The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lilac Girl, by Ralph Henry Barbour,
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Title: The Lilac Girl

Author: Ralph Henry Barbour

Release Date: July 8, 2004 [eBook #12858]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

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THE LILAC GIRL

BY

RALPH HENRY BARBOUR

Author of "Kitty of the Roses," "An Orchard Princess,"
"A Maid in Arcady," "Holly," "My Lady of the Fog," etc.

With Illustrations in Color by CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD

and Decorations by EDWARD STRATTON HOLLOWAY

1909

[Illustration: OVER THE TIPS OF THE SPRAYS SHE SHOT A GLANCE AT WADE]

To L.D.K.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

OVER THE TIPS OF THE SPRAYS SHE SHOT A GLANCE AT WADE

"OH, NO, SIR," REPLIED ZEPHANIA, WITH A SHOCKED, PITYING EXPRESSION

"YOUR HOUSE? THEN--THEN WHERE IS MINE, PLEASE?"

"STERN IN HER ANGER, MR. HERRICK, BUT OF AN AMIABLE AND FORGIVING
DISPOSITION"

"NOW WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY?" HE DEMANDED

THE LILAC GIRL

I.

Two men were sitting beside a camp-fire at Saddle Pass, a shallow notch
in the lower end of the Sangre de Cristo Range in southern Colorado.
Although it was the middle of June and summer had come to the valleys
below, up here in the mountains the evenings were still chill, and the
warmth of the crackling fire felt grateful to tired bodies. Daylight yet
held, although it was fast deepening toward dusk. The sun had been gone
some little time behind the purple grandeur of Sierra Blanca, but
eastward the snowy tips of the Spanish Peaks were still flushed with the
afterglow.

Nearby three ragged burros were cropping the scanty growth. Behind them
the sharp elbow of the mountain ascended, scarred and furrowed and
littered with