Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PROMISE. CHAPTER I. EVER had a Christ- mas present ? " "No, never." " Why, it's just dreadful ! Well, there's one thing, —you shall have one this year, you dear thing!" and Molly Elliston flung down the Christmas muffler she was knitting, and stared at her visitor, as if she could scarcely believe what she had just confessed to her. The visitor laughed, showing a beautiful row of small white teeth as she did so. She was a charming little maiden of twelve or thirteen, this visitor, — a charming little maiden with the darkest of dark hair that hung in a thick shining braid tied at the end with a broad redribbon. Molly Elliston thought she was a beauty, as she looked at her dimpled smiling face, — a beauty, though she was an Indian. Yes, this charming little maiden was an Indian, belonging to what was once a great and powerful tribe. When, three years ago, Molly Elliston had come out to the far Northwest with her mother to join her father on his ranch, she had thought she should never feel anything but aversion to an Indian. Molly was then seven years old, and had always lived at some military post, for her father had been an army officer until the three years before, when he had given up his commission to enter into partnership with his brother upon a sheep and cattle ranch. A few miles from this ranch was an Indian reservation. The tribe that occupied it had for a long time been quite friendly with white people, and were therefore not altogether unwelcome neighbors to the Ellis- tons. Molly thought they were very welcome, indeed, when one day, in the third summer of her ranch life, she made the acquaintance of this pretty Wallula, who was not only pretty, but very intelligent, and of a loving disposition that responded gladly to Molly's friendly advances. " But to thin...