"Every cent. I've been out for myself since I was about fifteen. This is what I've got to show for it."
"And it's a good little stake," said Hess heartily. "I made my own pile, too. That's what I like. Now, I'm going to ask you a personal question: What sort of life have you behind you? You understand me. There must be no comeback where Clyde is concerned. I want a straight answer."
"You'll get it. I've always been too busy to be foolish. My habits are about average—possibly better than average. I'm absolutely healthy. I've not had a day's sickness—bar accidents—since I grew up. There's absolutely no reason why I shouldn't marry Clyde."
"That's the boy!" said old Jim Hess, with satisfaction, gripping his hand again. "Your stock's par with me, remember, and I want you to consider me your friend, even if I am to be a relation by marriage."
Shortly afterward Sheila and Farwell arrived on hard-ridden horses.
"She hustled me right over here," said the latter. "Didn't even give me time to shave. I told her McHale and Sandy were all right, but she had to come to see for herself."
"Seeing that Sandy has eaten six fried eggs with bacon and bread buns to match, I imagine he may be regarded as convalescent," laughed Casey. "Tom has the tobacco trust half broken already."
Sandy McCrae squirmed uneasily in his sister's embrace, finding it embarrassing.
"That's plenty, that's plenty!" he growled. "You'd think I was a sole survivor or something. Say, what are you trying to do—choke me? There, you've kissed me three times already. Ouch! Darn it, don't hug me. My side's sore. Try that hold on Farwell. He looks as if he wouldn't mind."
Casey laughed. Sheila and Farwell reddened. A smothered chuckle from McHale showed that he was enjoying himself. He grinned over Sandy's shoulder.
"Howdy, Miss Sheila? Brothers don't know their own luck. Wisht I had a sister about your size."
"I'll adopt you right now!" she declared, and proceeded to give practical proof of it, somewhat to his confusion.
"You're an awful bluff, Tom," she accused him. "Really, I believe you're bashful with girls. I never suspected it before."
"It's just want of practice," grinned McHale. "Some day when I have time I'm going out to get me a girl like you. There was one down at——"
But Clyde's appearance interrupted McHale's reminiscences. She and Sheila, arms about each other, strolled away to exchange confidences. Casey and Farwell followed.
"We ain't in it," said McHale.
"Well, who wants to be?" said Sandy.
"A few weeks ago," McHale mused, "them two girls warmed up to each other about as much as two wet sticks of wood; and them two sports would have locked horns at the bat of an eye. Look at 'em now! What done it?"
"Does your arm hurt you much?" Sandy asked.
"Sortin' out the hand done it," McHale continued, unheeding. "Each girl finds out that the other ain't organizin' to be hostile. And the men find out that they're playin' different systems; likewise, that each has a good point or two."
"She sure must have been a hard trip for you down from the hills," Sandy commented, with much sarcasm.
"Love," said McHale sentimentally, "is a durn funny thing."
Sandy's disgusted comment consisted of but one word not usually associated with the tender passion. "Well, may be—sometimes," McHale admitted.
It was a merry party that sat down to the best supper Feng could prepare on short notice. Wade was in great form. He outdid himself, keeping up a rapid fire of jokes and conversation. The sheriff, infected by his example, uncovered a vein of unsuspected humour. McHale, who referred to himself as "a temp'rary southpaw," contributed his quota. Sandy was silent and dour, as usual. Jim Hess said little, but he beamed on everybody, enjoying their happiness.
When Sheila insisted that she must go, Casey saddled Dolly for Clyde and Shiner for himself. He rode with Sheila, temporarily relinquishing Clyde to Farwell. A couple of hundred yards behind the others, just free of their dust, they jogged easily side by side.
"Our rides together are about over, Casey," she said, with a little sigh.
"How is that?"
"You know as well as I do. The blessed proprieties are butting in here nowadays; and, besides, we both belong to other people. Dick wants to be married soon. Of course, I'll have to go where he goes. Thank goodness, he hasn't got any people to be my people, and to pass judgment on me."
"I'll be sorry to lose you, Sheila; and I think you'll be sorry to go."
"Yes. I'll miss the rolling country, and the hills to the west, and the long days outdoors. Oh, heavens, how I'll miss them! And yet it's worth while, Casey!"
"I'm awfully glad, for your sake, that you think so much of him, old girl. He's a fine chap—when you get to know him. But I'll miss you. How long is it since we had our first ride together?"
"Seven years—no, eight. I was riding a bad pinto. Dad traded him afterward. You wouldn't let me go home alone. Remember?"
