WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG
HE was a very quiet, self-possessed sort of man, sitting a moment on topof the wall to sound the damp darkness for warnings of the dangers itmight conceal. But the plummet of his hearing brought nothing to himsave the moaning of wind through invisible trees and the rustling ofleaves on swaying branches. A heavy fog drifted and drove before thewind, and though he could not see this fog, the wet of it blew upon hisface, and the wall on which he sat was wet.
Without noise he had climbed to the top of the wall from the outside,and without noise he dropped to the ground on the inside. From hispocket he drew an electric night-stick, but he did not use it. Dark asthe way was, he was not anxious for light. Carrying the night-stick inhis hand, his finger on the button, he advanced through the darkness.The ground was velvety and springy to his feet, being carpeted with deadpine-needles and leaves and mold which evidently had been undisturbedfor years. Leaves and branches brushed against his body, but so dark wasit that he could not avoid them. Soon he walked with his hand stretchedout gropingly before him, and more than once the hand fetched up againstthe solid trunks of massive trees. All about him he knew were thesetrees; he sensed the loom of them everywhere; and he experienced astrange feeling of microscopic smallness in the midst of great bulksleaning toward him to crush him. Beyond, he knew, was the house, and heexpected to find some trail or winding path that would lead easily toit.
Once, he found himself trapped. On every side he groped against treesand branches, or blundered into thickets of underbrush, until thereseemed no way out. Then he turned on his light, circumspectly, directingits rays to the ground at his feet. Slowly and carefully he movedit about him, the white brightness showing in sharp detail all theobstacles to his progress. He saw, an opening between huge-trunkedtrees, and advanced through it, putting out the light and treadingon dry footing as yet protected from the drip of the fog by the densefoliage overhead. His sense of direction was good, and he knew he wasgoing toward the house.
And then the thing happened--the thing unthinkable and unexpected. Hisdescending foot came down upon something that was soft and alive, andthat arose with a snort under the weight of his body. He sprang clear,and crouched for another spring, anywhere, tense and expectant, keyedfor the onslaught of the unknown. He waited a moment, wondering whatmanner of animal it was that had arisen from under his foot and that nowmade no sound nor movement and that must be crouching and waiting justas tensely and expectantly as he. The strain became unbearable. Holdingthe night-stick before him, he pressed the button, saw, and screamedaloud in terror. He was prepared for anything, from a frightened calf orfawn to a belligerent lion, but he was not prepared for what he saw. Inthat instant his tiny searchlight, sharp and white, had shown him what athousand years would not enable him to forget--a man, huge and blond,yellow-haired and yellow-bearded, naked except for soft-tanned moccasinsand what seemed a goat-skin about his middle. Arms and legs were bare,as were his shoulders and most of his chest. The skin was smooth andhairless, but browned by sun and wind, while under it heavy muscles wereknotted like fat snakes. Still, this alone, unexpected as it well was,was not what had made the man scream out. What had caused his terror wasthe unspeakable ferocity of the face, the wild-animal glare of the blueeyes scarcely dazzled by the light, the pine-needles matted and clingingin the beard and hair, and the whole formidable body crouched and in theact of springing at him. Practically in the instant he saw all this, andwhile his scream still rang, the thing leaped, he flung his night-stickfull at it, and threw himself to the ground. He felt its feet and shinsstrike against his ribs, and he bounded up and away while the thingitself hurled onward in a heavy crashing fall into the underbrush.
As the noise of the fall ceased, the man stopped and on hands and kneeswaited. He could hear the thing moving about, searching for him, and hewas afraid to advertise his location by attempting further flight. Heknew that inevitably he would crackle the underbrush and be pursued.Once he drew out his revolver, then changed his mind. He had recoveredhis composure and hoped to get away without noise. Several times heheard the thing beating up the thickets for him, and there were momentswhen it, too, remained still and listened. This gave an idea to the man.One of his hands was resting on a chunk of dead wood. Carefully, firstfeeling about him in the darkness to know that the full swing of his armwas clear, he raised the chunk of wood and threw it. It was not a largepiece, and it went far, landing noisily in a bush. He heard the thingbound into the bush, and at the same time himself crawled steadily away.And on hands and knees, slowly and cautiously, he crawled on, till hisknees were wet on the soggy mold, When he listened he heard naught butthe moaning wind and the drip-drip of the fog from the branches. Neverabating his caution, he stood erect and went on to the stone wall, overwhich he climbed and dropped down to the road outside.
