Chapter XXIV

Newt Spooner was gone a week, though he had only announced it as his purpose to escort the girl as far as a near-by village.

In three days more, according to the articles of war, his name must be dropped from the company roll, and his status become that of death or desertion. Even if he came back at once, he must face the lesser charge of absence beyond leave.

When the sergeant did return, he bore the marks of jungle travel, and as he reported to his company commander, his face indicated that his explanation would not be merely personal.

Yet Sergeant Spooner was secretive, and asked permission to guide a small force into the hills. He said that he had come upon evidence which would not wait, and he had, therefore, taken the liberty of following it up independently. He believed he could lead a detachment to a place where a party of insurgents were in hiding, and--at this his captain sat up and took notice--although it was a small party, he had information which led him to believe the renegade might be one of the number.

But for such an enterprise Newton Spooner's superiors required no urging. The sergeant said that no considerable force could hope to reach the place unheralded, so two picked squads stole out that same evening, and before dawn of the third day (for they marched only at night and lay hidden while the sun shone) were creeping through the long grass upon a native farm where two nipa houses proclaimed the presence of humanity. They crept cautiously, for though the place had all the seeming of private and peaceful domiciles, they had learned to distrust appearances and to trust Sergeant Newt Spooner's judgment. The spot was very wild and desolate, lying remote from any village. In the gray mists between night and morning it seemed a land of ghosts, with broken hills and jungle closing about it.

As daylight crept to the east, soldiers stood silent and patient at each door and window of each house. It was a strange disposition of troops about thatched houses that lay soundless and wrapped in profound slumber. The lieutenant who had come in command stood at the right of the front door of the larger house, and over against him, on the left, stood Newt Spooner. But each stood with back pressed to wall, so flattened against the uprights that, in that dim light, one coming out of the door would pass them by unseeing. And at each of the other openings the watchers were likewise flattened as though they had been figures in bas-relief fantastically wrought by the builder.

They stood without sound or movement, until, as the light strengthened a little, the door opened and a _mestiza_ girl in slippered feet and partial attire came out, carrying an earthen water-vessel. As she crossed the threshold, looking neither to right nor left, New Spooner's tight-pressed palm shot out and silenced her carmine lips. The officer recognized the girl. He had himself recently turned away unable to watch her sobs for her dead lover, and now he felt an impulse to resent this rough indignity at the hands of the sergeant. But something in the sergeant's face gave him pause, and at the same moment Newt Spooner sternly whispered to his prisoner in Spanish:

"Call him--call him, I tell you!"

For an instant, the girl stood trembling from head to foot, with dumb agony in her eyes. It was evident that she was facing the hardest crisis of her life, and that terror was dominant. As Newt bent forward with threatening hardness in his relentless face, she shrank back against the wall, bowing her head in forced assent, and with the soldier's strong hand still close enough to stifle any unwished-for outcry, she called in quavering, heart-broken Spanish:

"Beloved, come to me. Come _pronto_!"

There followed, at once, a sound of bare feet from inside, and a gigantic, half-clad figure appeared anxiously at the door. It was the figure of a white man; and, as the lieutenant caught its shoulder, and threw his revolver muzzle to its broad chest, he found himself looking into the grave eyes of former Sergeant-Major Peter Spooner, late of the 26th Volunteers.

For an instant, the officer stood too dazed to credit the testimony of his eyes, but, while the Deacon glanced down the barrel of Newt's leveled rifle, and shrugged his shoulders with a low oath, the officer realized that he had under his hand the mysterious renegade.

And then, as the deserter, still gazing into the flinty face of his kinsman, raised his hands in surrender, he coolly turned toward the house, and shouted back in excellent Spanish:

"General, we are captives. Resistance is useless."

In answer to that message, there shortly appeared, framed in the door, the startled countenance of the notorious Rosario himself. Once too often, he had trusted himself with those inconsiderable escorts which had enabled him to pass from place to place without attracting attention.

The detail made its march back to headquarters, taking its prisoners with it, in a semi-dazed condition. Against Rosario they felt little vindictiveness, now that he was captive to their arms. But this other, this sergeant-major who had organized most of them into soldiery back there in the Appalachian hills, with him there was a ghastly difference. He had been a hero, mourned as lost. He had taken the pay of the service and held its highest warrant--and he had been false to his salt, for those tin bars which they roughly stripped from his shoulders.

