When the World Was Young
When the World Was Young was published in The Night-born (1913). "At that moment he witnessed a transformation and found himself gazing into the same unspeakably ferocious blue eyes of the night before, at the same clutching talon-like hands, and at the same formidable bulk in the act of springing upon him."
HE was a very quiet, self-possessed sort of man, sitting amoment on top of the wall to sound the damp darkness forwarnings of the dangers it might conceal. But the plummet ofhis hearing brought nothing to him save the moaning of windthrough invisible trees and the rustling of leaves on swayingbranches. A heavy fog drifted and drove before the wind, andthough 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 theoutside, and without noise he dropped to the ground on theinside. From his pocket he drew an electric night-stick, but hedid not use it. Dark as the way was, he was not anxious forlight. Carrying the night-stick in his hand, his finger on thebutton, he advanced through the darkness. The ground wasvelvety and springy to his feet, being carpeted with deadpine-needles and leaves and mold which evidently bad beenundisturbed for years. Leaves and branches brushed against hisbody, but so dark was it that he could not avoid them. Soon hewalked with his hand stretched out gropingly before him, andmore than once the hand fetched up against the solid trunks ofmassive trees. All about him he knew were these trees; hesensed the loom of them everywhere; and he experienced astrange feeling of microscopic smallness in the midst of greatbulks leaning toward him to crush him. Beyond, he knew, was thehouse, and he expected to find some trail or winding path thatwould lead easily to it.Once, he found himself trapped. On every side he groped againsttrees and branches, or blundered into thickets of underbrush,until there seemed no way out. Then he turned on his light,circumspectly, directing its rays to the ground at his feet.Slowly and carefully he moved it about him, the whitebrightness showing in sharp detail all the obstacles to hisprogress. He saw, an opening between huge-trunked trees, andadvanced through it, putting out the light and treading on dryfooting as yet protected from the drip of the fog by the densefoliage overhead. His sense of direction was good, and he knewhe was going toward the house.And then the thing happened--the thing unthinkable andunexpected. His descending foot came down upon something thatwas soft and alive, and that arose with a snort under theweight of his body. He sprang clear, and crouched for anotherspring, anywhere, tense and expectant, keyed for the onslaughtof the unknown. He waited a moment, wondering what manner ofanimal it was that had arisen from under his foot and that nowmade no sound nor movement and that must be crouching andwaiting just as tensely and expectantly as he. The strainbecame unbearable. Holding the night-stick before him, hepressed the button, saw, and screamed aloud in terror. He wasprepared for anything, from a frightened calf or fawn to abelligerent lion, but he was not prepared for what he saw. Inthat instant his tiny searchlight, sharp and white, had shownhim what a thousand years would not enable him to forget--aman, huge and blond, yellow-haired and yellow-bearded, nakedexcept for soft-tanned moccasins and what seemed a goat-skinabout his middle. Arms and legs were bare, as were hisshoulders and most of his chest. The skin was smooth andhairless, but browned by sun and wind, while under it heavymuscles were knotted like fat snakes. Still, this alone,unexpected as it well was, was not what had made the man screamout. What had caused his terror was the unspeakable ferocity ofthe face, the wild-animal glare of the blue eyes scarcelydazzled by the light, the pine-needles matted and clinging inthe beard and hair, and the whole formidable body crouched andin the act of springing at him. Practically in the instant hesaw all this, and while his scream still rang, the thingleaped, he flung his night-stick full at it, and threw himselfto the ground. He felt its feet and shins strike against hisribs, and he bounded up and away while the thing itself hurledonward in a heavy crashing fall into the underbrush.As the noise of the fall ceased, the man stopped and on handsand knees waited. He could hear the thing moving about,searching for him, and he was afraid to advertise his locationby attempting further flight. He knew that inevitably he