Feeling his way in a clump of bushes, he drew out a bicycle and preparedto mount. He was in the act of driving the gear around with his foot forthe purpose of getting the opposite pedal in position, when he heard thethud of a heavy body that landed lightly and evidently on its feet.He did not wait for more, but ran, with hands on the handles of hisbicycle, until he was able to vault astride the saddle, catch thepedals, and start a spurt. Behind he could hear the quick thud-thudof feet on the dust of the road, but he drew away from it and lost it.Unfortunately, he had started away from the direction of town and washeading higher up into the hills. He knew that on this particular roadthere were no cross roads. The only way back was past that terror,and he could not steel himself to face it. At the end of half an hour,finding himself on an ever increasing grade, he dismounted. For stillgreater safety, leaving the wheel by the roadside, he climbed through afence into what he decided was a hillside pasture, spread a newspaper onthe ground, and sat down.
"Gosh!" he said aloud, mopping the sweat and fog from his face.
And "Gosh!" he said once again, while rolling a cigarette and as hepondered the problem of getting back.
But he made no attempt to go back. He was resolved not to face thatroad in the dark, and with head bowed on knees, he dozed, waiting fordaylight.
How long afterward he did not know, he was awakened by the yapping barkof a young coyote. As he looked about and located it on the brow of thehill behind him, he noted the change that had come over the face of thenight. The fog was gone; the stars and moon were out; even the wind haddied down. It had transformed into a balmy California summer night.He tried to doze again, but the yap of the coyote disturbed him. Halfasleep, he heard a wild and eery chant. Looking about him, he noticedthat the coyote had ceased its noise and was running away along thecrest of the hill, and behind it, in full pursuit, no longer chanting,ran the naked creature he had encountered in the garden. It was a youngcoyote, and it was being overtaken when the chase passed from view. Theman trembled as with a chill as he started to his feet, clambered overthe fence, and mounted his wheel. But it was his chance and he knew it.The terror was no longer between him and Mill Valley.
He sped at a breakneck rate down the hill, but in the turn at thebottom, in the deep shadows, he encountered a chuck-hole and pitchedheadlong over the handle bar.
"It's sure not my night," he muttered, as he examined the broken fork ofthe machine.
Shouldering the useless wheel, he trudged on. In time he came to thestone wall, and, half disbelieving his experience, he sought in the roadfor tracks, and found them--moccasin tracks, large ones, deep-bitteninto the dust at the toes. It was while bending over them, examining,that again he heard the eery chant. He had seen the thing pursue thecoyote, and he knew he had no chance on a straight run. He did notattempt it, contenting himself with hiding in the shadows on the offside of the road.
And again he saw the thing that was like a naked man, running swiftlyand lightly and singing as it ran. Opposite him it paused, and his heartstood still. But instead of coming toward his hiding-place, it leapedinto the air, caught the branch of a roadside tree, and swung swiftlyupward, from limb to limb, like an ap
e. It swung across the wall, and adozen feet above the top, into the branches of another tree, and droppedout of sight to the ground. The man waited a few wondering minutes, thenstarted on.
II
Dave Slotter leaned belligerently against the desk that barred the wayto the private office of James Ward, senior partner of the firm of Ward,Knowles & Co. Dave was angry. Every one in the outer office had lookedhim over suspiciously, and the man who faced him was excessivelysuspicious.
"You just tell Mr. Ward it's important," he urged.
"I tell you he is dictating and cannot be disturbed," was the answer."Come to-morrow."
"To-morrow will be too late. You just trot along and tell Mr. Ward it'sa matter of life and death."
The secretary hesitated and Dave seized the advantage.
"You just tell him I was across the bay in Mill Valley last night, andthat I want to put him wise to something."
"What name?" was the query.
"Never mind the name. He don't know me."
When Dave was shown into the private office, he was still in thebelligerent frame of mind, but when he saw a large fair man whirl ina revolving chair from dictating to a stenographer to face him, Dave'sdemeanor abruptly changed. He did not know why it changed, and he wassecretly angry with himself.
"You are Mr. Ward?" Dave asked with a fatuousness that still furtherirritated him. He had never intended it at all.