But, if the command was struck sick with astonishment, Black Pete himself treated them to no show of emotion. He had already considered and weighed what it meant to desert to the enemy in time of war, and he had been taken in attendance upon the enemy's district leader, wearing the enemy's livery. He was already, in effect, dead, and he meant to maintain the stolid silence of death.

And so the detachment marched into headquarters with the grim silence of a funeral cortege, though as yet the corpse walked upright and on its own feet.

No lips were tighter set, and no face more stonily expressionless than that of Sergeant Newton Spooner. His was the capture, his the credit--and, in part, the shame. Between himself and the man who must hang existed the bond of one blood and one name. The smirch upon the regiment was likewise a smirch upon that blood and name.

The struggle in himself had begun from the moment when he found the print of a large boot in the mud, and the disgrace to the service and the regiment had come home to him ... the one form of disgrace which he had ever understood. But the mental sweat was not yet over. It must have its ugly culmination at general court-martial, and when that time came he, Newt Spooner, must say the words upon which conviction would indubitably follow. He knew that in its hideous fulness, had known it from the start, and yet, when the hour came and he took the stand to testify, no voice could have been steadier, and no gaze more unflinching than that with which he held the eyes of the accused.

But the gaze with which the Deacon met his was in no wise weaker. As Black Pete listened to the proceedings in which his life-sands were running out, his eyes were thoughtful and perhaps a shade wistful, but undrooping, and unwavering.

The defendant testified that, when he was captured, they offered him choice between death and a captain's commission. He had chosen the latter. They took him north, and he had talked with Aguinaldo in person. The "President" had received him as an officer and a dignitary. He had beguiled him with hopes of foreign recognition and a filmy vision of ultimate success. The Deacon had held during his life one goal and one ideal. His dream was leadership. He had tired of the warrant of the "non-com." He wished to sit in council with men of higher rank. The experiment had failed. He made no plea.

The hearing before G.C.M. came after the regiment had left the town with the church. It was on a larger parade ground that the united battalions were drawn up at sunset, and the regimental adjutant stepped a pace forward to the colonel's side and "published the order," which announced that Peter Spooner was "to be hanged by his neck till dead."

The lines stood silent as the adjutant's words were read. Black Pete at "the front and center," to be seen of all men, presented a picture quite as uncompromising as he had ever presented before. His contemplative gray eyes bore straight to the front as he stood at attention, and in them slept a thoughtful expression, as though they were looking off beyond horizons hidden to other men, and already piercing the opaque things of life and death.

And Newt Spooner gave his company front a motionless, sternly impersonal figure upon which to gaze. In neither condemned nor informer was there a vestige of tremor as the officers came to the "front and center" and the formation ended.

In the wet mists of a rainy morning, they escorted Black Pete to a scaffold around which ranged, in hollow square, the regiment he had betrayed--and there they hanged him high as Haman. Brooding hills looked down, rain-shrouded, and to their crests at the last moment the condemned man raised his eyes.

There was silence, save for the pelting of rain on iron roofs, until it was broken by noise of the falling trap and the low whip-like snap of the tautened rope. Then the burial detail went out and did its work. Sergeant Newton Spooner returned to his routine duties with a grim taciturnity which did not invite conversation.

* * * * *

It was at Manila, many months later, that Major Henry Falkins again called Sergeant Spooner to battalion headquarters, and spoke with a certain embarrassment:

"Spooner," he inquired slowly, "have you come to realize that one man may bear testimony against another for reasons other than spite?"

A slow flush, brick-red and hot, spread over the bronzed face of the non-commissioned officer.

"I've come to understand a good many things, sir," he replied gravely. "And I've paid for learning them."

"We'll be mustered out before long," suggested Henry Falkins, "but I won't be long out of uniform, I hope. I'm going to stay in the service. Once I promised you a chance--"

Newt Spooner grinned.

"I reckon the uniform's good enough for me, too, sir," he interrupted. Then he added, with a diffidence which all expression of deep feeling brings to the mountaineer: "I reckon, sir, as long as I can serve under you I'll go on reenlisting."

