Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net EWING'S LADY _B_y HARRY LEON WILSON Author of "The Spenders" D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK 1907 COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY AINSLEE MAGAZINE COMPANY _Published, November, 1907_ To N. B. T. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I.--EWING'S KID 1 II.--A LADY LOSES HERSELF 12 III.--A PRIVATE VIEW 20 IV.--A PORTRAIT 32 V.--INTO THE PAST AND OUT 43 VI.--THE LADY AND THE PLAN 55 VII.--TWO SLEEPERS AWAKEN 64 VIII.--THE JOURNEY WONDER 71 IX.--A DINNER AT SEVEN-THIRTY 83 X.--THE WAY OF THE LITTLE MAN 97 XI.--A NIGHT AT THE MONASTERY 105 XII.--THE NEW MEMBER 124 XIII.--SEARCHING THE WILDERNESS 131 XIV.--THE TRICK OF COLOR 140 XV.--FLESH OF HER FLESH 147 XVI.--TEEVAN AS SPECIAL PROVIDENCE 156 XVII.--AN ELUSIVE VENUS 164 XVIII.--MRS. LAITHE IS IN 174 XIX.--THE UNBLAZED WAY 185 XX.--A LADY BLUSHES 196 XXI.--THE DRAMA IN NINTH STREET 203 XXII.--A REVOLT 211 XXIII.--THE LITTLE LAND 222 XXIV.--EWING INTERRUPTS 231 XXV.--MRS. LAITHE IS ENLIGHTENED 247 XXVI.--THE SUNSET TRAIL 256 XXVII.--THE HILLS OF REST 262 XXVIII.--THE WHITE TIME 273 XXIX.--THE AWAKENING 279 XXX.--THE HARDEST THING 290 XXXI.--THE MISSION OF EWING 304 XXXII.--THE TURNING OF COONEY 313 EWING'S LADY CHAPTER I EWING'S KID Two weeks of instructive contact with the Bar-7 school of gallantry had prepared Mrs. Laithe to be amazed at her first encounter with Ewing's kid. Riding out from the ranch one afternoon and turning, for coolness, up the wooded mesa that rises from the creek flat, she overwhelmed him at a bend in the trail. Stricken motionless, he glared at the lady with eyes in which she was compelled to believe that she read more horror than admiration. There was a moment of this; then her pony neighed a greeting to the statue--of dusty bronze--as if to say that things were not so bad as they seemed, and the gazing youth broke the spell his vision had laid upon him. He bowed his head doggedly and vanished beyond some low-growing cedars that lined the way.