wouldcrackle the underbrush and be pursued. Once he drew out hisrevolver, then changed his mind. He had recovered his composureand hoped to get away without noise. Several times he heard thething beating up the thickets for him, and there were momentswhen it, too, remained still and listened. This gave an idea tothe man. One of his hands was resting on a chunk of dead wood.Carefully, first feeling about him in the darkness to know thatthe full swing of his arm was clear, he raised the chunk ofwood and threw it. It was not a large piece, and it went far,landing noisily in a bush. He heard the thing bound into thebush, and at the same time himself crawled steadily away. Andon hands and knees, slowly and cautiously, he crawled on, tillhis knees were wet on the soggy mold, When he listened he heardnaught but the moaning wind and the drip-drip of the fog fromthe branches. Never abating his caution, he stood erect andwent on to the stone wall, over which he climbed and droppeddown to the road outside.Feeling his way in a clump of bushes, he drew out a bicycle andprepared to mount. He was in the act of driving the gear aroundwith his foot for the purpose of getting the opposite pedal inposition, when he heard the thud of a heavy body that landedlightly and evidently on its feet. He did not wait for more,but ran, with hands on the handles of his bicycle, until he wasable to vault astride the saddle, catch the pedals, and start aspurt. Behind he could hear the quick thud-thud of feet on thedust of the road, but he drew away from it and lost it.Unfortunately, he had started away from the direction of townand was heading higher up into the hills. He knew that on thisparticular road there were no cross roads. The only way backwas past that terror, and he could not steel himself to faceit. At the end of half an hour, finding himself on an everincreasing grade, he dismounted. For still greater safety,leaving the wheel by the roadside, he climbed through a fenceinto what he decided was a hillside pasture, spread a newspaperon the 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 andas he pondered the problem of getting back.But he made no attempt to go back. He was resolved not to facethat road in the dark, and with head bowed on knees, he dozed,waiting for daylight.How long afterward he did not know, he was awakened by theyapping bark of a young coyote. As he looked about and locatedit on the brow of the hill behind him, he noted the change thathad come over the face of the night. The fog was gone; thestars and moon were out; even the wind had died down. It hadtransformed into a balmy California summer night. He tried todoze again, but the yap of the coyote disturbed him. Halfasleep, he heard a wild and eery chant. Looking about him, henoticed that the coyote had ceased its noise and was runningaway along the crest of the hill, and behind it, in fullpursuit, no longer chanting, ran the naked creature he hadencountered in the garden. It was a young coyote, and it wasbeing overtaken when the chase passed from view. The mantrembled as with a chill as he started to his feet, clamberedover the fence, and mounted his wheel. But it was his chanceand he knew it. The terror was no longer between him and MillValley.He sped at a breakneck rate down the hill, but in the turn atthe bottom, in the deep shadows, he encountered a chuck-holeand pitched headlong over the handle bar."It's sure not my night," he muttered, as he examined thebroken fork of the machineShouldering the useless wheel, he trudged on. In time he cameto the stone wall, and, half disbelieving his experience, hesought in the road for tracks, and found them--moccasin tracks,large ones, deep-bitten into the dust at the toes. It was whilebending over them, examining, that again he heard the eerychant. He had seen the thing pursue the coyote, and he knew hehad no chance on a straight run. He did not attempt it,contenting himself with hiding in the shadows on the off sideof the road.And again he saw the thing that was like a naked man, runningswiftly and lightly and singing as it ran. Opposite him itpaused, and his heart stood still. But instead of coming towardhis hiding-place, it leaped into the air, caught the branch ofa roadside tree, and swung swiftly upward, from limb to limb,like an ape. It swung across the wall, and a dozen feet abovethe top, into the branches of another tree, and dropped out ofsight to the ground. The man waited a few wondering minutes,then started on.
