The San Francisco Call and Post from San Francisco, California • Page 12

several promising beaver dams; and here he and his two guides had passed the winter. A very profitable winter, the naturalist had considered It; for, by close observation, he had proved beyond the shadow of of a doubt that the beaver was much maligned In the popular science of the day. He was busily preparing a book to brought out In the early summer, giving the beaver his due and undeceiving that portion of the reading public which thirsts for natural history in a popular vein. I In the late spring, when the naturalist was writing the last few chapters of his book. Colonel Strong had come up to the Little Otter for trout and salmon.

The colonel's camp was a mile below the a distance Inconsequential to so strong a paddler as the latter. The colonel had brought with him his daughter; a tactful, charming girl, with a frank enthusiasm for the wilderness in general and the Little Otter In particular. A Since Miss Strong's advent into the wilderness the beavers had suffered gross neglect. Those last few chapters of "The Beaver as He Really Is" progressed but slowly. The naturalist, sought his desk only late at night or at odd hours in the early morning.

The rest of the time he was at the colonel's camp, He took Miss Strong to the beaver dams to explain to her the Intricacies of their construction; he taught her best casts for trout and salmon he paddled her to the aalmon holes up and down the stream. And all this time a realization grew upon the naturalist that the woods and their occupants were not sufficient to his happiness. Three weeks went by all too quickly. The colonel had announced his Intention to start for home two days later. As the naturalist paddled homeward in the red twilight he became suddenly aware that two days later the woods would be quite different.

This great, calm, comforting forest would become a hateful, sterile desert without Miss Strong. The naturalist dug his paddle viciously Into the water. "Great Scott! This imbecile mooning must be stopped here and now!" He hurried the remaining distance back to camp and endeavored to concentrate his mind on the longneglected conclusion of his book. But concentration is difficult when the forest is enshrouded in a soft spring night. After an hour's fruitless labor the naturalist stalked down to the bank of the stream and lighted his pipe.

He said many things about beavers that you will search vainly for In his published work. He sat on the bank until the round moon, nearing the full, came creeping above the tree tops'. Then he suddenly arose with the air of a man considerably startled. "Good heavens!" he said, with bdd anxiety In his voice, "I'm in love with the girl!" Two minutes later the canoe slid noiselessly into the water, and the naturalist paddled down stream with unseemly haste. As he came around the bend above the colonel's camp he saw the girl sit- 5 flowerv a Poetry, but if it were scientific it would bV exact, wouldn't It?" The naturalist had one regret Aih! paddled up stream he wanted chant a "Te Deum," but he didn't know how.

snow 1 nt to tel1 you love and scientific research doesn't seem to qualify one for such an undertaking he said. girl laughed nervously. She tha t0C her hOe for a There was silence for a moment. Then the naturalist came nearer the fire and stood looking down at tho girl. i' 1 wi were a poet instead of a scientist." said he.

"Why?" she asked. She turned and regarded him archly. "Remember." she said, quotln" a former remark of his 'the beaver has been grossly "Let him continue to be." said the naturalist. "Yea, you," said he. "Tha forest used to be sufficient to me.

Now It Isn't." "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "And I'm not," said he with vehemence. "Yes, I am," said he. "I'm completely out of harmony with everything here. A disturbing element has crept Into the wilderness." The girl raised her brows.

"It'B you," said the naturalist. shortly. she questioned. ting quite alone before a smoldering fire near the bank. He paddled to the bank and pulled up his canoe.

The girl gave him a gay welcome. "But you said when you left at sunset that you'd been neglecting your beavers." she reminded him. "Aren't you neglecting them now?" (Copyright, 1904, by K. M. Whltehead.) OpfHE naturalist was vaguely dls-1 turbed.

He paddled back to camp I slowly, with a listless stroke, as A if he were prone to turn back. Now and then he ceased paddling and gazed thoughtfully through the darkening underbrush of the woods. Red twilight was falling, and against the flaming western sky the tree-tops made sharp, black silhouettes; beneath the pines the blue-black shadows were deepening. Countless voices drifted out to him drowsily on the still air; but the naturalist gave no heed to the sublimity of the approaching forest night, nor did he hear the gentle drone Into which the myriad voices blended themselves. The only vision his eyes beheld was that of a smiling, graceful girl, waving a white hand to him from the sloping bank by the camp, and the only sound in hla ears was her merry laughter as she stood by her father's Bide and shouted a good-by.

