That Girl Montana
are everything to her, and you don't know it. I knew it before she left,
but--Oh, well, it's all square now, I guess. She won't blame me--after
I'm dead. She knows he deserved it. She knew I meant to kill him, if ever
I was able."
"But why?"
"Don't you know? He was the man--my partner--who took Fannie away. Don't
you--understand?"
"Yes," and Overton, after a moment, shook hands with him.
"I didn't want 'Tana to go back on me--while I lived," he whispered. It
was his one reason for keeping silence--the dread that she could never
talk to him freely, nor ever clasp his hand again; and Overton promised
his wish should be regarded.
When he went to find 'Tana, Mrs. Huzzard had possession of her, and the
two women were seeing that the baby got her "bek-fas," and doing some
talking at the same time.
"And he's got his new boat, has he?" she was saying. "Well, now! And it's
to be a new house next, and a fine one, he says, if he can only get the
right woman to live in it," and she smoothed her hair complacently. "He
thinks a heap of fine manners in a woman, too; and right enough, for he'll
have an elegant home to put one in and she never to wet her hands in
dish-water! But he is so backward like; but maybe this time--"
"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
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.
Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
JOHN FOX, JR'S.
STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.
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