IIDave Slotter leaned belligerently against the desk that barredthe way to the private office of James Ward, senior partner ofthe firm of Ward, Knowles & Co. Dave was angry. Every one inthe outer office had looked him over suspiciously, and the manwho faced him was excessively suspicious."You just tell Mr. Ward it's important," he urged."I tell you he is dictating and cannot be disturbed," was theanswer. "Come to-morrow.""To-morrow will be too late. You just trot along and tell Mr.Ward it's a 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 lastnight, and that 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 inthe belligerent frame of mind, but when he saw a large fair manwhirl in a revolving chair from dictating to a stenographer toface him, Dave's demeanor abruptly changed. He did not know whyit changed, and he was secretly angry with himself."You are Mr. Ward?" Dave asked with a fatuousness that stillfurther irritated 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 namedon't matter.""You sent in word that you were in Mill Valley last night?""You live there, don't you?" Dave countered, lookingsuspiciously at the stenographer."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, thenmade up his mind."That will do for a few minutes, Miss Potter."The girl arose, gathered her notes together, and passed out.Dave looked at Mr. James Ward wonderingly, until that gentlemanbroke his train of inchoate 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 itlooked good to me. Only I didn't break in. Something happenedthat prevented. That's why I'm here. I come to warn you. Ifound a wild man loose in your grounds--a regular devil. Hecould pull a guy like me to pieces. He gave me the run of mylife. He don't wear any clothes to speak of, he climbs treeslike 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 onit."Dave paused and looked for the effect that would follow hiswords. But no effect came. James Ward was quietly curious, andthat 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 hardproposition myself, but I don't believe in killing people . . .that is, unnecessarily. I realized that you was in danger. Ithought I'd warn you. Honest, that's the game. Of course, ifyou 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 give meanything or not. I've warned you any way, and done my duty."Mr. Ward meditated and drummed on the surface of his desk. Davenoticed they were large, powerful hands, withal well-cared fordespite their dark sunburn. Also, he noted what had alreadycaught his eye before--a tiny strip of flesh-coloredcourtplaster on the forehead over one eye. And still thethought 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 itthat it was for twenty dollars."Thank you," said Mr. Ward, indicating that the interview wasat an end."I shall have the matter investigated. A wild man running looseIS dangerous."But so quiet a man was Mr. Ward, that Dave's courage returned.Besides, a new theory had suggested itself. The wild man wasevidently Mr. Ward's brother, a lunatic privately confined.Dave had heard of such things. Perhaps Mr. Ward wanted it keptquiet. That was why he had given him the twenty dollars."Say," Dave began, "now I come to think of it that wild manlooked a lot like you--"That was as far as Dave got, for at that moment he witnessed atransformation and found himself gazing into the sameunspeakably ferocious blue eyes of the night before, at thesame clutching talon-like hands, and at the same formidablebulk in the act of springing upon him. But this time Dave hadno night-stick to throw, and he was caught by the biceps ofboth arms in a grip so terrific that it made him groan withpain. He saw the large white teeth exposed, for all the worldas a dog's about to bite. Mr. Ward's beard brushed his face asthe teeth went in for the grip on his throat. But the bite wasnot given. Instead, Dave felt the other's body stiffen as withan iron restraint, and then he was flung aside, without effortbut with such force that only the wall stopped his momentum anddropped him gasping to the floor."What do you mean by coming here and trying to blackmail me?"Mr. Ward was 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 me see and hear no more of you, or I'll put you in prisonwhere you belong. Do you understand?""Yes, sir," Dave gasped."Then go."And Dave went, without further word, both his biceps achingintolerably from the bruise of that tremendous grip. As hishand rested on the door knob, he was stopped."You were lucky," Mr. Ward was saying, and Dave noted that hisface and eyes were cruel and gloating and proud."You were lucky. Had I wanted, I could have torn your musclesout of your 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 passedout of the offices and the story.