"Yes," came the answer.
"And who are you?"
"Harry Bancroft," Dave lied. "You don't know me, and my name don'tmatter."
"You sent in word that you were in Mill Valley last night?"
"You live there, don't you?" Dave countered, looking suspiciously at thestenographer.
"Yes. What do you mean to see me about? I am very busy."
"I'd like to see you alone, sir."
Mr. Ward gave him a quick, penetrating look, hesitated, then made up hismind.
"That will do for a few minutes, Miss Potter."
The girl arose, gathered her notes together, and passed out. Dave lookedat Mr. James Ward wonderingly, until that gentleman broke his train ofinchoate thought.
"Well?"
"I was over in Mill Valley last night," Dave began confusedly.
"I've heard that before. What do you want?"
And Dave proceeded in the face of a growing conviction that wasunbelievable. "I was at your house, or in the grounds, I mean."
"What were you doing there?"
"I came to break in," Dave answered in all frankness.
"I heard you lived all alone with a Chinaman for cook, and it lookedgood to me. Only I didn't break in. Something happened that prevented.That's why I'm here. I come to warn you. I found a wild man loose inyour grounds--a regular devil. He could pull a guy like me to pieces.He gave me the run of my life. He don't wear any clothes to speak of, heclimbs trees like a monkey, and he runs like a deer. I saw him chasing acoyote, and the last I saw of it, by God, he was gaining on it."
Dave paused and looked for the effect that would follow his words. Butno effect came. James Ward was quietly curious, and that was all.
"Very remarkable, very remarkable," he murmured. "A wild man, you say.Why have you come to tell me?"
"To warn you of your danger. I'm something of a hard proposition myself,but I don't believe in killing people... that is, unnecessarily. Irealized that you was in danger. I thought I'd warn you. Honest, that'sthe game. Of course, if you wanted to give me anything for my trouble,I'd take it. That was in my mind, too. But I don't care whether you giveme anything or not. I've warned you any way, and done my duty."
Mr. Ward meditated and drummed on the surface of his desk. Dave noticedthey were large, powerful hands, withal well-cared for despite theirdark sunburn. Also, he noted what had already caught his eye before--atiny strip of flesh-colored courtplaster on the forehead over one eye.And still the thought that forced itself into his mind was unbelievable.
Mr. Ward took a wallet from his inside coat pocket, drew out agreenback, and passed it to Dave, who noted as he pocketed it that itwas for twenty dollars.
"Thank you," said Mr. Ward, indicating that the interview was at an end.
"I shall have the matter investigated. A wild man running loose ISdangerous."
But so quiet a man was Mr. Ward, that Dave's courage returned. Besides,a new theory had suggested itself. The wild man was evidently Mr. Ward'sbrother, a lunatic privately confined. Dave had heard of such things.Perhaps Mr. Ward wanted it kept quiet. That was why he had given him thetwenty dollars.
"Say," Dave began, "now I come to think of it that wild man looked a lotlike you--"
That was as far as Dave got, for at that moment he witnessed atransformation and found himself gazing into the same unspeakablyferocious blue eyes of the night before, at the same clutchingtalon-like hands, and at the same formidable bulk in the act ofspringing upon him. But this time Dave had no night-stick to throw, andhe was caught by the biceps of both arms in a grip so terrific that itmade him groan with pain. He saw the large white teeth exposed, for allthe world as a dog's about to bite. Mr. Ward's beard brushed his faceas the teeth went in for the grip on his throat. But the bite was notgiven. Instead, Dave felt the other's body stiffen as with an ironrestraint, and then he was flung aside, without effort but with suchforce that only the wall stopped his momentum and dropped him gasping tothe floor.
"What do you mean by coming here and trying to blackmail me?" Mr. Wardwas snarling at him. "Here, give me back that money."
Dave passed the bill back without a word.
"I thought you came here with good intentions. I know you now. Let mesee and hear no more of you, or I'll put you in prison where you belong.Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Dave gasped.
"Then go."
And Dave went, without further word, both his biceps aching intolerablyfrom the bruise of that tremendous grip. As his hand rested on the doorknob, he was stopped.
"You were lucky," Mr. Ward was saying, and Dave noted that his face andeyes were cruel and gloating and proud.
