heavenly content.
“You came to me, Phil,” she whispered. “How? Why?”
“Because you wanted me, because you were waiting for me. Isn’t it so?”
“Yes, I was waiting for you. I came here because I couldn’t stay away.
I--I don’t know why I came--” She paused and her hands tightened on his
shoulders again. “Oh, Phil,” she cried again, “there’s no mistake?”
“No--no.”
“You frightened me so. I thought you were--unreal--a vision--your hat,
your clothes are the same. I thought you were--the ghost of happiness.”
He kissed her tenderly.
“There are no ghosts, Jane, dear. Not even those of unhappiness,” he
murmured. “There is no room for anything in the world but hope and
joy--and love--yours and mine. I love you, dearest. Even when reason
despaired, I loved you most and loved the pain of it.”
“The pain of it--I know.”
She was sobbing now, her slender body quivering under his caress.
“Don’t, Jane,” he whispered. “Don’t cry. Don’t!”
But she smiled up at him through her tears.
“Let me, Phil, I--I’m so happy.”
He soothed her gently and held her close in his arms, her head against
his breast, as he would have held that of a tired child. After a time
she relaxed and lay quiet.
“You’re glad?” he asked.
There was no reply.
“Are you glad?” he repeated.
“Glad! Oh, Phil, I’ve suffered so.”
“Oh, Jane, why? Look at me, dear. It was all a mistake. How could you
have misjudged me?”
She drew away from him and took his head between the palms of her hands
and sought his eyes with her own.
“There was no other?” she asked haltingly.
“No--a thousand times no,” he returned her gaze eagerly. “How could
there be any other?” he asked simply.
She looked long and then closed her eyes and drew his lips down to hers.
“You believe in me--now?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes still closed. “I believe in you. Even if
I didn’t, I would still--still--adore you.”
“God bless you for that. But you _do_ believe----” he persisted.
“Yes, yes, I do believe in you, Phil. I can’t doubt you when you look
at me like that.”
“Then I’ll never look away from you.”
“Don’t look away. Those eyes! How they’ve haunted me. The shadows in
them! There are no shadows now, Phil. They’re laughing at me, at my
feminine weakness, convinced against itself. I thought you were a
ghost.” She held him away and looked at him. “But you’re not in the
least ghostlike. You’re looking very well. I don’t believe you’ve
worried.”
“Nor you. I’ve never seen you looking handsomer. It’s hardly flattering
to my vanity.”
She sighed.
“I’ve lived in Arcadia for three weeks.”
He led her over to the log beside the shack and sat beside her.
“Tell me,” he said at last, “how you came to be here--alone.”
She straightened quickly and peered around.
“But I’m _not_ alone--my guide--he went into the brush for firewood.”
“Curious!”
“He should be back by now.”
“I hope he doesn’t come back.”
“Oh, Phil, so do I--but he will. And you?”
“My guide, Joe Keegón, is there,” and he pointed upstream.
A shade passed over her face.
“But we’ll send them away, Jane, back where they came from. We need no
guides now, you and I, no guides but our hearts, no servants but our
hands. We’ll begin again--where we left off--yesterday.”
She crouched closer in his arms.
“Yesterday. Yes, it was only yesterday that we were here,” she sighed.
“But the long night between!”
“A dream, Jane, a dream--a phantom unhappiness--only this is real.”
“Are you sure? I’m afraid I’ll awaken.”
“No,” he laughed. “See, the fire is just as we left it last night; the
black log charred, the shack, your bed, the two birch trees and your
ridgepole.”
“Yes,” she smiled.
“The two creels and the cooking fish----”
“Oh, those fish! My fish are all in the fire.”
“Do you care?”
“No--I’ll let them burn. But you’ll be good to me, won’t you, Phil?”
There was another long pause. About them the orchestral stillness of
the deep woods, amid which they lived a moment of immortality, all
thought, all speech inadequate to their sweet communion. A venturesome
sparrow perched itself upon Jane’s ridgepole, and after putting its
head on one side in inquiry uttered a low and joyful chirp, and failing
to attract attention flew away to tell the gossip to its mate. The
breeze crooned, the stream sighed and the sunlight kissed the cardinal
flowers, which lifted their heads for its caress. All Nature breathed
contentment, peace and consummation.
But there was much to be said, much mystery to be revealed, and it was
Jane who first spoke. She drew away from him gently and looked out into
the underbrush.
