with a grace and a fervor with which only Mrs. Lutz could tell it.

DAWN OF THE MORNING

A romance of the last century with all of its old-fashioned charm. A companion volume to "Marcia Schuyler" and "Phoebe Deane."

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Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York

THE END