Ridgway of Montana | Page 3

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RIDGWAY OF MONTANA
(STORY OF TO-DAY, IN WHICH THE HERO IS ALSO THE
VILLAIN)
by WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE

To JEAN
AND THAT KINGDOM
"Where you and I through this world's weather Work, and give praise
and thanks together."
WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE CONTENTS
1. Two Men and a Woman 2. The Freebooter 3. One to One 4. Fort
Salvation 5. Enter Simon Harley 6. On the Snow-trail 7. Back from
Arcadia 8. The Honorable Thomas B. Pelton 9. An Evening Call 10.
Harley Makes a Proposition 11. Virginia Intervenes 12. Aline Makes a
Discovery 13. First Blood 14. A Conspiracy 15. Laska Opens a Door
16. An Explosion in the Taurus 17. The Election 18. Further
Developments 19. One Million Dollars 20. A Little Lunch at
Alphonse's 21. Harley Scores 22. "Not Guilty"--"Guilty" 23. Aline
Turns a Corner 24. A Good Samaritan 25. Friendly Enemies 26. Breaks
One and Makes Another Engagement

WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE

by WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE
CHAPTER 1.
TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
"Mr. Ridgway, ma'am."
The young woman who was giving the last touches to the very effective
picture framed in her long looking-glass nodded almost imperceptibly.
She had come to the parting of the ways, and she knew it, with a
shrewd suspicion as to which she would choose. She had asked for a
week to decide, and her heart-searching had told her nothing new. It
was characteristic of Virginia Balfour that she did not attempt to
deceive herself. If she married Waring Ridgway it would be for what
she considered good and sufficient reasons, but love would not be one
of them. He was going to be a great man, for one thing, and probably a
very rich one, which counted, though it would not be a determining
factor. This she could find only in the man himself, in the masterful
force that made him what he was. The sandstings of life did not disturb
his confidence in his victorious star, nor did he let fine-spun moral
obligations hamper his predatory career. He had a genius for success in
whatever he undertook, pushing his way to his end with a shrewd,
direct energy that never faltered. She sometimes wondered whether she,
too, like the men he used as tools, was merely a pawn in his game, and
her consent an empty formality conceded to convention. Perhaps he
would marry her even if she did not want to, she told herself, with the
sudden illuminating smile that was one of her chief charms.
But Ridgway's wary eyes, appraising her mood as she came forward to
meet him, read none of this doubt in her frank greeting. Anything more
sure and exquisite than the cultivation Virginia Balfour breathed he
would have been hard put to it to conceive. That her gown and its
accessories seemed to him merely the extension of