IIIJames G. Ward was forty years of age, a successful businessman, and very unhappy. For forty years he had vainly tried tosolve a problem that was really himself and that withincreasing years became more and more a woeful affliction. Inhimself he was two men, and, chronologically speaking, thesemen were several thousand years or so apart. He had studied thequestion of dual personality probably more profoundly than anyhalf dozen of the leading specialists in that intricate andmysterious psychological field. In himself he was a differentcase from any that had been recorded. Even the most fancifulflights of the fiction-writers had not quite hit upon him. Hewas not a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, nor was he like theunfortunate young man in Kipling's "Greatest Story in theWorld." His two personalities were so mixed that they werepractically aware of themselves and of each other all the time.His other self he had located as a savage and a barbarianliving under the primitive conditions of several thousand yearsbefore. But which self was he, and which was the other, hecould never tell. For he was both selves, and both selves allthe time. Very rarely indeed did it happen that one self didnot know what the other was doing. Another thing was that hehad no visions nor memories of the past in which that earlyself had lived. That early self lived in the present; but whileit lived in the present, it was under the compulsion to livethe way of life that must have been in that distant past.In his childhood he had been a problem to his father andmother, and to the family doctors, though never had they comewithin a thousand miles of hitting upon the clue to hiserratic, conduct. Thus, they could not understand his excessivesomnolence in the forenoon, nor his excessive activity atnight. When they found him wandering along the hallways atnight, or climbing over giddy roofs, or running in the hills,they decided he was a somnambulist. In reality he was wide-eyedawake and merely under the nightroaming compulsion of his earlyself. Questioned by an obtuse medico, he once told the truthand suffered the ignominy of having the revelationcontemptuously labeled and dismissed as "dreams."The point was, that as twilight and evening came on he becamewakeful. The four walls of a room were an irk and a restraint.He heard a thousand voices whispering to him through thedarkness. The night called to him, for he was, for that periodof the twenty-four hours, essentially a night-prowler. Butnobody understood, and never again did he attempt to explain.They classified him as a sleep-walker and took precautionsaccordingly--precautions that very often were futile. As hischildhood advanced, he grew more cunning, so that the majorportion of all his nights were spent in the open at realizinghis other self. As a result, he slept in the forenoons. Morningstudies and schools were impossible, and it was discovered thatonly in the afternoons, under private teachers, could he betaught anything. Thus was his modern self educated anddeveloped.But a problem, as a child, he ever remained. He was known as alittle demon, of insensate cruelty and viciousness. The familymedicos privately adjudged him a mental monstrosity anddegenerate. Such few boy companions as he had, hailed him as awonder, though they were all afraid of him. He could outclimb,outswim, outrun, outdevil any of them; while none dared fightwith him. He was too terribly strong, madly furious.When nine years of age he ran away to the hills, where heflourished, night-prowling, for seven weeks before he wasdiscovered and brought home. The marvel was how he had managedto subsist and keep in condition during that time. They did notknow, and he never told them, of the rabbits he had killed, ofthe quail, young and old, he had captured and devoured, of thefarmers' chicken-roosts he had raided, nor of the cave-lair hehad made and carpeted with dry leaves and grasses and in whichhe had slept in warmth and comfort through the forenoons ofmany days.At college he was notorious for his sleepiness and stupidityduring the morning lectures and for his brilliance in theafternoon. By collateral reading and by borrowing the notebookof his fellow students he managed to scrape through thedetestable morning courses, while his afternoon courses weretriumphs. In football he proved a giant and a terror, and, inalmost every form of track athletics, save for strangeBerserker rages that were sometimes displayed, he could bedepended upon to win. But his fellows were afraid to box withhim, and he signalized his last wrestling bout by sinking histeeth into the shoulder of his opponent.After college, his father, in despair, sent him among thecow-punchers of a Wyoming ranch. Three months later the doughtycowmen confessed he was too much for them and telegraphed hisfather to come and take the wild man away. Also, when thefather arrived to take him away, the cowmen allowed that theywould vastly prefer chumming with howling cannibals, gibberinglunatics, cavorting