ht her in his arms, held her, looked
into her eyes.

"You?"

"Yes," she gasped, "the Special Messenger--noncombatant!"

"The Special Messenger? _You?_ Good God!"

A dull tattoo of hoofs along the halted column, nearer, nearer,
clattering toward them from the front, and:

"Good-by!" she sobbed; "they're coming for me! Oh--do you love me? Do
you? Life was so dark and dreadful without you! I--I never
forgot--never, never! I----"

Her gloved hands crept higher around the neck of the man who held her
crushed in his arms.

"If I return," she sighed, "will you love me? Don't--don't look at me
that way. I will return--I promise. I love you so! I love you!"

Their lips clung for a second in the darkness, then she swung her horse,
tearing herself free of his arms; and, bared head lifted to the skies,
she turned south, riding all alone out into the starlit waste.

THE END

* * * * * *

OTHER BOOKS

BY

ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

Mr. Chambers is unquestionably the most popular of American novelists
to-day. He is the author of some thirty books of extraordinary variety
in fiction. He was born in New York, and studied in the studios of Paris
to become an artist. While working at painting he took up writing as a
pastime, and had such immediate success that he soon gave up art and
turned to literature as his life work. Always, as a part of this
interest, he has studied and worked in the field of natural history, so
that to-day he is something of an authority on birds and butterflies, a
confirmed fisherman, and a good shot. All these qualities--the study of
art, the experience with nature, both in the line of sport and as an
entomologist--have put their stamp upon his work, as will be seen by a
glance at his books, for only a few of which there is space here
available.

THE FIRING LINE

The most recent of his works is the third in a group of studies
in American society life. It is full of the swing of good
romance, behind which lies the bright philosophy that the saving
quality in our American families is to come with the injection
of fresh blood into each new generation. The story itself deals
with the adopted daughter of a multimillionaire, who does not
even know her own parentage--a girl from nowhere, with all the
charm and beauty which a bringing up in the midst of wealth can
give her. The hero is a young American of good family who first