The Glasgow courier., 1915-09-10

dom Of the fox.
Once upon q time he would have
coughed and moaned and roared after
the manner Of his hungry brethren.
but much experience with men people
and their deafening thunder sticks had
taught him that he hunted longest who
hunted in silence.
Victoria Custer had gone to her room
much earlier in the evening than was
her custom. but not to sleep. She did
not even disrobe. but sat instead In the
darkness beside her window. looking
out toward the black and mysterious
jungle in the distance and the shadowy
outlines of the southern hills.
She was trying to fight down forever
the foolish obsession that had been
growing upon her slowly and insidi-
ously for years. Since the first awak-
ening Of developing womanhood with
in her she had been subject to the
strange dream that was now becoming
an almost nightly occurrence.
At first she bad thought nothing OF
It other than it was odd that she
should continue to dream the same
thing SO many times. but Of late these
! nightly visions had seemed to hold
more Of reality than formerly and to
presage some happening in her career
some crisis that was to alter the
course of her life.
Even by day she could not rid her
self Of the vision Of the black haired
young giant. and tonight the culmina.
tiOn had come in the voice she had
heard calling her from the rose thicket
She knew that he was but creature
of her dreams. and it was this knowl
edge which frightened her so. for 1t
meant but one thing-her mind was
tottering beneath the burden of the
nervous strain these hallucinat tions had
imposed upon it.
She must gather all the resources Of
her nervous energy and throw off this
! terrible obsession forever. She must.
She must!
Rising. the girl paced back and forth
the length of her room. She felt sti
ding and confined within its narrow
limits. Outside. beneath the open sky.
with no boundaries save the distant
/ horizon. was the field best fitted for
such battle as was raging within her
Snatching a silken scarf, she threw
it about her shoulders-a concession to
habit. for the night was hot-and. step
ping through her window to the porch
that encircled the bungalow. she pass
ed on into the garden.
Just round the nearest angle Of the
house her brother and Billy Curtiss sat
smoking before the window of their
bedroom. clad in pajamas and slippers.
Curtiss was cleaning the rifle be had
used that day. the same that he had
carried into the rose garden earlier in
the evening. Neither heard the girls
light footsteps upon the sward, and the
corner Of the building hid her from
their view.
In the open moonlight before the
rose thicket Victoria Custer paced back
and forth dozen times she reached
the determination to seek the first op-
portunity upon the morrow to give
Billy Curtiss an affirmative answer to
the question he had asked her the night
before-the night of the earthquake
but each time that she thought she had
disposed Of the matter definitely she
found herself involuntarily comparing
him with the heroic figure Of her
dream man. and again she must need
rewage her battle.
AS she walked in the moonlight tWt
pairs of eyes watched her every move
ment-one pair. clear and black, from
:. the rose thicket; the other, flaming vel
low green, hidden in a little clump o.
bushes at the point where she turned
in her pacing to retrace her steps a
the point farthest from the watche
) among the roses.
Twenty times M was on the poin
of leaping from his concealment ant
taking the girl in his arms. for to hin
she was Nat-ul. daughter of Tha. ant
it had not been a hundred thousan'
years, but only yesterday. the day be
fore. that he had last seen her.
Yet each time something deterre'
him-a strange, vague, indefnable fea
= Of this wondrous creature who wa
Nat-ul and yet who was not Nat-ul, bu
|. another made in Nat-ul's image.
: The strange things that covered he
> fair figure seemed to have raised
= barrier between them-the last tim
A that he had walked hand in hand wit
= her upon the beach naught but the sol
skin Of red doe had clothed her.
;. Her familiar association, too, wit
Z these strange people. coupled with tn
y fact that she spoke and understoo
e their language. only tended to remov
y her further from him.
n Nu was very sad and very lionel,
|, and the sight Of Nat.ul seemed to a
K centuate rather than relieve his d
/. preston. Slowly there was born wit
in him the conviction that Nat-ul WI
n no longer for M. the son of Nh. WI
d he could not guess. but the bitter IA