gorillas, grizzly bears, and man-eatingtigers than with this particular Young college product withhair parted in the middle.There was one exception to the lack of memory of the life ofhis early self, and that was language. By some quirk ofatavism, a certain portion of that early self's language hadcome down to him as a racial memory. In moments of happiness,exaltation, or battle, he was prone to burst out in wildbarbaric songs or chants. It was by this means that he locatedin time and space that strayed half of him who should have beendead and dust for thousands of years. He sang, once, anddeliberately, several of the ancient chants in the presence ofProfessor Wertz, who gave courses in old Saxon and who was aphilogist of repute and passion. At the first one, theprofessor pricked up his ears and demanded to know what mongreltongue or hog-German it was. When the second chant wasrendered, the professor was highly excited. James Ward thenconcluded the performance by giving a song that alwaysirresistibly rushed to his lips when he was engaged in fiercestruggling or fighting. Then it was that Professor Wertzproclaimed it no hog-German, but early German, or early Teuton,of a date that must far precede anything that had ever beendiscovered and handed down by the scholars. So early was itthat it was beyond him; yet it was filled with hauntingreminiscences of word-forms he knew and which his trainedintuition told him were true and real. He demanded the sourceof the songs, and asked to borrow the precious book thatcontained them. Also, he demanded to know why young Ward hadalways posed as being profoundly ignorant of the Germanlanguage. And Ward could neither explain his ignorance nor lendthe book. Whereupon, after pleadings and entreaties thatextended through weeks, Professor Wert took a dislike to theyoung man, believed him a liar, and classified him as a man ofmonstrous selfishness for not giving him a glimpse of thiswonderful screed that was older than the oldest any philologisthad ever known or dreamed.But little good did it do this much-mixed young man to knowthat half of him was late American and the other half earlyTeuton. Nevertheless, the late American in him was no weakling,and he (if he were a he and had a shred of existence outside ofthese two) compelled an adjustment or compromise between hisone self that was a nightprowling savage that kept his otherself sleepy of mornings, and that other self that was culturedand refined and that wanted to be normal and live and love andprosecute business like other people. The afternoons and earlyevenings he gave to the one, the nights to the other; theforenoons and parts of the nights were devoted to sleep for thetwain. But in the mornings he slept in bed like a civilizedman. In the night time he slept like a wild animal, as he hadslept Dave Slotter stepped on him in the woods.Persuading his father to advance the capital, he went intobusiness and keen and successful business he made of it,devoting his afternoons whole-souled to it, while his partnerdevoted the mornings. The early evenings he spent socially,but, as the hour grew to nine or ten, an irresistiblerestlessness overcame him and he disappeared from the haunts ofmen until the next afternoon. Friends and acquaintances thoughtthat he spent much of his time in sport. And they were right,though they never would have dreamed of the nature of thesport, even if they had seen him running coyotes innight-chases over the hills of Mill Valley. Neither were theschooner captains believed when they reported seeing, on coldwinter mornings, a man swimming in the tide-rips of RaccoonStraits or in the swift currents between Goat island and AngelIsland miles from shore.In the bungalow at Mill Valley he lived alone, save for LeeSing, the Chinese cook and factotum, who knew much about thestrangeness of his master, who was paid well for sayingnothing, and who never did say anything. After the satisfactionof his nights, a morning's sleep, and a breakfast of LeeSing's, James Ward crossed the bay to San Francisco on a middayferryboat and went to the club and on to his office, as normaland conventional a man of business as could be found in thecity. But as the evening lengthened, the night called to him.There came a quickening of all his perceptions and arestlessness. His hearing was suddenly acute; the myriadnight-noises told him a luring and familiar story; and, ifalone, 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 himselfthat diversion again. He was afraid. And for many a day theyoung lady, scared at least out of a portion of her youngladyhood, bore on her arms and shoulders and wrists diversblack-and-blue bruises--tokens of caresses which he hadbestowed in all fond gentleness but too late at night. Therewas the mistake. Had he ventured love-making in the afternoon,all would have been well, for it would have been as the quietgentleman that he would have made love--but at night it was theuncouth, wife-stealing savage of the dark German forests. Outof his wisdom, he decided that afternoon