Falkins was a mountaineer, too. He hastily changed the subject.

"Commissions from the ranks are going to men less capable than you--but examinations must be passed. If you'll study, Spooner, I'd like to get behind you and help."

"I've never spoken of that to any man, sir, but I've been thinking about it," announced the sergeant diffidently. "I've been studying for eighteen months."

* * * * *

Not far from the corner of Main and Limestone Streets in Lexington, Kentucky, and almost in the shadow of the Phoenix Hotel, a poster on the sidewalk and a flag from an overhead window proclaimed that "Men were wanted for the United States Army." Out of the door of the building so decorated, one spring morning, when the trees were in delicate new leafage, came a sergeant attached to the recruiting station. He was selected, as many of these men are, for his soldierliness of appearance. Such men are the best advertisement the service can use, and it uses them.

The sergeant was not overly tall, and, though spare, he was by no means lean. His shoulders swung back squarely, and his chest, rounded and strong like a barrel, bore on its olive-drab blouse a sharp-shooter's cross and the Medal of Honor, which must be bestowed by an Act of Congress.

His face was clear-cut and bronzed by tropic sun and ocean winds. In fine, as the sergeant walked to the corner, casting his eyes up and down Limestone Street, he was an inspiriting figure of a man--and a soldier man. He had for the time nothing better to do than to stroll, and as he strolled a flicker of reminiscent amusement brought a pleasant grin to his firm lips. Sergeant Newt Spooner was thinking of the black-clad, lowering-faced boy who years ago hiked through this town, bent on assassination.

As he went along the historic street, where every square held traditions of ante-bellum days, he began to encounter other strollers, college lads in sweaters and caps, and college girls with books. But his eyes finally focused their gaze on a young woman who came out of a house and also turned up the street, walking ahead of him. She was a slim girl in simple gingham, but in her cheeks was an apple-blossom glow and delicacy, and her movements were informed with the lithe grace of out-of-doors. Newt wanted to overtake and accost her. He wanted to see if she would recognize him, changed as he was, as quickly as he had recognized her, who was even more changed.

For this girl looked like some splendid young blossom that had come to flower in open woods, and the soldier saw, with mingled pride and twinging jealousy, that all the boys and men who passed took off their hats with frank ardor in their eyes. This was such a metamorphosed Minerva that he fell into shyness and delayed announcing himself until they had reached the stone gate-posts of the rolling campus, where, under the maples, the macadam road wound up to the college buildings, and the old field-gun of civil-war days looked out over the cadets' drill-ground.

There he plucked up courage to call in a low voice, "M'nervy!" and at the mountain pronunciation, coming unexpectedly from behind, the girl wheeled and stood for a moment, confronting him in a pretty picture of delight and astonishment, while a warm color stole into her cheeks.

"Newty!" she cried, as she held out both hands in greeting. "Where in the world did you spring from?"

They stood there under the maples for a while, and the boy made her talk of herself, and, while they talked, a man, wearing the uniform of a lieutenant of infantry, came down the walk. He was a likeable-looking fellow, well set-up and soldierly, but very young. From his campaign hat to his polished puttees, he was new, new like the lately minted coin that has not long circulated. Lieutenant March was not long from the "Point," and he was at present stationed here as Commandant at the University. The sergeant, with his back turned that way, was deep in conversation with the girl, so that, as he heard a pleasant voice saying, "How are you, Miss Rawlins," he turned just in time to see the officer's lifted hat, and to catch the smile on his lips. But his soldier instinct was now second nature, and in the same glance he saw the "U.S.A." of the collar-ornaments.

At once, Sergeant Newt Spooner stood at attention, his heels together and his hand at his hat-brim in salute. The officer, too, was taking in those things which military men observe. He saw the service stripes and the two medals on the breast, and his eyes brightened. As he returned the salute he cheerily inquired:

"What command, sergeant?"

"Fifty-ninth Infantry, sir; late of the 26th Volunteers."

"Here on leave?"

"Recruiting detail, sir."

The officer's eyes were dwelling on the decorated breast.