“Phil! Those guides,” she whispered. “They may have seen.”
“Let them. I don’t care. Do you?”
“Ye-s. Let me think. I can’t understand. Why hasn’t Challón come back?
He was here a minute ago--or was it an hour? I don’t know.” Her fingers
struggled with the disorder of her hair as she smiled at him.
“Challón is a myth. I don’t believe you had a guide.”
“A myth, indeed! I wish he was--now. I wanted to go out alone, but
father wouldn’t let me----”
“Mr. Loring!” Gallatin started up. “Oh, of course!” he sighed. “I had
forgotten that there were such things as fathers.”
“But there are--there is--” she laughed, “a perfectly substantial
father within ten miles from here.”
“You’re in camp again--in the same spot?”
She nodded.
“Any one else?” he frowned. “Not Mr. Van Duyn.”
“Oh, dear, no. Coley has gone to Carlsbad.”
He took her by the hand again. “You sent him away?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After ‘Clovelly.’ Oh, Phil, you hurt me so. But I couldn’t stand
seeing him after that.”
“Why?”
“Because, cruel as you were, I knew that you were right and that I was
wrong. I hated you that night--hated you because you made me such a
pitiful thing; but-- Oh, I loved you, too, more than ever. If only you
hadn’t been so hard--so bitter. If you had been gentle then, you might
have taken me in your arms and crushed me if you liked. I shouldn’t
have cared.”
“Sh--that was only in the dream, Jane.” And then: “You never cared for
_him_?” he asked quickly.
“Never.”
“Then why----?”
“My pride, Phil. Poor Coley!”
He echoed the words heartlessly.
“Poor Coley!”
A pause. “Who else is in camp?”
“Colonel Broadhurst, Mr. Worthington, Mr. and Mrs. Pennington----”
“Nellie! Here?”
“Yes, she had never been in the woods before. Why, what is the matter,
Phil?”
Gallatin straightened, one hand to his forehead.
“I have it,” he said.
“Have what?”
“It was Nellie. I might have guessed it.”
“Guessed----?”
“It was _her_ plan--coming up here--to the woods. Before we left New
York she and John Kenyon were as thick as thieves--and----”
“Oh!”
“Good old Uncle John! He did it. I remember now--a hundred things.”
It was Jane’s turn to be surprised.
“Yes--yes. It’s true, Phil. Oh, how cleverly they managed! But how
could Nellie have known that I would come here? I only told Johnny
Challón.”
Phil laughed.
“Nellie Pennington is a remarkable woman. She knew. She knows
everything.”
“Yes, I think she does,” said Jane. “We’ve been in camp a week. I
started with Challón four days ago. He said he had lost the trail, and
I gave it up. This morning--I can see it all now. Father--and Nellie
started me off themselves at sunrise. They knew I’d come here and----”
She stopped and took him abruptly by the arm. “Phil! Those wicked
people had even fixed the day and hour of our meeting.”
He nodded.
“Of course! I wanted to come yesterday, but they wouldn’t let me. If I
had--I should have missed you.”
“Oh--how terrible!”
Her accents were so genuine, her face so distressed at this possibility,
that he laughed and caught her in his arms again.
“But I _didn’t_ miss you, Jane. That’s the point. Even if I had, Nellie
would have managed somehow. She’s an extraordinary woman.”
“She is, Phil. She chaperoned me until Coley was at the point of
exasperation.”
“Quite right of her, too.”
“But why has she taken such an interest in you--in us?”
“Because she’s an angel, because she has the wisdom of the centuries,
because she is a born matchmaker, because she always does what she
makes up her mind to do, and, lastly--and most important, Jane, she has
a proper sense of the eternal fitness of things.”
“That’s true. Nothing else was possible, was it, Phil?”
“No. It was written--a thousand years ago.”
She turned in his arms.
“Have you thought that--always?” she asked.
“I never gave up hoping.”
“Nor I.”
She was silent a moment.
“Phil.”
“What, Jane?”
“Would you have come here to Arcadia, alone, even if----”
“Yes. I would have come here--alone. I was planning it all spring.
This place is redolent of you. Your spirit has haunted it for a year.
I wanted to be here to share it with Kee-way-din, if I couldn’t
have--yourself.”
“What would you have done if I had not been here?”
“I don’t know--waited for you, I think.”