"You were lucky. Had I wanted, I could have torn your muscles out ofyour arms and thrown them in the waste basket there."
"Yes, sir," said Dave; and absolute conviction vibrated in his voice.
He opened the door and passed out. The secretary looked at himinterrogatively.
"Gosh!" was all Dave vouchsafed, and with this utterance passed out ofthe offices and the story.
III
James G. Ward was forty years of age, a successful business man, andvery unhappy. For forty years he had vainly tried to solve a problemthat was really himself and that with increasing years became moreand more a woeful affliction. In himself he was two men, and,chronologically speaking, these men were several thousand years or soapart. He had studied the question of dual personality probably moreprofoundly than any half dozen of the leading specialists in thatintricate and mysterious psychological field. In himself he was adifferent case from any that had been recorded. Even the most fancifulflights of the fiction-writers had not quite hit upon him. He was nota Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, nor was he like the unfortunate young man inKipling's "Greatest Story in the World." His two personalities were somixed that they were practically aware of themselves and of each otherall the time.
His other self he had located as a savage and a barbarian living underthe primitive conditions of several thousand years before. But whichself was he, and which was the other, he could never tell. For he wasboth selves, and both selves all the time. Very rarely indeed did ithappen that one self did not know what the other was doing. Anotherthing was that he had no visions nor memories of the past in which thatearly self had lived. That early self lived in the present; but whileit lived in the present, it was under the compulsion to live the way oflife that must have been in that distant past.
In his childhood he had been a problem to his father and mother, and tothe family doctors, though never had they come within a thousand milesof hitting upo
n the clue to his erratic, conduct. Thus, they could notunderstand his excessive somnolence in the forenoon, nor his excessiveactivity at night. When they found him wandering along the hallwaysat night, or climbing over giddy roofs, or running in the hills, theydecided he was a somnambulist. In reality he was wide-eyed awake andmerely under the nightroaming compulsion of his early self. Questionedby an obtuse medico, he once told the truth and suffered the ignominy ofhaving the revelation contemptuously labeled and dismissed as "dreams."
The point was, that as twilight and evening came on he became wakeful.The four walls of a room were an irk and a restraint. He heard athousand voices whispering to him through the darkness. The nightcalled to him, for he was, for that period of the twenty-four hours,essentially a night-prowler. But nobody understood, and never again didhe attempt to explain. They classified him as a sleep-walker and tookprecautions accordingly--precautions that very often were futile. As hischildhood advanced, he grew more cunning, so that the major portion ofall his nights were spent in the open at realizing his other self. Asa result, he slept in the forenoons. Morning studies and schools wereimpossible, and it was discovered that only in the afternoons, underprivate teachers, could he be taught anything. Thus was his modern selfeducated and developed.
But a problem, as a child, he ever remained. He was known as a littledemon, of insensate cruelty and viciousness. The family medicosprivately adjudged him a mental monstrosity and degenerate. Such fewboy companions as he had, hailed him as a wonder, though they were allafraid of him. He could outclimb, outswim, outrun, outdevil any ofthem; while none dared fight with him. He was too terribly strong, madlyfurious.
When nine years of age he ran away to the hills, where he flourished,night-prowling, for seven weeks before he was discovered and broughthome. The marvel was how he had managed to subsist and keep in conditionduring that time. They did not know, and he never told them, of therabbits he had killed, of the quail, young and old, he had capturedand devoured, of the farmers' chicken-roosts he had raided, nor of thecave-lair he had made and carpeted with dry leaves and grasses and inwhich he had slept in warmth and comfort through the forenoons of manydays.
At college he was notorious for his sleepiness and stupidity during themorning lectures and for his brilliance in the afternoon. By collateralreading and by borrowing the notebook of his fellow students he managedto scrape through the detestable morning courses, while his afternooncourses were triumphs. In football he proved a giant and a terror, and,in almost every form of track athletics, save for strange Berserkerrages that were sometimes displayed, he could be depended upon to win.But his fellows were afraid to box with him, and he signalized his lastwrestling bout by sinking his teeth into the shoulder of his opponent.
After college, his father, in despair, sent him among the cow-punchersof a Wyoming ranch. Three months later the doughty cowmen confessed hewas too much for them and telegraphed his father to come and take thewild man away. Also, when the father arrived to take him away, thecowmen allowed that they would vastly prefer chumming with howlingcannibals, gibbering lunatics, cavorting gorillas, grizzly bears, andman-eating tigers than with this particular Young college product withhair parted in the middle.