love-making could beprosecuted successfully; but out of the same wisdom he wasconvinced that marriage as would prove a ghastly failure. Hefound it appalling to imagine being married and encounteringhis wife after dark.So he had eschewed all love-making, regulated his dual life,cleaned up a million in business, fought shy of match-makingmamas and bright-eyed and eager young ladies of various ages,met Lilian Gersdale and made it a rigid observance never to seeher later than eight o'clock in the evening, run of nightsafter his coyotes, and slept in forest lairs--and through itall had kept his secret safe save Lee Sing . . . and now, DaveSlotter. It was the latter's discovery of both his selves thatfrightened him. In spite of the counter fright he had given theburglar, the latter might talk. And even if he did not, sooneror later he would be found out by some one else.Thus it was that James Ward made a fresh and heroic effort tocontrol the Teutonic barbarian that was half of him. So welldid he make it a point to see Lilian in the afternoons, thatthe time came when she accepted him for better or worse, andwhen he prayed privily and fervently that it was not for worse.During this period no prize-fighter ever trained more harshlyand faithfully for a contest than he trained to subdue the wildsavage in him. Among other things, he strove to exhaust himselfduring the day, so that sleep would render him deaf to the callof the night. He took a vacation from the office and went onlong hunting trips, following the deer through the mostinaccessible and rugged country he could find--and always inthe daytime. Night found him indoors and tired. At home heinstalled a score of exercise machines, and where other menmight go through a particular movement ten times, he wenthundreds. Also, as a compromise, he built a sleeping porch onthe second story. Here he at least breathed the blessed nightair. Double screens prevented him from escaping into the woods,and each night Lee Sing locked him in and each morning let himout.The time came, in the month of August, when he engagedadditional servants to assist Lee Sing and dared a house partyin his Mill Valley bungalow. Lilian, her mother and brother,and half a dozen mutual friends, were the guests. For two daysand nights all went well. And on the third night, playingbridge till eleven o'clock, he had reason to be proud ofhimself. His restlessness fully hid, but as luck would have it,Lilian Gersdale was his opponent on his right. She was a fraildelicate flower of a woman, and in his night-mood her veryfrailty incensed him. Not that he loved her less, but that hefelt almost irresistibly impelled to reach out and paw and maulher. Especially was this true when she was engaged in playing awinning hand against him.He had one of the deer-hounds brought in and, when it seemed hemust fly to pieces with the tension, a caressing hand laid onthe animal brought him relief. These contacts with the hairycoat gave him instant easement and enabled him to play out theevening. Nor did anyone guess the while terrible struggle theirhost was making, the while he laughed so carelessly and playedso keenly and deliberately.When they separated for the night, he saw to it that he partedfrom Lilian in the presence or the others. Once on his sleepingporch and safely locked in, he doubled and tripled and evenquadrupled his exercises until, exhausted, he lay down on thecouch to woo sleep and to ponder two problems that especiallytroubled him. One was this matter of exercise. It was aparadox. The more he exercised in this excessive fashion, thestronger he became. While it was true that he thus quite tiredout his night-running Teutonic self, it seemed that he wasmerely setting back the fatal day when his strength would betoo much for him and overpower him, and then it would be astrength more terrible than he had yet known. The other problemwas that of his marriage and of the stratagems he must employin order to avoid his wife after dark. And thus, fruitlesslypondering, he fell asleep.Now, where the huge grizzly bear came from that night was longa mystery, while the people of the Springs Brothers' Circus,showing at Sausalito, searched long and vainly for "Big Ben,the Biggest Grizzly in Captivity." But Big Ben escaped, and,out of the mazes of half a thousand bungalows and countryestates, selected the grounds of James J. Ward for visitation.The self first Mr. Ward knew was when he found him on his feet,quivering and tense, a surge of battle in his breast and on hislips the old war-chant. From without came a wild baying andbellowing of the hounds. And sharp as a knife-thrust throughthe pandemonium came the agony of a stricken dog--his dog, heknew.Not stopping for slippers, pajama-clad, he burst through thedoor Lee Sing had so carefully locked, and sped down the stairsand out into the night. As his naked feet struck the graveleddriveway, he stopped abruptly, reached under the steps to ahiding-place he knew well, and pulled forth a huge knottyclub--his old companion on many a