The dual alliance
Marjorie Benton Cooke
The Dual Alliance
BOOKS BY
THE SAME AUTHOR
Bambi
David
The Girl Who Lived in the Woods
THE DUAL
ALLIANCE
BY
MARJORIE
BENTON COOKE
ILLUSTRATED
BY
MARY GREENE
BLUMENSCHEIN
GARDEN CITY
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1915
Copyright, 1915,
International Magazine Co.
Copyright, 1915, by
Doubleday, Page & Co.
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
| "But I—I hardly know you" |
| "He tended the fire that was between them" |
| "Every night at midnight Paul called her on the 'phone" |
| "Bob and Paul stood bowing and smiling" |
PROLOGUE
Barbara Garratry was thirty and Irish. To the casual observer the worldwas a bright coloured ball for her tossing. When she was a tiny mite herfather had dubbed her "Bob, Son of Battle," because of certain obvious,warlike traits of character, and "Bob" Garratry she had been ever since.
She had literally fought her way to the top, handicapped by poverty,very little education, the responsibility of an[Pg 4] invalid and dependentfather. She had been forced to make all her own opportunities, but atthirty she was riding the shoulders of the witch success.
Her mother, having endowed her only child with the gift of a happyheart, went on her singing way into Paradise when Bob was three. Herfather, handsome ne'er-do-well that he was, made a poor and intermittentliving for them until the girl was fifteen. Then poor health overtookhim, and Bob took the helm.
At fifteen she worked on a newspaper, and discovered she had apicturesque talent for words. Literary ambition gripped her, a desire tomake permanent use of the dramatic elements which she uncovered in herrounds of assignments. She had a[Pg 5] nose for news and made a fair success,until she took to sitting up at night to write "real stuff" as shecalled it. Her nervous, high-strung temperament would not stand thestrain, so, true