The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Guarded Heights, by Wadsworth Camp

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Guarded Heights

Author: Wadsworth Camp

Release Date: September 15, 2010 [EBook #33733]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GUARDED HEIGHTS ***

Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Mary Meehan and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net

THE GUARDED HEIGHTS

BY WADSWORTH CAMP

FRONTISPIECE
BY C. D. MITCHELL

GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1921

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

COPYRIGHT 1920, BY P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY

[Illustration: "GEORGE WATCHED SYLVIA LIFT HER RIDING CROP, HER FACE
DISCLOSING A TEMPER TO MATCH HIS OWN"]

CONTENTS

PART I OAKMONT

PART II PRINCETON

PART III THE MARKET-PLACE

PART IV THE FOREST

PART V THE NEW WORLD

THE GUARDED HEIGHTS

PART I

OAKMONT

I

George Morton never could be certain when he first conceived the
preposterous idea that Sylvia Planter ought to belong to him. The full
realization, at any rate, came all at once, unexpectedly, destroying his
dreary outlook, urging him to fantastic heights, and, for that matter,
to rather curious depths.

It was, altogether, a year of violent change. After a precarious
survival of a rural education he had done his best to save his father's
livery business which cheap automobiles had persistently undermined. He
liked that, for he had spent his vacations, all his spare hours, indeed,
at the stable or on the road, so that by the time the crash came he knew
more of horses and rode better than any hunting, polo-playing gentleman
he had ever seen about that rich countryside. Nor was there any one near
his own age who could stand up to him in a rough-and-tumble argument.
Yet he wondered why he was restless, not appreciating that he craved
broader worlds to conquer. Then the failure came, and his close relation
with the vast Planter estate of Oakmont,