mad night adventure on thehills. The frantic hullabaloo of the dogs was coming nearer,and, swinging the club, he sprang straight into the thickets tomeet it.The aroused household assembled on the wide veranda. Somebodyturned on the electric lights, but they could see nothing butone another's frightened faces. Beyond the brightly illuminateddriveway the trees formed a wall of impenetrable blackness. Yetsomewhere in that blackness a terrible struggle was going on.There was an infernal outcry of animals, a great snarling andgrowling, the sound of blows being struck and a smashing andcrashing of underbrush by heavy bodies.The tide of battle swept out from among the trees and upon thedriveway just beneath the onlookers. Then they saw. Mrs.Gersdale cried out and clung fainting to her son. Lilian,clutching the railing so spasmodically that a bruising hurt wasleft in her finger-ends for days, gazed horror-stricken at ayellow-haired, wild-eyed giant whom she recognized as the manwho was to be her husband. He was swinging a great club, andfighting furiously and calmly with a shaggy monster that wasbigger than any bear she had ever seen. One rip of the beast'sclaws had dragged away Ward's pajama-coat and streaked hisflesh with blood.While most of Lilian Gersdale's fright was for the man beloved,there was a large portion of it due to the man himself. Neverhad she dreamed so formidable and magnificent a savage lurkedunder the starched shirt and conventional garb of herbetrothed. And never had she had any conception of how a manbattled. Such a battle was certainly not modern; nor was shethere beholding a modern man, though she did not know it. Forthis was not Mr. James J. Ward, the San Francisco business man,but one, unnamed and unknown, a crude, rude savage creaturewho, by some freak of chance, lived again after thrice athousand years.The hounds, ever maintaining their mad uproar, circled aboutthe fight, or dashed in and out, distracting the bear. When theanimal turned to meet such flanking assaults, the man leaped inand the club came down. Angered afresh by every such blow, thebear would rush, and the man, leaping and skipping, avoidingthe dogs, went backwards or circled to one side or the other.Whereupon the dogs, taking advantage of the opening, wouldagain spring in and draw the animal's wrath to them.The end came suddenly. Whirling, the grizzly caught a houndwith a wide sweeping cuff that sent the brute, its ribs cavedin and its back broken, hurtling twenty feet. Then the humanbrute went mad. A foaming rage flecked the lips that partedwith a wild inarticulate cry, as it sprang in, swung the clubmightily in both hands, and brought it down full on the head ofthe uprearing grizzly. Not even the skull of a grizzly couldwithstand the crushing force of such a blow, and the animalwent down to meet the worrying of the hounds. And through theirscurrying leaped the man, squarely upon the body, where, in thewhite electric light, resting on his club, he chanted a triumphin an unknown tongue--a song so ancient that Professor Wertzwould have given ten years of his life for it.His guests rushed to possess him and acclaim him, but JamesWard, suddenly looking out of the eyes of the early Teuton, sawthe fair frail Twentieth Century girl he loved, and feltsomething snap in his brain. He staggered weakly toward her,dropped the club, and nearly fell. Something had gone wrongwith him. Inside his brain was an intolerable agony. It seemedas if the soul of him were flying asunder. Following theexcited gaze of the others, he glanced back and saw the carcassof the bear. The sight filled him with fear. He uttered a cryand would have fled, had they not restrained him and led himinto 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 ofnights after the coyotes under the moon. The early Teuton inhim died the night of the Mill Valley fight with the bear.James J. Ward is now wholly James J. Ward, and he shares nopart of his being with any vagabond anachronism from theyounger world. And so wholly is James J. Ward modern, that heknows in all its bitter fullness the curse of civilized fear.He is now afraid of the dark, and night in the forest is to hima thing of abysmal terror. His city house is of the spick andspan order, and he evinces a great interest in burglarproofdevices. His home is a tangle of electric wires, and afterbed-time a guest can scarcely breathe without setting off analarm. Also, he had invented a combination keyless door-lockthat travelers may carry in their vest pockets and applyimmediately and successfully under all circumstances. But hiswife does not deem him a coward. She knows better. And, likeany hero, he is content to rest on his laurels. His bravery isnever questioned by those friends who are aware of the MillValley episode.
When the World Was Young was featured as
TheShort Story of the Day on
Sat, Oct 26, 2013
You may also enjoy reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and our collection of Halloween Stories.
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