"Medal of Honor man," he said. "What service was that, sergeant?"

The girl, whose less-trained eyes had not recognized the import of the little metal disc, flushed with pleasure. Newt flushed, too. It irked him to talk about himself; but the military ethics were ingrained, and he still stood upright, and answered respectfully, but as briefly as possible:

"The islands, sir. Province of Nueva Ecija." When the lieutenant had gone, the sergeant looked down in an embarrassed fashion at the white road.

"Minerva," he said, "I don't know whether it interests you, but I'm studying pretty hard myself. That's why I asked for this detail. That and one other reason. I'm only a non-commissioned officer, and you're almost a school-teacher. I'm on the wrong side of the line, but I've applied for an examination, and, when this term of enlistment is up I've got a good chance of a commission." He saw her looking at his medal, and heard her saying:

"I should think you would have, Newty."

"Oh," he hastened to tell her, "I mean that I've got an influential friend, who's going to help me."

"Who is that, Newty?" she demanded; and, as he answered, the young sergeant flushed.

"The best soldier in the service, Colonel Henry Falkins."

The girl looked down at the pavement and then up at the tender green of the maples. Her only reply was a low, "Oh!" but her voice said more, and presently she added a question:

"You said, Newty--" her eyes now held a challenging twinkle as she spoke--"that there was one other reason why you asked for this--what do you call it?--oh, yes, I know, this detail. What was that reason?"

The sergeant raised his face, and held her eyes with a steady gaze, until her own eyes fell, and her cheeks grew more rosy.

"That reason," he announced boldly, "is that I want plenty of chance to tell you what the reason is."

THE END

* * * * *

JOHN FOX, JR'S.

STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

_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 _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 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.

* * * * *

GROSSET & DUNLAP'S DRAMATIZED NOVELS

THE KIND THAT ARE MAKING THEATRICAL HISTORY

_WITHIN THE LAW._ By Bayard Veiller & Marvin Dana.

Illustrated by Wm. Charles Cooke.

This is a novelization of the immensely successful play which ran for two years in New York and Chicago.

The plot of this powerful novel is of a young woman's revenge directed against her employer who allowed her to be sent to prison for three years on a charge of theft, of which she was innocent.

_WHAT HAPPENED TO MARY._ By Robert Carlton Brown.

Illustrated with scenes from the play.

This is a narrative of a young and innocent country girl who is suddenly thrown into the very heart of New York, "the land of her dreams," where she is exposed to all sorts of temptations and dangers.

The story of Mary is being told in moving pictures and played in theatres all over the world.

_THE RETURN OF PETER GRIMM._ By David Belasco.

Illustrated by John Rae.

This is a novelization of the popular play in which David Warfield, as Old Peter Grimm, scored such a remarkable success.

The story is spectacular and extremely pathetic but withal, powerful, both as a book and as a play.

_THE GARDEN OF ALLAH._ By Robert Hichens.

This novel is an intense, glowing epic of the great desert, sunlit barbaric, with its marvelous atmosphere of vastness and loneliness.

It is a book of rapturous beauty, vivid in word painting. The play has been staged with magnificent cast and gorgeous properties.

_BEN HUR._ A Tale of the Christ. By General Lew Wallace.

The whole world has placed this famous Religious-Historical Romance 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. A tremendous dramatic success.

_BOUGHT AND PAID FOR._ By George Broadhurst and Arthur Hornblow.

Illustrated with scenes from the play.

A stupendous arraignment of modern marriage which has created an interest on the stage that is almost unparalleled. The scenes are laid in New York, and deal with conditions among both the rich and poor.

The interest of the story turns on the day-by-day developments which show the young wife the price she has paid.

* * * * *

GROSSET & DUNLAP'S DRAMATIZED NOVELS

Original, sincere and courageous--often amusing--the kind that are making theatrical history.

MADAME X. By Alexandre Bisson and J. W. McConaughy. Illustrated with scenes from the play.

A beautiful Parisienne became an outcast because her husband would not forgive an error of her youth. Her love for her son is the great final influence in her career. A tremendous dramatic success.

THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. By Robert Hichens.

An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable stranger meet and love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged this season with magnificent cast and gorgeous properties.

THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By Lew. Wallace.

A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, presenting with extraordinary power the siege of Constantinople, and lighting its tragedy with the warm underglow of an Oriental romance. As a play it is a great dramatic spectacle.

TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illust. by Howard Chandler Christy.

A girl from the dregs of society, loves a young Cornell University student, and it works startling changes in her life and the lives of those about her. The dramatic version is one of the sensations of the season.

YOUNG WALLINGFORD. By George Randolph Chester. Illust. by F. R. Gruger and Henry Raleigh.

A series of clever swindles conducted by a cheerful young man, each of which is just on the safe side of a State's prison offence. As "Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford," it is probably the most amusing expose of money manipulation ever seen on the stage.

THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY. By P. G. Wodehouse. Illustrations by Will Grefe.

Social and club life in London and New York, an amateur burglary adventure and a love story. Dramatized under the title of "A Gentleman of Leisure," it furnishes hours of laughter to the play-goers.

* * * * *

B. M. Bower's Novels

Thrilling Western Romances

Large 12 mos. Handsomely bound in cloth.

Illustrated

_CHIP, OF THE FLYING U_

A breezy wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Della Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very amusing. A clever, realistic story of the American Cow-puncher.

_THE HAPPY FAMILY_

A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures of eighteen jovial, big hearted Montana cowboys. Foremost amongst them, we find 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 ranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the fascinating Beatrice, and the effusive Sir Redmond, become living, breathing personalities.

_THE RANGE DWELLERS_

Here are everyday, genuine cowboys, just as they really exist. Spirited action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Juliet courtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining story, without a dull 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_

A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free, outdoor, life of a mountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play the game of life fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story from start to finish.

* * * * *

THE NOVELS OF

STEWART EDWARD WHITE

_THE RULES OF THE GAME._ Illustrated by Lajaren A. Hiller

The romance of the son of "The Riverman." The young college hero goes into the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft" and comes into the romance of his life.

_ARIZONA NIGHTS._ Illus. and cover inlay by N. C. Wyeth.

A series of spirited tales emphasizing some phases of the life of the 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 has a hard time of it, but "wins out" in more ways than one.

_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 this forbidden land.

_THE MAGIC FOREST._ A Modern Fairy Tale. Illustrated.

The sympathetic way in which the children of the wild and their life is treated could only belong to one who is in love with the forest and open air. Based on fact.

_THE RIVERMAN._ Illus. by N. C. Wyeth and C. Underwood.

The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the other.

_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.

The disappearance of three successive crews from the stout ship "Laughing Lass" in mid-Pacific, is a mystery weird and inscrutable. In the solution, there is a story of the most exciting voyage that man ever undertook.

* * * * *

STORIES OF WESTERN LIFE

_RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE_, By Zane Grey.

Illustrated by Douglas Duer.

In this picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago, we are permitted to see the unscrupulous methods employed by the invisible hand of the Mormon Church to break the will of those refusing to conform to its rule.

_FRIAR TUCK_, By Robert Alexander Wason.

Illustrated by Stanley L. Wood.

Happy Hawkins tells us, in his humorous way, how Friar Tuck lived among the Cowboys, how he adjusted their quarrels and love affairs and how he fought with them and for them when occasion required.

_THE SKY PILOT_, By Ralph Connor.

Illustrated by Louis Rhead.

There is no novel, dealing with the rough existence of cowboys, so charming in the telling, abounding as it does with the freshest and the truest pathos.

_THE EMIGRANT TRAIL_, By Geraldine Bonner.

Colored frontispiece by John Rae.

The book relates the adventures of a party on its overland pilgrimage, and the birth and growth of the absorbing love of two strong men for a charming heroine.

_THE BOSS OF WIND RIVER_, By A. M. Chisholm. Illustrated by Frank Tenney Johnson.

This is a strong, virile novel with the lumber industry for its central theme and a love story full of interest as a sort of subplot.

_A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP_, By Harold Bindloss.

A story of Canadian prairies in which the hero is stirred, through the influence of his love for a woman, to settle down to the heroic business of pioneer farming.

_JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS_, By Harriet T. Comstock. Illustrated by John Cassel.