There was one exception to the lack of memory of the life of his earlyself, and that was language. By some quirk of atavism, a certain portionof that early self's language had come down to him as a racial memory.In moments of happiness, exaltation, or battle, he was prone to burstout in wild barbaric songs or chants. It was by this means that helocated in time and space that strayed half of him who should have beendead and dust for thousands of years. He sang, once, and deliberately,several of the ancient chants in the presence of Professor Wertz, whogave courses in old Saxon and who was a philogist of repute and passion.At the first one, the professor pricked up his ears and demanded toknow what mongrel tongue or hog-German it was. When the second chant wasrendered, the professor was highly excited. James Ward then concludedthe performance by giving a song that always irresistibly rushed to hislips when he was engaged in fierce struggling or fighting. Then it wasthat Professor Wertz proclaimed it no hog-German, but early German, orearly Teuton, of a date that must far precede anything that had everbeen discovered and handed down by the scholars. So early was it thatit was beyond him; yet it was filled with haunting reminiscences ofword-forms he knew and which his trained intuition told him were trueand real. He demanded the source of the songs, and asked to borrow theprecious book that contained them. Also, he demanded to know whyyoung Ward had always posed as being profoundly ignorant of the Germanlanguage. And Ward could neither explain his ignorance nor lend thebook. Whereupon, after pleadings and entreaties that extended throughweeks, Professor Wert took a dislike to the young man, believed hima liar, and classified him as a man of monstrous selfishness for notgiving him a glimpse of this wonderful screed that was older than theoldest any philologist had ever known or dreamed.
But little good did it do this much-mixed young man to know that half ofhim was late American and the other half early Teuton. Nevertheless, thelate American in him was no weakling, and he (if he were a he and hada shred of existence outside of these two) compelled an adjustment orcompromise between his one self that was a nightprowling savage thatkept his other self sleepy of mornings, and that other self that wascultured and refined and that wanted to be normal and live and love andprosecute business like other people. The afternoons and early eveningshe gave to the one, the nights to the other; the forenoons and parts ofthe nights were devoted to sleep for the twain. But in the mornings heslept in bed like a civilized man. In the night time he slept like awild animal, as he had slept Dave Slotter stepped on him in the woods.
Persuading his father to advance the capital, he went into businessand keen and successful business he made of it, devoting his afternoonswhole-souled to it, while his partner devoted the mornings. The earlyevenings he spent socially, but, as the hour grew to nine or ten, anirresistible restlessness overcame him and he disappeared from thehaunts of men until the next afternoon. Friends and acquaintancesthought that he spent much of his time in sport. And they were right,though they never would have dreamed of the nature of the sport, even ifthey had seen him running coyotes in night-chases over the hills of MillValley. Neither were the schooner captains believed when they reportedseeing, on cold winter mornings, a man swimming in the tide-rips ofRaccoon Straits or in the swift currents between Goat island and AngelIsland miles from shore.
In the bungalow at Mill Valley he lived alone, save for Lee Sing, theChinese cook and factotum, who knew much about the strangeness of hismaster, who was paid well for saying nothing, and who never did sayanything. After the satisfaction of his nights, a morning's sleep, and abreakfast of Lee Sing's, James Ward crossed the bay to San Francisco ona midday ferryboat and went to the club and on to his office, as normaland conventional a man of business as could be found in the city. But asthe evening lengthened, the night called to him. There came a quickeningof all his perceptions and a restlessness. His hearing was suddenlyacute; the myriad night-noises told him a luring and familiar story;and, if alone, he would begin to pace up and down the narrow room likeany caged animal from the wild.
Once, he ventured to fall in love. He never permitted himself thatdiversion again. He was afraid. And for many a day the young lady,scared at least out of a portion of her young ladyhood, bore on herarms and shoulders and wrists divers black-and-blue bruises--tokens ofcaresses which he had bestowed in all fond gentleness but too lateat night. There was the mistake. Had he ventured love-making in theafternoon, all would have been well, for it would have been as the quietgentleman that he would have made love--but at night it was the uncouth,wife-stealing savage of the dark German forests. Out of his wisdom, hedecided that afternoon love-making could be prosecuted successfully; butout of the same wisdom he was convinced that marriage as would provea ghastly failure. He found it appalling to imagine being married andencountering his wife after dark.