“But it was I--who waited----”
“You didn’t wait long. What were you thinking of, there by the fire?”
“Of my dream.”
“You dreamed of me?”
“Yes. The night we came into camp I dreamed of you. I saw you poling
a canoe upstream. I followed you across a portage. There was a heavy
pack upon your back, but you did not mind the weight, for your step was
light and your face happy. There was a shadow in your eyes, the same
shadow, but your lips were smiling. Night fell and still you toiled in
the moonlight, and I knew that you were coming here. There were voices,
too, and you were singing with them; but I wasn’t afraid, because you
seemed so joyful.”
“I _was_ joyful.”
“I saw the shack--and the ashes of the fire and I saw you coming
through the bushes toward it. But when you came to the fire I was not
there. You called me, but I couldn’t answer. I tried to, but I seemed
to be dumb--and then--and that was all.”
“A dream. It was all true--except the last.”
“That’s why I came. I wanted to be here, so that if you _did_ come,
you might not be disappointed. I had failed you before. I did not want
it to happen again. I brought Challón to show me the way. I was coming
here again--and again--until you found me.”
He raised her chin and looked into her eyes.
“Dream again, dear.”
“I’m dreaming now,” she sighed. “It is so sweet. Don’t let me wake,
Phil. It--it mightn’t be true.”
“Yes, it’s true, all true. You’ll marry me, Jane?”
“Whenever you ask me to.”
He looked away from her down the stream where the sunlight danced in
the open.
“I told you once that I would come for you some day--when I had
conquered myself,” he said slowly, “when I had made a place among the
useful men of the world, when I could look my Enemy in the eye--for
a long while and not be defeated--to stare him down until he stole
away--far off where I wouldn’t ever find him.”
“Yes.”
“He has gone, Jane. He does not trouble me and will not, I know. It was
a long battle, a silent battle between us, but I’ve won. And I’m ready
to take you, Jane.”
“Take me, then.”
Her lips were already his.
“You could have had me before, Phil,” she murmured. “I would have
fought the Enemy with you he was my Enemy, too, but you would not have
me.”
He shook his head.
“Not then. It was my own fight--not yours. And yet if it hadn’t been
for you, perhaps I shouldn’t have fought at all.”
She drew away from him a little.
“No--I didn’t help you. I only made it harder. I’ll regret that always.
It was your own victory--against odds.”
He smiled.
“What does it matter now. I _had_ to win--not that battle alone--but
others.”
“Yes, I know,” she smiled. “Father is mad about you.”
Gallatin threw up his chin and laughed to the sky.
“He ought to be. I’d be mad, too, in his place.”
His joy was infectious, and she smiled at him fondly.
“You’re a very wonderful person, aren’t you?”
“How could a demigod be anything else but wonderful? You created me.
Aren’t you pleased with your handiwork?”
“Immensely.”
He paused a moment and then whispered into her ear.
“You’ll marry me--soon?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Whenever you want me, Phil.”
“This summer! They shall leave us here!” he said.
She colored divinely.
“Oh!”
“It can be managed.”
“A wedding in the woods! Oh, Phil!”
“Why not? I’ll see----”
But she put her fingers over his lips and would not listen to him.
“Yes, dear,” he insisted, capturing her hands, “it shall be here.
All this is ours--_our_ forest, _our_ stream, _our_ sunlight, yours
and mine, _our_ kingdom. Would you change a kingdom for a villa or a
fashionable hotel?”
“No, no,” she whispered.
“We will begin life together here--where love began--alone. You shall
cook and I shall kill for you, and build with my own hands another
shack, a larger one with two windows and a door--a wonderful shack with
chairs, a table----”
“And a porcelain bathtub?”
“No--the bath is down the corridor--to the right.”
She had used it.
“It will do,” she smiled. “May I have a mirror?”
“The pool----”
Her lips twisted.
“I tried it once, and fell in. A mirror, _please_,” she insisted.
“Yes--a mirror--then.”
“And a--a small, a very tiny steamer trunk?”
He laughed.
“Oh, yes, and a French maid, smelling salts and a motor----”
“Phil! What shall I cook with?”
“A frying pan and a tin coffeepot.”
“But I can make such beautiful muffins.”
“I’ll build an oven.”
“And cake----”
“We’ll live like gods----”
“Demigods----”
“And goddesses.”
It was sweet nonsense but nobody heard it but themselves.
