Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: "YOU'VE GOT THE WINNING CARDS, MY GIRL ... IT'S ALL IN THE PLAYING NOW"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS BY HARRIET T. COMSTOCK AUTHOR OF JANET OF THE DUNES, TOWER AND THRONE, THE QUEEN'S HOSTAGE, ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN CASSEL GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ----------------------------------------------------------------------- TO EVELINA HEMINWAY SMITH "SISTER--FRIEND" Accept the dedication of this book of mine as a very slight recognition of your encouragement in my work; your faith in me. To you I first read the story; from you I received my first approval; I believe its chances will be brighter in the book-world if your name and good-will go with it. HARRIET T. COMSTOCK Flatbush--Brooklyn, N. Y. February, 1910 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I 3 CHAPTER II 24 CHAPTER III 46 CHAPTER IV 65 CHAPTER V 78 CHAPTER VI 98 CHAPTER VII 111 CHAPTER VIII 134 CHAPTER IX 154 CHAPTER X 177 CHAPTER XI 198 CHAPTER XII 212 CHAPTER XIII 231 CHAPTER XIV 251 CHAPTER XV 273 CHAPTER XVI 301 CHAPTER XVII 312 CHAPTER XVIII 334 CHAPTER XIX 350 CHAPTER XX 369 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PREFATORY NOTE "Love is the golden bead in the bottom of the crucible." And the crucible was St. Ange. * * * * * Fifty years before this story began, St. Ange was a lumber camp; the first gash in that part of the great Solitude to the north, which lay across Beacon Hill, three miles from Hillcrest. When the splendid lumber had been felled within a prescribed limit, Industry took another leap, left St. Ange scarred and blighted, with a fringe of forest north and south, and struck camps farther back and nearer Canada. Then Nature began to heal the stricken heart of the Solitude. A second growth of lovely tree and bush sprang to the call, and the only reminders of the camp were the absences of the men during the logging season, and the roaring and rushing of the river through Long Meadow every spring, with its burden of logs from the distant camps.