A story of the deep woods that shows the power of love at work among its primitive dwellers. It is a tensely moving study of the human heart and its aspirations that unfolds itself through thrilling situations and dramatic developments.

* * * * *

CHARMING BOOKS FOR GIRLS

_WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE_, By Jean Webster.

Illustrated by C. D. Williams.

One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been written. It is bright, whimsical and entertaining, lifelike, laughable and thoroughly human.

_JUST PATTY_, By Jean Webster.

Illustrated by C. M. Relyea.

Patty is full of the joy of living, fun-loving, given to ingenious mischief for its own sake, with a disregard for pretty convention which is an unfailing source of joy to her fellows.

_THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL_, By Eleanor Gates.

With four full page illustrations.

This story relates the experience of one of those unfortunate children whose early days are passed in the companionship of a governess, seldom seeing either parent, and famishing for natural love and tenderness. A charming play as dramatized by the author.

_REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM_, By Kate Douglas Wiggin.

One of the most beautiful studies of childhood--Rebecca's artistic, unusual and quaintly charming qualities stand out midst a circle of austere New Englanders. The stage version is making a phenomenal dramatic record.

NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas Wiggin.

Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

Additional episodes in the girlhood of this delightful heroine that carry Rebecca through various stages to her eighteenth birthday.

_REBECCA MARY_, By Annie Hamilton Donnell. Illustrated by Elizabeth Shippen Green.

This author possesses the rare gift of portraying all the grotesque little joys and sorrows and scruples of this very small girl with a pathos that is peculiarly genuine and appealing.

_EMMY LOU_, Her Book and Heart, By George Madden Martin.

Illustrated by Charles Louis Hinton.

Emmy Lou is irresistibly lovable, because she is so absolutely real. She is just a bewitchingly innocent, hugable little maid. The book is wonderfully human.

* * * * *

STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER

_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, 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 comes to his "Medicine Woods," and the Harvester's whole sound, healthy, large outdoor being realizes that this is the highest point of life which has come to him--there begins a romance, troubled and interrupted, yet 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.

It is an inspiring story of a life worth while and the rich beauties of the out-of-doors are strewn through all its pages.

_AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW._

Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp. Design and decorations by Ralph Fletcher Seymour.

The scene of this charming, idyllic love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love; the friendship that gives freely without return, and the love that seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.

* * * * *

MYRTLE REED'S NOVELS

_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 spontaniety.

_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 MASTER'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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ZANE GREY'S NOVELS

_THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS_

Colored frontispiece by W. Herbert Dunton.

Most of the action of this story takes place near the turbulent Mexican border of the present day. A New York society girl buys a ranch which becomes the center of frontier warfare. Her loyal cowboys defend her property from bandits, and her superintendent rescues her when she is captured by them. A surprising climax brings the story to a delightful close.

_DESERT GOLD_

Illustrated by Douglas Duer.

Another fascinating story of the Mexican border. Two men, lost in the desert, discover gold when, overcome by weakness, they can go no farther. The rest of the story describes the recent uprising along the border, and ends with the finding of the gold which the two prospectors had willed to the girl who is the story's heroine.

_RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE_

Illustrated by Douglas Duer.

A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon authority ruled. In the persecution of Jane Withersteen, a rich ranch owner, we are permitted to see the methods employed by the invisible hand of the Mormon Church to break her will.

_THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN_

Illustrated with photograph reproductions.

This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones, known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona desert and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of yellow crags, deep canons and giant pines." It is a fascinating story.

_THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT_

Jacket in color. Frontispiece.

This big human drama is played in the Painted Desert. A lovely girl, who has been reared among Mormons, learns to love a young New Englander. The Mormon religion, however, demands that the girl shall become the second wife of one of the Mormons--

Well, that's the problem of this sensational, big selling story.

_BETTY ZANE_

Illustrated by Louis F. Grant.

This story tells of the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beautiful young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers. Life along the frontier, attacks by Indians, Betty's heroic defense of the beleaguered garrison at Wheeling, the burning of the Fort, and Betty's final race for life, make up this never-to-be-forgotten story.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Code of the Mountains, by Charles Neville Buck