THE DREAMS THAT CAME TRUE
The colony from the East had been established, and the harnessed water
was doing the will of man. At the head of the valley, where the
cultivated fields began to widen into a green expanse of gardens and
small farms, Steve Harkness stopped his buggy in the trail and awaited
the coming of another buggy he had seen issue from the town. With
Harkness sat Pearl and Helen, the latter a slender, awkward girl now,
but in the eyes of her father beautiful beyond the power of words to
express. The three were dressed in their best—they had been attending
church. Harkness shook out his handkerchief to wipe his perspiring
face—church services always made him perspire freely—and the scent
of cinnamon drops thickened the air.
“It’s Justin and Lucy coming,” said Pearl.
“Yes, I knowed it was; that’s why I pulled in. I don’t reckon a
handsomer couple rides this valley trail, present company always
accepted. Davison was with ’em at church, but I s’pose he stopped in
town to take dinner with some one.”
Harkness tucked his handkerchief into his pocket and looked down the
valley, where the fruitful fields were smiling. In the midst of the
fields and the gardens were many houses and clumps of shade trees. The
flat-topped mountain behind the town lay against the bosom of the
summer sky like a great cameo. A Sabbath peace was on the land, and a
great peace was in the heart of Steve Harkness.
“It’s nice to have a home,” he declared thoughtfully, as he looked at
the quiet valley, “and it’s nice to see other people have homes. But
until a man is married and has one of his own he don’t know how ’tis.”
Pearl glanced down at her dress of China silk and settled its folds
comfortably and proudly about her.
“I think farming is better than the cattle business, anyway.”
“Yes, farmin’ this way, with irrigation; irrigation with plenty of
water beats rainfall in any country under the sun. I’m satisfied. But
you don’t never hear me saying anything ag’inst the cattle business;
it’s all right, and it will continue in this country fer a good many
years yit. But Paradise Valley was cut out fer farmers and their
homes. I’m always reckonin’ that the Lord understood his business when
he made men and land and cattle. The valleys that can be irrigated fer
the farmers, and the high dry land that can’t be fer the men that want
to raise cattle. And things will always come out right, if you’ll only
give ’em time. It’s been proved right here.”
When, after pleasant greetings, Harkness had driven on, Justin, who
did not care to proceed straight home on that beautiful day, turned
into the trail that led to the higher land on the edge of the mesa,
where the view of the valley was better. Coming out upon the highest
point, they saw the valley spread wide before them, green as an
emerald. The few groves were many times multiplied. On every hand were
homes, girt by gardens and embowered in flowers. Irrigating canals and
laterals glittered like threads of silver. Warrior River, uniting with
Paradise Creek, had furnished means for the transformation of the
desert, and it was literally blossoming as the rose.
Thus surveying the valley, Justin saw the fulfillment of the dream of
the dreamer, Peter Wingate. More, he had the satisfaction of knowing
that in the position he held, that of superintendent and manager of
the irrigating company, he had done his full share in bringing that
dream to its beautiful realization. He had helped to make the one-time
desert bloom. Years had run their course, yet the dream had come true.
He had prospered also, not only financially, but in other ways; he was
in the state senate now, the position Fogg had held. And, though he
was a farmer and irrigator, he was, also, a ranchman.
As he sat thus viewing the smiling valley, with his wife beside him,
seeing there the fulfillment of the dream of the preacher, Justin
turned to her whom he loved best of all in the world. Looking into her
eyes, where wifely love had established itself, he beheld there the
fulfillment of another dream; and beholding it, he bent his head and
kissed her.
“Lucy,” he said, with tender earnestness, “this, too, is Paradise.”
By the Author of “The Rainbow Chasers”
BARBARA, A WOMAN OF THE WEST
By JOHN H. WHITSON
Illustrated by C. C. Emerson. 12mo. $1.50
Third Edition
Barbara, the heroine of Mr. Whitson’s first Western novel, is the
loyal wife of a self-centred man of literary tastes, living on a ranch
in Kansas. “Barbara is a fresh, breezy sort of a girl; and the account
of her life and ultimate happiness, as described by Mr. Whitson, makes
one of the best stories of the season,” says the St. Paul Globe.
“We are carried from one scene to another with an ease and
expeditiousness that plainly betokens the author’s familiarity with
the length and breadth of the Western country, and the people he so
vividly portrays,” says the San Francisco News-Letter.
