Evening star., 1922-05-21

the elephants had crashed fifteen
minutes before. and with one leap,
cleared the loose boards and debris.
She was In a world unknown.
The storm--to escape i,--that was
all. The slow brain Of the tiger knew
only that terrible enemy was upon
her. and that her muscles were obey
ing the dictates of fear
On and on-until woods and mead
ows had taken the place of paved
streets. until the cracking OF branch
ed the crashing of quarter-poles. But
still she ran before the storm, stop
ping now and again to COVER in the
shelter of some great tree trunk, to
whine and growl. then to hurry on
ward -
An hour-two. The wind decreased.
The drive of the rain became lighter.
The pace of the tiger slowed--to q
new step. new sinuosity that came
to her with the dictates of second
nature. Stealth marked her progress
now; she was suspicious of every
noise. of every dim. hazy form Of the
darkness. Once she issued into
clearing. where lights showed ahead,
and voices sounded. as the laborers
of farm sought to repair the dam,
age to a wind wrecked barn. An hour
before Chota would have crawled to-
ward those lights and those voices.
But now she growled. and twistines
in her tracks. chose a new route back
into the woods. The age-old instincts
Of her cat nature. dormant all her
life. had come into being at last!
She knew nothing of the uninhabit-
able, malarious tardi fringing the
Himalayas, where once her ances-
tors had roamed-yet within an hour
as the storm died. she had sought out
the damp marshlands which fringed
the river. Her food had been poked
daily to her on a feeding fork be-
tween the bars of a cage; yet at this
dawn, when a rabbit sprang up in her
path. she was upon 1t in an instant,
crushing it with one blow OF tre-
menodus paw, growing over it as its
last signing breath departed. then
Ticking it with her scaly tongue be-
fore the heavy teeth crunched upon
bones and flesh alike. So the imme-
diate past had become a blank. A
single night free in the woods had
changed Chota from a tame thing
into a creature as wild as one of her
ancestors.
So. as dawn ensued. aud the last
scudding clouds gave way before the
sun. she sought the heaviest under
growth, the thickest masses OF marsh
reeds. there to trample down the
makeshift of bed, and to doze with
periods of wakefulness until late aft
ernoon. Then she tensed. Enemies
were near!
A hundred yards away she heard
them crashing through the weeds and
underbrush. shouting to one another.
calling directions. A voice long-fa-
miliar came to her. a voice that in
other days would have caused her to
purr
"She must be around here some
where, fellows. These weeds look like
some big cat'd beat 'em down. Take
it easy now-don't scare her-slow
and careful. everybody"
But now tho voice brought no
friendly response from the striped
brute. Chota was in the element of
her forbears; the cage was as II it
had never been. Her sinuous body un-
curled from its sleeping posture. The
heavy round head, with its white
necked ears, was drawn against the
powerful chest. A long. serpent-like
hiss issued from between the heavy,
yellow teenth.
The sounds came nearer, then trailed
away. to be repeated beyond her. The
heavy paws of the cat padded rest
lessly. A growl beginning deep in
the throat turned suddenly into roar
as the weeds parted and the hrst Of
a group of men appeared not ten
feet away. Then a leap, scattering
forms. a cry as one of the searchers
went down beneath the aimless blow
of sweeping paw. Freedom!
THE pursuers had been left behind
confused by the sudden onslaught
of the beast, while Cnota, threading
through the marshes with swift lunges,
resumed her Night. Twilight found her
high in rocky bluffs with tneir tangles Of
wild grapevines. their brambles their
network Of blackberry patches-and
their caverns And there. In a orevice
beneath the beetling, mossgrown rocks.
Chota crept at last, to rest q space and
then to start forth again in obedience to
a newly aroused instinct, the call Of
the hunt.
An hour later. far below. in the pasture
of a small farm, q calf bleated piteously
as . striped destroyer pouncsd upon 1t,
while the rest Of the herd scattered In
panic. Long into the night chota glurtsd
herself. tasting warm blood Of hsr own
kill At last she turned away. back to
the hills, straight to the crevice beneath
the great rock.
Again the next night she stalked
forth to the kill. and the night after
that. But on the third she did not
stir from the crevice beneath the
rocks, and for the reason that had
caused the extra kindliness of the
animal-men back on the circus. the
solicitude of the menagerie super
intendent. and his numerous visits
before her cage. From the depths OF
the crevice there came with dawn the
faint. yowling cries Of q small. help
less furry being which tumbled about
the non-resisting Chota, and with
blind instinct, sucked at her breast.