CHAPTER PAGE I The Happy Girl 1 II A Ride In The Rain 19 III Wayland Receives a Warning 46 IV The Supervisor of the Forest 68 V The Golden Pathway 82 VI Storm-Bound 110 VII The Walk in the Rain 123 VIII The Other Girl 142 IX Further Perplexities 159 X The Camp on the Pass 173 XI The Death-Grapple 195 XII Berrie's Vigil 204 XIII The Gossips Awake 223 XIV The Summons 247 XV A Matter of Millinery 260 XVI The Private Car 274
This little story is the outcome of two trips (neither of which was inthe Bear Tooth Forest) during the years 1909 and 1910. Its main claim onthe reader's interest will lie, no doubt, in the character of BereaMcFarlane; but I find myself re-living with keen pleasure the splendiddrama of wind and cloud and swaying forest which made the expeditionsmemorable.
The golden trail is an actuality for me. The camp on the lake was mine.The rain, the snow I met. The prying camp-robbers, the grouse, themuskrats, the beaver were my companions. But Berrie was with me only inimagination. She is a fiction, born of a momentary, powerful hand-claspof a Western rancher's daughter. The story of Wayland Norcross is fictionalso. But the McFarlane ranch, the mill, and the lonely ranger-stationsare closely drawn pictures of realities. Although the stage of my comedyis Colorado, I have not held to any one locality. The scene iscomposite.
It was my intention, originally, to write a much longer and moreimportant book concerning Supervisor McFarlane, but Berrie took the storyinto her own strong hands and made of it something so intimate and soidyllic that I could not bring the more prosaic element into it. Itremained personal and youthful in spite of my plans, a divergence forwhich, perhaps, most of my readers will be grateful.
As for its title, I had little to do with its selection. My daughter,Mary Isabel, aged ten, selected it from among a half-dozen others, andfor luck I let it stand, although it sounds somewhat like that of apaper-bound German romance. For the sub-title my publishers areresponsible.
Finally, I warn the reader that this is merely the very slender story ofa young Western girl who, being desired of three strong men, bestows herlove on a "tourist" whose weakness is at once her allurement and hercare. The administration problem, the sociologic theme, which was to havemade the novel worth while, got lost in some way on the low trail andnever caught up with the lovers. I'm sorry--but so it was!