Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC.
PAGE I. CONCERNING THE TRAIL AT BROKEN TREE 9
II. I MEET THE OUTLIERS IN THE WOOD AND HERMAN COMES TO FIND ME 24
III. I HEAR OF THE TREASURE AND MEET A FRIEND OF RAVENUTZI 44
VI. IN WHICH I AM UNHAPPY AND MEET A TALL WOMAN IN THE WOOD 114
VIII. IN WHICH HERMAN’S IDEA RECEIVES A CHECK 157
IX. HOW THE KING’S DESIRE WAS DUG UP, AND BY WHOM 177
XI. HOW THE OUTLIERS CAME UP WITH THE FAR-FOLK AT A PLACE CALLED THE SMITHY, AND HERMAN CAME BACK TO RIVER WARD 217
XII. HOW AN OUTLIER SAW A TALL WOMAN FOLLOWING A TRAIL AND MANCHA MET THE SMITH AGAIN 236
XIII. HOW THEY FOUND THE RUBIES, AND THE SMITH’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF 258
XIV. THE KING’S DESIRE, AND WHAT BECAME OF IT 276
XV. HOW HERMAN AND I CAME BACK TO BROKEN TREE 295
The trail begins at the Broken Tree with the hawk’s nest. As often as we have talked of it since, Herman and I, and that is as often as the ceanothus blooms untimely for a sign of rains delayed, or there is a low moon and a following star, or a wind out of the south with the smell of wild honey in it, we have agreed together that the trail begins at Broken Tree.
There were some other landmarks I was quite as sure of at the time, but the creek makes so many turns here I could never find them again, and the second time of Herman’s going in, he had altogether other things to think about. So as often as we have occasion to talk of it, we end by saying that it begins at Broken Tree.
I remember very well how Fairshore looked that day as we stood gazing back at it from the edge of the plowed lands; the pines sketched blackly against the smudgy, fawn-colored slope, the sea as blue as lazuli, and the leaning surf. I had another reason for remembering it, since it was the last time of Herman’s asking and of my refusing to marry him. I don’t know why Herman’s being a professor of sociology should have led him to suppose that our liking the same sort of books and much the same people, and having between us an income fairly adequate to the exigencies of comfortable living, should have been reason enough for my marrying him, but he had spent a great deal of time that summer trying to convince me that it was. I recall being rather short with him that afternoon. For, in the first place, if I had meant to marry Herman I should not have put all I had into a house at Fairshore, and in the next place, though I had not got to the point of admitting it, the house was proving rather a failure.