The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1901-12-19
A SEQUOIA DRYAD
BY ETHEL WATTS MuMFoRD.

the gaunt, dark figure. This time she
did not wait to be addressed, but
| walked with majestic languor to with
is earshot.
"Men," she said in her clear, mu-
steal Castillian, ''you are in danger
go your ways and do not tempt your
betters to destroy you. For centuries
they have lived. Do you dare to
threaten their existence?-if so, be.
ware! l know them, and I know
their will"
She waited for no response, but
turned, with the slow, strong, grace
full motion that characterized her,
and disappeared in the direction of
her tree. The half-breeds looked aft
er her in surprise, took a fresh drink
all around and returned to their talk.
But Derringer could not. He had ex-
perienced for the second time that
ungovernable fear, that creeping Of
the flesh that unnerves a man. He
swung himself from the platform to
the ground and followed the retreat
ing figure. He saw her enter the
| gaping cavern in the heart of the
sequoia, and few moments later
noticed the same thread of blue
smoke proceeding from an opening
IN the bark, where, doubtless, she had
improvised chimney. He longed to
cross the narrow barrier of the
stream and enter this unusual dwell
ing, but a sense of improperly held
him back. After all she was a wom-
an, this forest giant was her boudoir,
and the habit of his youthful training
was still strong upon him.
That was the beginning. From
that day forward he knew no peace.
Every day at the noon hour the Dry
ad came, calm and unmoved as the
speaking statue, to deliver her warn
ing, and daily the men lost thei-' in.
difference and grew more troubled at
her coming. When the dinner hour
approached they scattered instead Of
climbing" on the scaffoldings. They
looked over their shoulders hurried
ly as they went, and gave the smok.
| ing sequoia wide berth. In addition
to the superstitious terrors to which
| he now found himself a victim, there
tion of desertion among his wood
men. He tried to drown their whis-
pered councils by CHEEKY banter, but
| his own heart misgave him.
A week passed and nothing hap
pened save the daily visits of the
ho Of ho
section of the redwood. The wire
! ropes had been staked and drawn
taut, the winders were set up at q
safe distance to avoid the possible
| spring of branches, and another day
would see the fall of the first cut
redwood of his claim. Derringer
j breathed more freely, for the Dryad
did not come at midday. Perhaps she
had given up the fruitless bluff. But
at twilight when the canyon was al
ready full of the blue-black mystery
(; of night, and the rush of the little
F.; stream sounded loud and unceasing,
she stood suddenly before him,
framed in the door of his little shack.
"Senor," she said, this is the last
warning-go!"
She disappeared as if by magic, and
Derringer's heart lay cold in his
breast He shivered, rose, looked out
at the blackness of the shadows, lis
tened to the magnified roar of the
little river, and tried to shake off
! the oppression of impeding evil-but
anyhow the warnings of a mad wom-
! an. That night there were strange
creakings in the forest and sounds at
times of stretched cables and sinister
cracklings. But the lumbermen
thought of the doomed redwood and
turned to more solid slumbers on
their primitive beds.
Suddenly out of the night came a
scream as of ten thousand demons, a
rending and tearing as of an earth
quake, blow that shook the hills
and echoed down the stony mountain
walls. Then the silence grew and
swallowed the vain tupault. Dawn
showed the cleft redwood still stand
ing in it's cables, ringed by it's plank
platform, but the men who planned
/ it's destruction were not there to
complete the work. They lay crushed
in their frail plank shanties, under
the great sequoia.
Only the Dryad was there to see
how it's heart had been eaten out by
the devouring fire, until the chamber
at it's base had become but ring of
bark. There was no one to tell of the
patient vengeance of the half-witteS
priestess of the trees. But she,
draped in her tattered Spanish finery,
damp with the nights dews, only
shook her head wisely at the ruin
about her, and calmly took her SOL
itary way through the unbroken
silence of the canyon in search of a
new hometown and Country, New
| YnrE