Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1911)

BIG HEARTED JIM. 23 the child, and Jim's anxious face cleared, suddenly. "That's the idea !" he exclaimed. "Red Wing, you stay here and take care of this cabin and the kid for me. I'll pay you more than you make peddlin'. Nurses ain't plenty in these regions and I need one bad." After some bargaining and urging, this plan was agreed upon. The Indian went his way, leaving his sister to become Virginia's devoted nurse. A fence was built to prevent the tiny feet from straying too near the cliff's edge, and there, beneath the whisperingpines, the child prattled and played, filling the cabin home and Jim's hungry heart with love and sunshine. Twelve years made little change in the settlement at Bed Dog Gulch, but a great change in Virginia. At sixteen she was a slim, graceful maiden with a sweet, piquant face and a pair of blue eyes looking out from their long lashes with the frank, innocent gaze of her childhood. Two rooms had been added to the little cabin. Books and a piano had been bought, and the mine superintendent's wife had supervised Virginia's education. But now Jim had decided that the girl must be sent to a boarding school and he held firmly to his decision, tho Virginia protested, entreated, even wept. "I'm so happy here. Why should I have to go away? Don't you want me any more, Jim?" Jim's face grew white. "Don't, child," he said. "Don't you know how we shall miss you? But it isn't right to keep you here. You must go and see what life outside a mining camp is like. If you want to come back, after a year, you may." "I'll want to," said Virginia, drying her tears. "I'll study hard and do my best, but all the time I'll be counting the days till I can come home." Jim did not tell Virginia what it was that had crystallized his halfformed plan to send her away. A young engineer, Tom Whitney, had come out from the East several months before and was an everydav visitor at the cabin on the cliff. The intimacy began one day when Jim and Virginia saw Tom knock down a burly miner who was kicking a lame dog. Carrying the dog to the cabin, the three nursed it back to life and a close friendship resulted. Jim's keen eyes could not fail to see the trend of events and when Tom told him of his love for Virginia, he answered as steadily as if his heart was not bleeding at the very thought of losing her. "It's all right, Tom, but you've got to wait. The girl's got to have a fair show. It ain't fair to bind her to any one now. I'm goin' to send her to the seminary at Los Angeles. If she chooses to come back here next year, you may win her if you can." So Virginia, with many tears and backward looks, left the cabin on the cliff. Thru the long months that followed the two men found their chief pleasure in writing long letters to her, and in reading her affectionate replies. Her letters told of pleasant associations, kind teachers, jolly frolics and excursions, but thru all breathed the longing for her beloved home. "When I close my eyes, I can smell the pines, and see the cabin with you all waiting for me," she wrote, and the men's eyes moistened as they read. "She don't seem to get weaned away much," said Jim. The long year ended at last, and they watched eagerly for the stage which would bring Virginia home. If Jim's joy was somewhat sobered by the thought of losing her again, if Tom's suit succeeded, he gave no sign, but listened patiently to the lover's plans for the future. It was an anxious moment when the stage came in sight, for each man secretly dreaded a change in the girl. But it was the same winsome Virginia who flung herself into Jim's arms, crying, "Oh, I'm so glad to be here !" For a week Virginia laughed and sang about the cabin like her own merry self. Then, as Jim came up the trail at noon, she went to meet him, a telegram in her hand, a half-amused, half-anxious look in her clear eyes. "Cannot live without vou. Am