So he had eschewed
all love-making, regulated his dual life, cleaned upa million in business, fought shy of match-making mamas and bright-eyedand eager young ladies of various ages, met Lilian Gersdale and madeit a rigid observance never to see her later than eight o'clock in theevening, run of nights after his coyotes, and slept in forest lairs--andthrough it all had kept his secret safe save Lee Sing... and now,Dave Slotter. It was the latter's discovery of both his selves thatfrightened him. In spite of the counter fright he had given the burglar,the latter might talk. And even if he did not, sooner or later he wouldbe found out by some one else.
Thus it was that James Ward made a fresh and heroic effort to controlthe Teutonic barbarian that was half of him. So well did he make ita point to see Lilian in the afternoons, that the time came whenshe accepted him for better or worse, and when he prayed privily andfervently that it was not for worse. During this period no prize-fighterever trained more harshly and faithfully for a contest than he trainedto subdue the wild savage in him. Among other things, he strove toexhaust himself during the day, so that sleep would render him deaf tothe call of the night. He took a vacation from the office and went onlong hunting trips, following the deer through the most inaccessible andrugged country he could find--and always in the daytime. Night found himindoors and tired. At home he installed a score of exercise machines,and where other men might go through a particular movement ten times, hewent hundreds. Also, as a compromise, he built a sleeping porch on thesecond story. Here he at least breathed the blessed night air. Doublescreens prevented him from escaping into the woods, and each night LeeSing locked him in and each morning let him out.
The time came, in the month of August, when he engaged additionalservants to assist Lee Sing and dared a house party in his Mill Valleybungalow. Lilian, her mother and brother, and half a dozen mutualfriends, were the guests. For two days and nights all went well. And onthe third night, playing bridge till eleven o'clock, he had reason to beproud of himself. His restlessness fully hid, but as luck would have it,Lilian Gersdale was his opponent on his right. She was a frail delicateflower of a woman, and in his night-mood her very frailty incensedhim. Not that he loved her less, but that he felt almost irresistiblyimpelled to reach out and paw and maul her. Especially was this truewhen she was engaged in playing a winning hand against him.
He had one of the deer-hounds brought in and, when it seemed he must flyto pieces with the tension, a caressing hand laid on the animal broughthim relief. These contacts with the hairy coat gave him instant easementand enabled him to play out the evening. Nor did anyone guess thewhile terrible struggle their host was making, the while he laughed socarelessly and played so keenly and deliberately.
When they separated for the night, he saw to it that he parted fromLilian in the presence or the others. Once on his sleeping porchand safely locked in, he doubled and tripled and even quadrupled hisexercises until, exhausted, he lay down on the couch to woo sleep and toponder two problems that especially troubled him. One was this matterof exercise. It was a paradox. The more he exercised in this excessivefashion, the stronger he became. While it was true that he thus quitetired out his night-running Teutonic self, it seemed that he was merelysetting back the fatal day when his strength would be too much for himand overpower him, and then it would be a strength more terrible thanhe had yet known. The other problem was that of his marriage and of thestratagems he must employ in order to avoid his wife after dark. Andthus, fruitlessly pondering, he fell asleep.
Now, where the huge grizzly bear came from that night was long amystery, while the people of the Springs Brothers' Circus, showing atSausalito, searched long and vainly for "Big Ben, the Biggest Grizzlyin Captivity." But Big Ben escaped, and, out of the mazes of half athousand bungalows and country estates, selected the grounds of James J.Ward for visitation. The self first Mr. Ward knew was when he found himon his feet, quivering and tense, a surge of battle in his breast andon his lips the old war-chant. From without came a wild baying andbellowing of the hounds. And sharp as a knife-thrust through thepandemonium came the agony of a stricken dog--his dog, he knew.
Not stopping for slippers, pajama-clad, he burst through the door LeeSing had so carefully locked, and sped down the stairs and out intothe night. As his naked feet struck the graveled driveway, he stoppedabruptly, reached under the steps to a hiding-place he knew well, andpulled forth a huge knotty club--his old companion on many a mad nightadventure on the hills. The frantic hullabaloo of the dogs was comingnearer, and, swinging the club, he sprang straight into the thickets tomeet it.