The shadows lengthened. The patches of light, turned to gold, were
lifting along the tree trunks when from the deeps of the ancient forest
below them there came three flutelike notes of liquid music of such
depth and richness that they sat spellbound. In a moment they heard it
again, the three cadenced notes of unearthly beauty and then the pause,
while all nature held its breath and waited to hear again.
“The hermit thrush,” he whispered.
“Oh, Phil. It’s from the very soul of things.”
“Sh----”
But they did not hear it again. The hermit thrush, sings seldom and
then only to those who belong to the Immortal Brotherhood of the Forest.
THE END
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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.
[Illustration]
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
_foot-prints of a girl_. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and
the trail of these girlish foot-prints 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 than anyone else in
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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
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STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER
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THE HARVESTER.
Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs.
[Illustration]
“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, with
his sure grip on life, his superb optimism, and his almost miraculous
knowledge of nature secrets, it would be notable. But when the Girl
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of life which has come to him--there begins a romance, troubled and
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FRECKLES.
Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford.
Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which
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The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of
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It is an inspiring story of a life worth while and the rich beauties of
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AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.
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THE RULES OF THE GAME.
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romance of his life.
ARIZONA NIGHTS.
Illus. and cover inlay by N. C. Wyeth.
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ranch, plains and desert. A masterpiece.
THE BLAZED TRAIL.
With illustrations by Thomas Fogarty.
A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who
blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines.
THE CLAIM JUMPERS. A Romance.
The tenderfoot manager of a mine in a lonesome gulch of the Black Hills
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CONJUROR’S HOUSE.
Illustrated Theatrical Edition.
Dramatized under the title of “The Call of the North.”
“Conjuror’s House” is a Hudson Bay trading post where the head factor
is the absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and won a bride on
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THE MAGIC FOREST. A Modern Fairy Tale.
Illustrated.
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open air. Based on fact.
THE RIVERMAN.
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THE SILENT PLACES.
Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin.
The wonders of the northern forests, the heights of feminine devotion,
and masculine power, the intelligence of the Caucasian and the instinct
of the Indian, are all finely drawn in this story.
THE WESTERNERS.
A story of the Black Hills that is justly placed among the best
American novels. It portrays the life of the new West as no other book
has done in recent years.
THE MYSTERY.
In collaboration with Samuel Hopkins Adams.
With illustrations by Will Crawford.
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CHIP, OF THE FLYING U.
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THE HAPPY FAMILY.
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Ananias Green, known as Andy, whose imaginative powers cause many
lively and exciting adventures.
HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT.
A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easterners
who exchange a cottage at Newport for the rough homeliness of a Montana
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THE RANGE DWELLERS.
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page.
THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS.
A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among the
cowboys of the West, in search of “local color” for a new novel. “Bud”
Thurston learns many a lesson while following “the lure of the dim
trails” but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, is that of love.
THE LONESOME TRAIL.
“Weary” Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional
city life palls on him. A little branch of sage brush, pungent with
the atmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of a pair of large
brown eyes soon compel his return. A wholesome love story.
THE LONG SHADOW.
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RE-ISSUES OF THE GREAT LITERARY SUCCESSES OF THE TIME
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BEN HUR. A Tale of the Christ. By General Lew Wallace.
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hardly requires an outline. The whole world has placed “Ben-Hur” on a
height of pre-eminence which no other novel of its time has reached.
The clashing of rivalry and the deepest human passions, the perfect
reproduction of brilliant Roman life, and the tense, fierce atmosphere
of the arena have kept their deep fascination.
THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By General Lew Wallace.
A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, showing, with vivid
imagination, the possible forces behind the internal decay of the
Empire that hastened the fall of Constantinople.
The foreground figure is the person known to all as the Wandering Jew,
at this time appearing as the Prince of India, with vast stores of
wealth, and is supposed to have instigated many wars and fomented the
Crusades.
Mohammed’s love for the Princess Irene is beautifully wrought into the
story, and the book as a whole is a marvelous work both historically
and romantically.
THE FAIR GOD. By General Lew Wallace. A Tale of the Conquest of
Mexico. With Eight Illustrations by Eric Pape.
All the annals of conquest have nothing more brilliantly daring and
dramatic than the drama played in Mexico by Cortes. As a dazzling
picture of Mexico and the Montezumas it leaves nothing to be desired.