"Oh, you must cure him of that," laughed the girl. "He is a splendid fellow, and I won't forgive you if you don't marry him before the summer is over."

At that instant Overton opened the door.

"If you are ready now to see me—" he began, and she nodded her head and went toward him, her face a little pale and visibly embarrassed.

Then she turned and went back.

"Come, Toddles," she said; "you come with 'Tana."

A faint flush was tingeing the east, and over the water-courses a silvery mist was spread. She looked out from the window and then up the mountain.

"Let us go out—up on the bluff," she suggested. "I have been shut up in houses so long! I want to feel that the trees are close to me again."

He assented in silence and the child, having appeased its hunger, was disposed to be more gracious, and the little hands were reached to him while she said:

"Up."

He lifted her to his shoulder, where she laughed down in high glee at the girl who walked beside in silence. It was so much easier to plan, while far away from him, what she would say, than to say it.

But he himself broke the silence.

"You call her Toddles," he remarked. "It is not a pretty name for so pretty a child. Has she no other one?"

They had reached the bluff above the camp that was almost a town now. She sat down on a log and wished she could keep from trembling so.

"Yes—she has another one—a pretty one, I think," she said, at last. "It is Gracie—Grace—"

She looked up at him appealingly.

But the emotion in her face made his lips tighten. He had heard so many revelations of her that morning. What was this last to be?

"Well," he said, coldly, "that is a pretty name, so far as it goes; but what is the rest of it?"

"Overton," she said, in a low voice, and his face flushed scarlet.

"What do you mean?" he asked, harshly, and the little one, disliking his tone, reached her arms to 'Tana. "Whose child is this?"

"Your child."

"It is not true."

"It is true," she answered, as decidedly as himself. "Her mother—the woman you married—told me so when she was dying."

He stared at her incredulously.

"I wouldn't believe her even then," he answered. "But how does it come that you—"

"You don't need to claim her, if you don't want to," she said, ignoring all his astonishment. "Her mother gave her to me. She is mine, unless you claim her. I don't care who her father was—or her mother, either. She is a helpless, innocent little child, thrown on the world—that is all the certificate of parentage I am asking for. She shall have what I never had—a childhood."

He walked back and forth several times, turning sometimes to look at the girl, whom the child was patting on the cheek while she put up her little red mouth every now and then for kisses.

"Her mother is dead?" he asked at last, halting and looking down at her.

She thought his face was very hard and stern, and did not know it was because he, too, longed to take her in his arms and ask for kisses.

"Her mother is dead."

"Then—I will take the child, if you will let me."

"I don't know," she said, and tried to smile up at him. "You don't seem very eager."

"And you came back here for that?" he said, slowly, regarding her. "'Tana, what of Max? What of your school?"

"Well, I guess I have money enough to have private teachers out here for the things I don't know—and there are several of them! And as for Max—he didn't say much. I saw Mr. Seldon in Chicago and he scolded me when I told him I was coming back to the woods to stay—"

"To stay?" and he took a step nearer to her. "'Tana!"

"Don't you want me to?" she asked. "I thought maybe—after what you said to me in the cabin—that day—"

"You'd better be careful!" he said. "Don't make me remember that unless—unless you are willing to tell me what I told you that day—unless you are willing to say that you—care for me—that you will be my wife. God knows I never hoped to say this to you. I have fought myself into the idea that you belong to Max. But now that it is said—answer me!"

She smiled up at him and kissed the child happily.

"What shall I say?" she asked. "You should know without words. I told you once I would make coffee for no man but you. Do you remember? Well, I have come back to you for that. And see! I don't wear Max's ring any longer. Don't you understand?"

"That you have come back to me—'Tana!"

"Now don't eat me! I may not always be a blessing, so don't be too jubilant. I have bad blood in my veins, but you have had fair warning."

He only laughed and drew her to him, and she could never again say no man had kissed her.

"'Tana!" said the child, "'ook."

She looked where the little hand pointed and saw all the clouds of the east flooded with gold, and higher up they lay blushing above the far hills.

A new day was creeping over the mountains to banish shadows from the Kootenai land.

THE END



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 dealt 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



ELEANOR H. PORTER'S NOVELS

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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

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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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JOHN FOX, JR'S. STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.

Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

The "lonesome pine" from which the story takes its name was a tall tree that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of the pine lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the footprints of a girl. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and the trail of these girlish footprints led the young engineer a madder chase than "the trail of the lonesome pine."

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as "Kingdom Come." It is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which often springs the flower of civilization.

"Chad," the "little shepherd" did not know who he was nor whence he came—he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in the mountains.

A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND.

Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland; the lair of moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two impetuous young Southerners' fall under the spell of "The Blight's" charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the love making of the mountaineers.

Included in this volume is "Hell fer-Sartain" and other stories, some of Mr. Fox's most entertaining Cumberland valley narratives.

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ZANE GREY'S NOVELS

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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

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

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York

THE END