It was because of this that the naturalist was vaguely disturbed. Heretofore the woods and their occupants had chained his every thought. Now he was aware that every primary thought centered about the girl, and that everything else was but a sorry second to her. The naturalist had been In the woods all winter. It was his intention to correct several absurd, but none the less concerning the beaver.

With this idea in mind he had built a camp on the upper waters of the Little Otter, within easy reach of THE DISTURBING ELEMENT By John Barton Oxford The days passed like a procession of snails, but she did not appear, and though, through the kindness of city friends, he had a number of introductions, he made no effort to discover her identity. He had a strange, sweet consciousnes to which he held in spite of disappointment and the deplorable sentimentality into which it was leading that she was surely drifting toward him. and that each them near together. Near the end of the third week his faith was rewarded. It was on the golf links, and a ripple of peculiarly clear, frank laughter somewhere near him caused him to turn his head.

She and a companion were sauntering toward him, every line of her lithe, graceful figure standing out gloriously against the pure background of the eky, her brown hair framing her face in a bewitching disorder. On this glimpse of her Manice lived for another week, and then his friend, Duncan Brown, descended upon him for the week's end stay. Duncan would have been welcome under any circumstances, but when he announced that a great friend of his, Betty Alston, lived in Morrlstown, and offered to take Manice to see her, the latter pressed the freedom of hla bachelor quarters upon him with added fervency, wondering If by chance he was entertaining an angel unawares. So, indeed, It proved. "I think I saw you on the links the other Miss Alston remarked, turning to Manice after the greetings were over, and that gentleman always wondered what he said In reply.

The one impression that he carried away from that meeting was a confusing sense of having been projected unexpectedly Into the very midst of heaven. That Impression, however, was not lasting. Time revealed that if Miss Alston was a guiding star, others besides himself were looking, raising their eyes to her and following where she led. Still, he drew a sigh of relief at the thought that he had two rivals Instead of one. in these matters, there was safety in numbers.

Keeping a watchful eye upon two rivals Is wearing work even Ith a strong man. If Manice had been fascinated by Betty Alston's face, at the end of two months it was lovelier to him than ever, for the better he knew her the more assured he became of her sweetness and womanliness. Counted by conventional standards It was a pltfully short time that they had known each other, but he felt as if he had been aware of her through all the thirty-five years of waiting. Thus his love, like a mighty wave. "She loves me she loves, God bless her! I know It," Manice's during the days that followed, and, though the hours seemed endless, not once during that time did he approach her.

He shrewdly suspected that his absence would do more than anything else could to reveal her heart to herself. So of his answer was he that he- wanted to make the day memorable to both of them. Many plans suggested themselves, but none of them seemed worthy. Then a chance remark of hers flitted across, his mind and he murmured with enthusiasm: thing, by Jove!" She had whimsically said to him once that it was her idea of bliss to have Hagadorn, the well-known organist, play the wonderful organ at St. Michael's an hour for her alone, and he decided that if Hagadorn was susceptible to the persuasive power of money.

Bhe should have that pleasure. "You are the only woman In the world for me," he concluded, the color that usually glowed under his tan noticeably absent. "From the first moment I knew it. I would have followed you to the ends of the earth to tell you this, even though I had known that you would refuse me!" Betty Alston, her face as white as his own, turned to him with quivering lips. His earnestness frightened her.

But there Jack dear Jack with the laughing eyes and the gay smile! And yet Jack would never have followed her out' of the crowd, She covered her -face with her hands, and Manice, pitted against set his Jaw grimly. "Is there any one else?" he asked at last, and at the gentleness of his voice Betty took courage. "You don't know how unworthy I feel," she began In a trembling voice. "You see I don't know myself. I hate myself for it, but I really don't.

If you love me like this, I ought to know, oughtn't whether I love you or not?" She looked at him with the puzzled confidence of a child appealing to an elder for help in a crisis. Then suddenly the color came up over her soft, white neck, rising higher and higher until It suffused her whole face, and the eyes that had been gazing so clearly and childishly Into his dropped. In that moment her heart was clearer to him than it was to herself. "Think about It for a week, sweetheart," he whispered, and, carrying her hand to' his lips for a brief moment, turned and left her. whose crest, poised for a moment, must inevitably spend Itself in foam, broke into words.

