Excerpt from Perch of the Devil "The shining mountains," said Gregory Compton softly, throwing back his head, his eyes travelling along the hard bright outlines above the high valley in which his ranch lay. "The shining mountains. That is what the Indians called them before the white man came." His wife yawned frankly. "Pity they don't shine inside as well as out - what we've got of 'em." "Who knows? Who knows?" "We don't. That's the trouble." But although she spoke tartly, she nestled into his arm, for she was not unamiable, she had been married but sixteen months, and she was still fond of her husband "in a way"; moreover, although she cherished resentments open and secret, she never forgot that she had won a prize "as men go." Many girls in Butte had wanted to marry Gregory Compton, not only because he had inherited a ranch of eleven hundred and sixty acres, but because, comprehensively, he was superior to the other young men of his class. He had graduated from the High School before he was sixteen; then after three years' work on the ranch under his unimaginative father, he had announced his intention of leaving the State unless permitted to attend the School of Mines in Butte. The old man, who by this time had taken note of the formation of his son's jaw, gave his consent rather than lose the last of his children; and for two years and a semester Gregory had been the most brilliant figure in the School of Mines. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.