"Of course. Awful brute for a girl to ride!"
"He never set me afoot," she said proudly. "But you'll be leaving here, too, Casey."
"I don't think so."
"Oh, yes, you will. Clyde's money——"
"Hang her money! Don't throw that up to me."
"Nonsense! Don't be so touchy. I wish I had it. You'll go where there are people and things happening. You'll keep the ranch, but Tom will look after it."
"No, no."
"Yes, yes. You won't be idle—you're not that kind—but you'll find other interests, and the money may be a stepping-stone. She's a dear girl, Casey. Be good to her."
"I couldn't be anything else. You needn't tell me I'm not worthy of her; I know it."
"You're worthy of any girl," she said firmly. "Not a bit of hot air, either, old boy. I almost fell in love with you myself."
"By George!" he exclaimed, "there were times when I wondered how much I thought of you."
She laughed, well pleased. "We know the difference now, don't we? What a mistake it would have been! I'm glad we kept these thoughts to ourselves—glad we never played at being in love. Now we can talk without fear of misunderstanding. Somehow, now, the years here seem like a dream to me. Yes, I know they've been busy years, crowded with work for both of us; but just now they don't seem real. We seem—I seem—to be standing at the boundary of a new life. All that is over was just preparation for it—the long days in the sun and the wind, the quiet nights beneath the stars, the big, lonely, brown land, and the hazy blue of the hills. The girl that lived among them seems like a little, dead sister. And yet I love these things. Wherever I go, whatever happens to me, I shall think of them always."
"That's absolutely true. They are in your heart—a part of you. I understand. The little boy that lay on a lake shore years ago and watched the old stone hookers wallowing through the long swells doesn't seem to be Casey Dunne. And yet I can smell the wet sand and the clean lake breezes now. These are the things that keep our hearts young. You were born in the West, Sheila, and I in the East; but the roots of our beings fed on the clean things of the earth that mothered us some thousands of miles apart, and the taste will never be forgotten. In the years to come we will think of the years here as to-night we think of our childhood."
She held out her hand. Gauntlet met gauntlet in the hard grip of comradeship.
"Good-bye, Casey. It's not likely we'll ever talk of these things again. I'm glad you've been a part of my life."
"Good luck to you always, Sheila."
"They've left us behind," she said. "Come on! One last good run, Casey!"
Clyde and Farwell, riding decorously at an easy jog trot, heard the thunder of hoofs behind them, and turned to see the bay and the buckskin sweep past, encouraged by voice and heel.
"She'll kill herself some day," Farwell ejaculated, and he scolded her roundly when they rode up to where she and Casey had finally halted their blown steeds.
"Listen to him!" cried Sheila, in derision. "As if I didn't savvy a horse! All right, my lord, I won't do it again t
ill next time. And now, Casey, you and Clyde must not come any farther. It will be dark before you get back."
"If you want to be rid of us——" he suggested.
"You've been sorry for yourself for the last hour, and you needn't deny it," she retorted.
Clyde and Casey rode slowly homeward through the falling dusk. For the first time since his return they were really alone together. She made him tell her all that had occurred, down to the minutest detail.
"But now there will be no more trouble of any kind," she predicted.
"Thanks to you."
"Thanks to Uncle Jim."
"Both of you. He's a big man—a nation builder—but if his niece hadn't had the good taste to fall in love with me his interest would have been less personal. He wouldn't have got around to a little matter like this for months. Anyway, we bracket you together. Do you know that some of the kids are being taught to pray for you?"
"Not really?"
"Fact. Doctor Swift told me. 'God bless pa, and ma, and Mister Jim Hess, and Miss Burnaby.' That's the formula. Swift predicts that the next batch of christenings will include a 'Yim Hess' Swanson and a 'Clyde Burnaby' Brulé. Such is fame! Think you can stand the dizzy popularity?"
"Lovely!" cried Clyde. "I'll order silver mugs to-morrow, and start a savings account for each baby."
"Go slow!" he laughed. "You'll have 'em all named after you at that rate."
"I'll get the mugs and a spoon, anyway. I never was so flattered before. I've just begun to live since I came out here. Why, Casey, my life was absolutely empty. You can't imagine how lonely and bored I was."
"What a shame! We'll see that it doesn't occur again. Which opens an interesting question: When are you going to marry me?"
"Why—I hadn't thought. I suppose we should think of it."
"Well, it's usual, under the circumstances."
"Next June? I think I should like to be a June bride."
"See here, young lady," said Casey severely, "what sort of a gold brick is this? Are you aware that we are in the fag end of July?"
