could talk me into comin' on a tour like this in winter."

A wonderful light dawned suddenly in Bruce's eyes.

"You mean--"

"--Helen. I'm feelin' well enough acquainted with her now to call her
Helen. Whatever else we disagree on, Bruce, it looks as though we had
the same taste when it comes to girls."

"You _know_ her?" Bruce's tone was as incredulous as his face.

Burt answered with a wry smile:

"After you've ridden on the back seat of that Beaver Creek stage with a
person and bumped heads every fifteen feet for a hundred miles, you're
not apt to feel like strangers when you get in."

Bruce almost shouted--

"She's in Ore City!"

"She _was_."

Bruce fell back into his old attitude at the table, but his father
stepped quickly to the door and an instant later threw it open. At his
side was Helen--with outstretched arms and face aglow, her eyes shining
happily.

Bruce had not known that great and sudden joy could make a person
dizzy, but the walls, the floor, everything, seemed to waver as he
leaped to his feet.

"I was sure you wouldn't turn your own partner out of doors!" Her lips
parted in the smile that he loved and though he could not speak he went
toward her with outstretched arms.

Passing the window, Uncle Bill stopped and stood for a second looking
into the light.

"Hells catoots!" he muttered gruffly, "Seems like sometimes in this
world things happen as they ort." And then, Ore City to the contrary, he
demonstrated that he had both presence of mind and tact, for he shouted
to Burt in a voice that would have carried a mile on a still night--"Hi!
Old Man! Come out and help me with this horse. Sounds like he's down
agin and chokin' hisself."

* * * * * *

POPULAR COPYRIGHT NOVELS
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Popular Copyright Fiction

Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The. By Frank L. Packard.
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. By A. Conan Doyle.
Affinities, and Other Stories. By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
After House, The. By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
Against the Winds. By Kate Jordan.
Ailsa Paige. By Robert W. Chambers.
Also Ran. By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.
Amateur Gentleman, The. By Jeffery Farnol.
Anderson Crow, Detective. By George Barr McCutcheon.
Anna, the Adventuress. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Anne's House of Dreams. By L. M. Montgomery.
Anybody But Anne. By Carolyn Wells.
Are All Men Alike, and The