Simple, manly words they were, falling from his lips almost brokenly, the very strength of his love making him despair of saying what he would. All of which means that Floyd Manice, usually the most dignified and conservative of men, spent the rest of the afternoon following a slim, erect young woman at a very respectful distance and utterly without her knowledge. At 6 p. m. he had the satisfaction of teeing her enter a smart trap at Morrlstown, N.

whither she had unwittingly led him, and satisfied from her manner that she was at home, he the platform waiting for the train back to town and making plans with an exultant confidence born of long eUCCCSS. "Going to Morrlstown for the summer, ch?" exclaimed his partner in some surprise, when he announced his Intention a week later, "I thought you loathed New Jersey?" "Mistaken Idea of yours," responded Manice with mendacious brevity. "By the way, do you know any one there?" Events usually moved with businesslike, precision when Manice started to accomplish an end. Within two weeks from the day on which he first saw his Ftar, as he called her to himself, was astablfihed In Morrlstown, waiting in strong, serene, yet humble expectation for her to appear once more upon his horizon. MANICE looked at his watch.

It was ten minutes past four and he was already late for an engagement. Nevertheless, he dashed hastily Into the big de, partment store, determined to procure the driving gloves that he sorely needed. The tired clerks and Bhining pneumatic tubes seemed to be in league to (detain him, and he was Btrolling Impatiently up and down. Inwardly re(vlling the system that made such delay when the eight of a tall, fair fglrl. also waiting for change, trans; formed his feelings like the touch of a fairy wand.

His impatience vanished, his engagement was forgotten. He had seen his ideal woman! A weaker man might have failed to Mdetect his chance in the mere passing of a face In the crowd. Not Manice. If Fate, in effect, said to "Don't you wish you knew her?" he indomitably answered, "Trust me shall know her!" And so the game began. Social customs he regarded as so tnany fences Inclosing and dividing the field of action.

Under ordinary circumstances he respected these defenses and skirted them decorously he came to gateways, like any other well-bred individual. But the case In hand was comparable only to a cross-country ride, when the man who. would be In at the death must SO over the fences. Jump the ditches fciid stay him not for gateways and bridges. 1904.

by M. McKea.) But to his dismay he found that he was not He did not understand the gentleman's request and he refused the offer somewhat haughtily. It was then that Manice appealed to the man, ignored the artist, and at the end of his brief but somewhat shame-faced explanation Hagadorn was smiling genially. "I'll do it with pleasure," said he, holding out his hand. "And of course you'll know Just well, Just the right sort of music?" suggested Manice.

"The sort that willthat "Yes," assented the organist, "I think I know the Bort," and they parted in great good humor. At the end of that rapturous hour, of wonderful music in the 7 dim interior of St. Michael's next day, Betty simply turned her humid eyes upon Manice and held out her hands. It was not until she had gained the poise and assertion of six months of wlfehood that she accused him of taking an unfair "As If any girl could have refused such a lover!" she taunted, ruffling hia hair disgracefully. "It.

was what the papers call clap-trap." THE CONQUEROR Keith Gordon (CcpjTisht, 1331, by EdwitfJ. Webster.) big black panther, was grew 15 5 sullenly, bis growl oc- WV.2sJon"a!]y rising to a snarl of asperated, rase. His mistress, Carmen, dainty, from very far from being a person capable of ruling and restraining the big. fierce cat animals of the circus was standing In front of his cage. Ordinarily the sight of Carmen caused the big panther to set up an affectionate purring.

But on the present occasion Tom Howard, the best athlete in the great circus, was talking to the 'pretty Carmen. It was plain, even to a black panther, that the interest Howard took in Carmen was more than It was also plain that Carmen was far from displeased this interest. And that was the reason the big panther was growling. For a deep and consuming jealousy of stalwart Tom Howard filled Chita's heart. Just then a warning rang.

This was the signal for Carmen to get reaay for her great "Animal School Act." Her scholars were not rosy-cheeked boys and girls, but a very grim-look- As he took his place he looked at the crowd with languid curiosity, yawned and acted like a lion who considered a school for a lion of his years as a nuisance, but not enough of one to make a fuss over. But the big Bengal tiger evidently was in an Ugly frame of mind. At first he refused to enter the cage. Carmen struck 1 him lightly with her whip. Like a flash the big lips curled up, showing long, sharp tiger fangs, and at the same time he gave a snarl of rage, low and rumbling at first, but rising until it re-echoed from every part of the circus tent.