"It's really not a long engagement. A year soon passes."
"And the years soon pass. I'm not going to be defrauded of a year's happiness. I'll stand for any time in September, but not a day later."
"September! But, my dearest boy, that's only a few weeks."
"That's why I said September."
She laughed happily. "Very well, September. But I'll have a thousand things to do. I'll have to go back with Uncle Jim."
"What's the use? Stay here. Kitty Wade will stay, too. I'll coax her."
"But I've all sorts of things to buy?"
"Order 'em by mail."
"My trousseau by mail!" she exclaimed, in horror. "It would be sacrilege."
"Oh, well, suit yourself," said Casey, with a sigh of resignation. "Thank the Lord it only happens once."
She laughed. "And then there's our honeymoon to plan. Where shall we spend it?"
"It's up to you. Wherever you say."
"You've never been to Europe?"
"No. But I'd rather do my honeymooning where I can ask for what I want with some chance of getting it."
"But I speak French, German, and Italian—not fluently, but well enough to get along on."
"And I talk United States, Chinook, and some Cree—we ought to get along almost anywhere," he laughed. "Let's leave this Europe business open. Now here's a really serious question: When our honeymoon is over—what?"
"I don't understand."
"Where shall we live? I can sell out here, if you like."
"But you wouldn't like?"
"I'd hate to," he admitted.
"I know. So should I. We'll live here, at Chakchak. It shall be our home."
"Would you be contented? It's lonely at times. The winters are long. You'd miss your friends and your old life."
"I ran away from both. I love your country because it's yours. It shall be mine, too. Look!" Away in the distance a tiny point of light twinkled. "There are the lights of Chakchak—our home lights, dear!"
Her hand sought his in the darkness, met, and clasped it. A star shot in a blazing trail across the velvet blackness of the sky. The first breath of the night breeze, cold from the mountain passes, brushed their cheeks. Save for the distant light the world was dark, the land lonely, silent, devoid of life. The great spaces enfolded them, wrapped them in silence as in a vast robe. But the old, sweet song was in their hearts as they rode slowly forward—to the Light!
* * *
STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY
GENE STRATTON-PORTER
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May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list
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LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.
This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie, the older brother whom Little Sister adores, and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery. There is a wedding midway in the book and a double wedding at the close.
THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs.
"The Harvester," David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," and the Harvester's whole being realizes that this is the highest point of life which has come to him—there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic quality.
FRECKLES. Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford.
Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment.
A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda.
The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.
AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp.
The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.
* * *
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
MYRTLE REED'S NOVELS
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May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
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LAVENDER AND OLD LACE.
A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance finds a modern parallel. The story centers round the coming of love to the young people on the staff of a newspaper—and it is one of the prettiest, sweetest and quaintest of old fashioned love stories, * * * a rare book, exquisite in spirit and conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor and spontaneity.
A SPINNER IN THE SUN.
Miss Myrtle Reed may always be depended upon to write a story in which poetry, charm, tenderness and humor are combined into a clever and entertaining book. Her characters are delightful and she always displays a quaint humor of expression and a quiet feeling of pathos which give a touch of active realism to all her writings. In "A Spinner in the Sun" she tells an old-fashioned love story, of a veiled lady who lives in solitude and whose features her neighbors have never seen. There is a mystery at the heart of the book that throws over it the glamour of romance.
THE MA
STER'S VIOLIN.
A love story in a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine "Cremona." He consents to take for his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for technique, but not the soul of an artist. The youth has led the happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American and he cannot, with his meagre past, express the love, the passion and the tragedies of life and all its happy phases as can the master who has lived life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his life—a beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart and home, and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons that life has to give—and his soul awakes.
Founded on a fact that all artists realize.
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AMELIA E. BARR'S STORIES
DELIGHTFUL TALES OF OLD NEW YORK
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May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.
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THE BOW OF ORANGE RIBBON. With Frontispiece.
This exquisite little romance opens in New York City in "the tender grace" of a May day long past, when the old Dutch families clustered around Bowling Green. It is the beginning of the romance of Katherine, a young Dutch girl who has sent, as a love token, to a young English officer, the bow of orange ribbon which she has worn for years as a sacred emblem on the day of St. Nicholas. After the bow of ribbon Katherine's heart soon flies. Unlike her sister, whose heart has found a safe resting place among her own people, Katherine's heart must rove from home—must know to the utmost all that life holds of both joy and sorrow. And so she goes beyond the seas, leaving her parents as desolate as were Isaac and Rebecca of old.
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