PERCH OF THE DEVIL BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON [Illustration] NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS _Copyright, 1914, by_ FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY _All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages_ FOURTH PRINTING [Illustration: _August, 1914_] TO MR. FRANK J. EDWARDS AND MR. WILTON G. BROWN OF HELENA, MONTANA PART I PERCH OF THE DEVIL PART I I “The shining mountains,” said Gregory Compton softly, throwing back his head, his eyes travelling along the hard bright outlines above the high valley in which his ranch lay. “The shining mountains. That is what the Indians called them before the white man came.” His wife yawned frankly. “Pity they don’t shine inside as well as out--what we’ve got of ’em.” “Who knows? Who knows?” “We don’t. That’s the trouble.” But although she spoke tartly, she nestled into his arm, for she was not unamiable, she had been married but sixteen months, and she was still fond of her husband “in a way”; moreover, although she cherished resentments open and secret, she never forgot that she had won a prize “as men go.” Many girls in Butte[A] had wanted to marry Gregory Compton, not only because he had inherited a ranch of eleven hundred and sixty acres, but because, comprehensively, he was superior to the other young men of his class. He had graduated from the High School before he was sixteen; then after three years’ work on the ranch under his unimaginative father, he had announced his intention of leaving the State unless permitted to attend the School of Mines in Butte. The old man, who by this time had taken note of the formation of his son’s jaw, gave his consent rather than lose the last of his children; and for two years and a semester Gregory had been the most brilliant figure in the School of Mines.