The aroused household assembled on the wide veranda. Somebody turnedon the electric lights, but they could see nothing but one another'sfrightened faces. Beyond the brightly illuminated driveway the treesformed a wall of impenetrable blackness. Yet somewhere in that blacknessa terrible struggle was going on. There was an infernal outcry ofanimals, a great snarling and growling, the sound of blows being struckand a smashing and crashing of underbrush by heavy bodies.
The tide of battle swept out from among the trees and upon the drivewayjust beneath the onlookers. Then they saw. Mrs. Gersdale cried outand clung fainting to her son. Lilian, clutching the railing sospasmodically that a bruising hurt was left in her finger-ends fordays, gazed horror-stricken at a yellow-haired, wild-eyed giant whom sherecognized as the man who was to be her husband. He was swinging a greatclub, and fighting furiously and calmly with a shaggy monster that wasbigger than any bear she had ever seen. One rip of the beast's claws haddragged away Ward's pajama-coat and streaked his flesh with blood.
While most of Lilian Gersdale's fright was for the man beloved, therewas a large portion of it due to the man himself. Never had she dreamedso formidable and magnificent a savage lurked under the starched shirtand conventional garb of her betrothed. And never had she had anyconception of how a man battled. Such a battle was certainly not modern;nor was she there beholding a modern man, though she did not know it.For this was not Mr. James J. Ward, the San Francisco business man, butone, unnamed and unknown, a crude, rude savage creature who, by somefreak of chance, lived again after thrice a thousand years.
The hounds, ever maintaining their mad uproar, circled about the fight,or dashed in and out, distracting the bear. When the animal turned tomeet such flanking assaults, the man leaped in and the club came down.Angered afresh by every such blow, the bear would rush, and the man,leaping and skipping, avoiding the dogs, went backwards or circledto one side or the other. Whereupon the dogs, taking advantage of theopening, would again spring in and draw the animal's wrath to them.
The end came suddenly. Whirling, the grizzly caught a hound with awide sweeping cuff that sent the brute, its ribs caved in and its backbroken, hurtling twenty feet. Then the human brute went mad. A foamingrage flecked the lips that parted with a wild inarticulate cry, as itsprang in, swung the club mightily in both hands, and brought it downfull on the head of the uprearing grizzly. Not even the skull of agrizzly could withstand the crushing force of such a blow, and theanimal went down to meet the worrying of the hounds. And through theirscurrying leaped the man, squarely upon the body, where, in the whiteelectric light, resting on his club, he chanted a triumph in an unknowntongue--a song so ancient that Professor Wertz would have given tenyears of his life for it.
His guests rushed to possess him and acclaim him, but James Ward,suddenly looking out of the eyes of the early Teuton, saw the fair frailTwentieth Century girl he loved, and felt something snap in his brain.He staggered weakly toward her, dropped the club, and nearly fell.Something had gone wrong with him. Inside his brain was an intolerableagony. It seemed as if the soul of him were flying asunder. Followingthe excited gaze of the others, he glanced back and saw the carcass ofthe bear. The sight filled him with fear. He uttered a cry and wouldhave fled, had they not restrained him and led him into the bungalow.
*****
James J. Ward is still at the head of the firm of Ward, Knowles & Co.But he no longer lives in the country; nor does he run of nights afterthe coyotes unde
r the moon. The early Teuton in him died the night ofthe Mill Valley fight with the bear. James J. Ward is now whollyJames J. Ward, and he shares no part of his being with any vagabondanachronism from the younger world. And so wholly is James J. Wardmodern, that he knows in all its bitter fullness the curse of civilizedfear. He is now afraid of the dark, and night in the forest is to him athing of abysmal terror. His city house is of the spick and span order,and he evinces a great interest in burglarproof devices. His home isa tangle of electric wires, and after bed-time a guest can scarcelybreathe without setting off an alarm. Also, he had invented acombination keyless door-lock that travelers may carry in their vestpockets and apply immediately and successfully under all circumstances.But his wife does not deem him a coward. She knows better. And, likeany hero, he is content to rest on his laurels. His bravery is neverquestioned by those friends who are aware of the Mill Valley episode.