But Carmen The Numidian lion walked into the cage in a lazy, nonchalant manner. He ing set of pupils, consisting; of Chita, the big Bengal User, and Diogenes, the sleepy, but big-maned, strongjawed Numidian lion. In this act each of the great felines left his own cage and entered a larger one in which Carmen was seated on a low chair, a small rod, the symbol of her authority, in her hand. Chita trotted willingly into this cage. He was devoted to Carmen and now that Tom Howard was out of sight there was nothing to disturb his good nature.

evidently looked on the whole thins; a bore. But he had eaten a good dinner, felt at peace with the world. and, anxhow. it would soon be over. looked him steadily In the eye and, after a moment's hesitation, the great striped beast slunk to his place.

It was plain that he was in a dangerous mood. Despite the tiger's temper the lesson would probably have pone on as usual had not Tom Howard happened to step beyond the entrance of the ered way leading to the Quarters of the circus people when they are not in the ring. Tom was always intensely worried when Carmen was giving her animal school act. It was this anxiety which led him to leave the circus quarters. But his well meant consideration proved costly.

As Tom stepped from the canvas covered passageway Chita, saw him- The sight stirred the black panther's smoldering Jealousy. Ke stopped abruptly In his role as Carmen's pupil. Jumped oft the pedestal on which hs had been sitting at "attention" and sent forth a fierce, snarling growl. In which he expressed hatred of the man who he felt had usurped first place in his heart. At the first notes of ths angry snarl Carmen turned reprovingly to the panther.

She knew there was not the least danger of her pet attacking her. But he must on with his performonce or the act would be a failure. -Chita." she said, in reproachful tones, looking straight into the angry panther's eyes. And as she did this she turned her back on the still sullen Bengal tiger. The big tiger had been growing more and more sulky as the act proceeded.

His nerves were in a bad state, and the angry snarl -of the panther had been the finishing touch. Now Carmen hart taken her eyes off him- That settled It. He dropped from his pedestal to the floor of the cage, gathered himself for. the sprin- and the next instant was shooting through the air. a black and yellow bar of deacy erxergy.

The impact of the shock threw Carmen to the floor. But quick a3 Bengal tiger had been, the panther vas quicker. All thought of Jealousy vanished at Eight of the attack on his mistress. Before the tiger could use tooth or claw the lithe, strong-limbed panther had launched himself right at the tiger's throat. Over and over on the floor of the cage the two great cats rolled.

Ordinarily the panther have been no match for the far larger tiger. But the panther had caught his grip first, settling his sharp, deep-biting teeth in the tiger's throat. This prevented the tiger's using his teeth effectually. But hi3 claws, especially those on his strong hind legs, could be used. Again and again he struck out with them, ripping through the panther's skin like a soft glove.

But he could not shake the deadly grip Chita had on his throat. Although he might be torn to pieces by the great claws. Chita meant to hold on until he felt his teeth meet in his opponent's windpipe. And through all the terrible struggle. Diogenes, the Numldlan lion, sat on his pedestal, lazy, goodnatured, only calmly Interested in the life and death fight of his fierce fellow pupils.

"When the circus men separated the two big cats the Bengal tiger was dead, and the black panther, torn In twenty pieces, was dying. Carmen was unhurt, except for a few slight bruises caused by her fall on the floor of the cage. Tom Howard was foremost among: the crowd which had rushed to the cage. As Carmen placed her hand on the head of tha big panther who had died to save her. Chita opened his great yellow eyes, now fast dimming In death.

But even In death the ruling passions of his fierce wild animal nature held strong. Ills eyes brightened with affection at tha sight of Carmen. Then his glance fell on Tom Howard. The Jealous snarl started from deep down In his throat, he half raised his head. Then It sank down and the black eyes closed forever.

And Diogenes, the bli-manad lion, sat on his pedestal, calm, nonchalant, disinterested, aloof. He was waiting for the signal. "School la over." It did not come. Diogenes waited a little longer. Then he opened his great jaws In a half-suppressed yawn, dropped to the floor of the exhibition cage and trotted lazily off to the most comfortable corner of his own cage.

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALX. 12 THE RULING PASSIONS..