n treated, it is perhaps due our readers to let them
know how much of fact disports itself through these pages in the garb of
fiction.

We beg to say that in no part of the book has the author consciously
done violence to conditions as he has been permitted to view them, amid
which conditions he has spent his whole life, up to the present hour, as
an intensely absorbed observer.

If in any of these pages the reader comes across that which puts him in
a mood to chide, may the author not hope that the wrath aroused be not
wasted upon the inconsequential painter, but directed toward the
landscape that forced the brush into his hand, stretched the canvas, and
shouted in irresistible tones: "Write!"

Very respectfully,
SUTTON E. GRIGGS.

Nashville, Tenn., May, 1905.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

BY ROBERT E. BELL.

Pages.
"The young woman looked into his face" 20-21

"Her pretty brown eyes nestling" 24-25

"Name me as I was named" 40-41

"The rock battle was now on" 54-55

"What do they take me to be" 86-87

"Yer air jes' a plain, orternary liah" 114-115

"Poor Bud, her helpless husband" 134-135

"To and fro the two men swayed" 164-165

"Is it a crime for me?" 174-175

"I have tellerphoned 'round the world" 184-185

"She made a flag of truce" 188-189

"Don't circumscribe the able, noble souls" 234-235

"We machine men in the South" 258-259

"Ensal bent forward and kissed Tiara" 290-291

CONTENTS.

PAGE.
CHAPTER I.
OCCURRENCES THAT PUZZLE 11

CHAPTER II.
HIS FACE WAS HER GUIDE 19

CHAPTER III.
WHEREIN FORESTA FIRST APPEARS 24

CHAPTER IV.
THE WAYS OF A SEEKER AFTER FAME 30

CHAPTER V.
RATHER LATE IN LIFE TO BE STILL NAMELESS 36

CHAPTER VI.
FRIENDLY ENEMIES 46

CH