The Guarded Heights & The Straight Path. Charles Wadsworth Camp

XVII

       XVIII

       XIX

       XX

       XXI

       Part IV. The Forest

       I

       II

       III

       IV

       V

       VI

       VII

       VIII

       IX

       X

       XI

       XII

       Part V. The New World

       I

       II

       III

       IV

       V

       VI

       VII

       VIII

       IX

       X

       XI

       XII

       XIII

       XIV

       XV

       XVI

       XVII

       XVIII

       XIX

       XX

       XXI

       XXII

       XXIII

       XXIV

       XXV

       XXVI

       XXVII

       XXVIII

       XXIX

       XXX

      PART I

       OAKMONT

       Table of Contents

      I

       Table of Contents

      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, and the arrival of Sylvia, who disclosed such worlds and heralded the revolution.

      That spring of his twentieth year the stable and all its stock went to the creditors, and old Planter bought the small frame house just outside the village, on the edge of his estate, and drew his boundary around it. He was willing that the Mortons should remain for the present in their old home at a nominal rent, and after a fashion they might struggle along, for George's mother was exceptionally clever at cleansing fine laces and linens; the estate would have work for his father from time to time; as for himself, Planter's superintendent suggested, there were new and difficult horses at Oakmont and a scarcity of trustworthy grooms. George shook his head.

      "Sure, I want a job," he admitted, "but not as old Planter's servant, or anybody else's. I want to be my own boss."

      George hadn't