Hon. John D. Long, ex-Secretary of the Navy, in a letter to the
author, says: “You have the story-teller’s art. I like especially
those portions of the book which treat of Western scenes and
life—the homestead, the plain, the prairie, the pioneer’s experience,
the mining camp, Cripple Creek, and Pike’s Peak. You bring out the
growth of the country, the speculative ups and downs, the mountain
curves of the narrow railroads; and the winter scene with the
dangerous trip over the mountain from Feather Bow is very graphic.”
LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers
BOSTON, MASS.
A Stirring Tale of the Plains
THE RAINBOW CHASERS
By JOHN H. WHITSON
Author of “Barbara, A Woman of the West”
Full of the atmosphere of the West, with Dick Brewster, alias Jackson
Blake, cowboy, land speculator, and lover, for its hero, Mr. Whitson’s
new novel, without being in the least a copy, has many of the
attractions of Mr. Wister’s hero, “The Virginian.”
“The Rainbow Chasers” is a virile American novel with its principal
scenes laid in Western Kansas during the land boom of '85. The male
characters are vigorous men, with red blood in their veins; and the
heroine, Elinor Spencer, is a high-spirited but lovable Western girl.
The Brooklyn Eagle says:—
“It is a picturesque narrative, striking in its portrayal of
conditions that have vanished. It is one of those works of fiction
which, like ‘The Virginian,’ deserve to rank as books of social and
economic history, because of the picturing of conditions, vital while
they existed, that have passed away.”
With 6 illustrations by Arthur E. Becher. 393 pages.
12 mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50
LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers, BOSTON
At all Booksellers
“A Spell-binding Creation”—Lilian Whiling
MYSTERIOUS MR. SABIN
By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
Author of “A Prince of Sinners,” “Anna the Adventuress,” etc.
Illustrated. 397 pages. 12mo. $1.50
Deals with an intrigue of international moment—the fomenting of a war
between Great Britain and Germany and the restoration of the Bourbon
monarchy in France as a consequence. Intensely readable for the
dramatic force with which the story is told, the absolute originality
of the underlying creative thought, and the strength of all the men
and women who fill the pages.—Pittsburg Times.
Not for long has so good a story of the kind been published, and the
book is the more commendable because the literary quality of its
construction has not been slighted. He whose pulses are not
quickened by the tale must be jaded and phlegmatic indeed.—Chicago
Record-Herald.
For a good, grippy story, it is the best of the present season’s
output.—Cleveland Leader.
Mr. Oppenheim possesses the magic art of narration.—New York Herald.
If we forget all else in the story, we will remember Mr. Sabin, and
freely account him a man of mark among the thronging characters of
latter-day literature.—Boston Courier.
LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers, BOSTON
At all Booksellers
A Powerful American Novel
THE VISION OF ELIJAH BERL
By FRANK LEWIS NASON
Author of “The Blue Goose” and “To the End of the Trail”
12mo. Decorated cloth. $1.50
Mr. Nason’s new novel deals with the beginnings of orange growing in
California by irrigation. Elijah Berl, a New Englander, emigrates to
California, and dreams of the time when the barren region in which he
has settled shall “blossom as the rose.” Engineering ambitions, the
formation of a company for the development of the orange industry, the
building of an irrigation dam, and the collapse of a land boom,
furnish the author material for a well-constructed plot.
A Story of Adventure, Intrigue, and Love
A PRINCE OF LOVERS
By SIR WILLIAM MAGNAY
Author of “The Red Chancellor,” etc.
Illustrated by Cyrus Cuneo. 12mo. $1.50
In this new novel by Sir William Magnay, the heroine, “Princess
Ruperta,” a princess of the blood royal, sick of the monotony and
unreality of Court, goes out one night, incognito, with her maid.
Danger unexpectedly threatens her, and when she is gallantly rescued
from this danger by a young and handsome stranger, it is not unnatural
that (betrothed compulsorily as she is for State reasons to a royal
person whom she has never seen) love is born in the heart of the
Princess as well as in that of her unknown rescuer. Then follows a
series of adventures brilliantly imagined and enthrallingly told.
LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers
BOSTON, MASS.
End of Project Gutenberg's Justin Wingate, Ranchman, by John H. Whitson