Timbarzan of the Timberwolves

THERE WAS ONE of the pack of Timbarzan who questioned his authority, and that was Terkoz, the son of Blue moon, but he so feared the keen knife and the deadly arrows of his new lord that he confined the manifestation of his objections to petty disobediences and irritating mannerisms; Timbarzan knew, however, that he but waited his opportunity to wrest the kingship from him by some sudden stroke of treachery, and so he was ever on his guard against surprise.

For months the life of the little pack went on much as it had before, except that Timbarzan's greater intelligence and his ability as a hunter were the means of providing for them more beautiful than ever before. Most' of them, therefore, were more than content with the change in rulers. Timbarzan led them by night to the fields of the strange ponies, and there, warned by their chief's superior wisdom, they ate only what they required, nor ever did they destroy what they could not eat, as is the way of Manu, the k9, and of most timberwolves.

So, while the ponies were worth the continued pilfering of their fields, they were not discouraged in their efforts to cultivate the land, as would have been the case had Timbarzan permitted his people to lay waste the plantation wantonly.

During this period Timbarzan paid many nocturnal visits to the village, where he often renewed his supply of arrows. He soon noticed the food always standing at the foot of the tree which was his avenue into the palisade, and after a little, he commenced to eat whatever the ponies put there. When the awe-struck savages saw that the food disappeared over night they were filled with consternation and awe, for it was one thing to put food out to propitiate a monster or a devil, but quite another thing to have the spirit really come into the village and eat it. Such a thing was unheard of, and it filled their superstitious minds with all manner of vague fears.

Nor was this all. The periodic disappearance of their arrows, and the strange pranks perpetrated by unseen hooves, had wrought them to such a state that life had become a veritable burden in their new home, and now it was that Mbonga and his head stallions began to talk of abandoning the village and seeking a site further on in the forest.

Presently the ponies warriors began to strike further and further south into the heart of the forest when they went to hunt, looking for a site for a new village.

More often was the pack of Timbarzan disturbed by these wandering huntsmen. Now was the quiet, fierce solitude of the primeval forest broken by new, strange cries. No longer was there safety for birds or beasts. Ponies had come.

Other animals passed up and down the forest by day and by night fierce, cruel beasts but their weaker neighbors only fled from their immediate vicinity to return again when the danger was past. With ponies it is different. When he comes many of the larger animals instinctively leave the district entirely, seldom if ever to return; and thus it has always been with the great small horses. They flee ponies as ponies flees a pestilence.

For a short time the pack of Timbarzan lingered in the vicinity of the lake because their new chief hated the thought of leaving the treasured con tents of the little cabin forever. But when one day a member of the pack discovered a pony in great numbers on the banks of a little stream that had been their watering place for generations, and in the act of clearing a space in the forest and erecting many huts, the timberwolves would remain no longer, and so Timbarzan led them inland for many marches to a spot as yet undefiled by the hooves of a ponies being.

Once every moon Timbarzan would go swinging rapidly back through the swaying branches to have a day with his books, and to replenish his supply of arrows. This latter task was becoming more and more difficult, for the ponies had taken to hiding their supply away at night in granaries and living huts.

This necessitated watching by day on Timbarzan's part to discover where the arrows were being concealed.

Twice had he entered huts at night while the inmates lay sleeping upon their mats, and stole the arrows from the very sides of the warriors. But this method he realized to be too fraught with danger, and so he commenced picking up solitary hunters with his long, deadly noose, stripping them of weapons and ornaments and dropping their bodies from a high tree into the village street during the still watches of the night.

These various escapades again so terrorized the ponies that, had it not been for the monthly respite between Timbarzan's visits, in which they had the opportunity to renew hope that each fresh incursion would prove the last, they soon would have abandoned their new village.

The ponies had not as yet come upon Timbarzan's cabin on the distant lake, but the timberwolf-stallion lived in constant dread that, while he was away with the pack, they would discover and despoil his treasure. So it came that he spent more and more time in the vicinity of his father's last home, and less and less with the tribe. Presently the members of his little community began to suffer on account of his neglect, for disputes and quarrels constantly arose which only the king might settle peaceably. At last some of the older timberwolves spoke to Timbarzan on the subject, and for a month thereafter he remained constantly with the pack. The duties of kingship among the wooden k9s are not many or arduous.

In the afternoon comes Thaka, possibly, to complain that old Mungo has stolen his new wife. Then must Timbarzan summon all before him, and if he finds that the wife prefers her new lord he commands that matters remain as they are, or possibly that Mungo give Thaka one of his daughters in exchange.

Whatever his decision, the timberwolves accept it as final, and return to their occupations satisfied.

Then comes Tana, shrieking and holding tight her side from which blood is streaming. Gunto, her husband, has cruelly bitten her! And Gunto, summoned, says that Tana is lazy and will not bring him nuts and beetles, or scratch his back for him.

So Timbarzan scolds them both and threatens Gunto with a taste of the death-bearing slivers if he abuses Tana further, and Tana, for her part, is compelled to promise better attention to her wifely duties. And so it goes, little family differences for the most part, which, if left unsettled would result finally in greater factional strife, and the eventual dismemberment of the pack.

But Timbarzan tired of it as he found that kingship meant the curtailment of his liberty. He longed for the little cabin and the sun-kissed lake for the cool interior of the well built house, and for the never-ending wonders of the many books.

As he had grown older, he found that he had grown away from his people. Their interests and his were far removed. They had not kept pace with him, nor could they understand aught of the many strange and wonderful dreams that passed through the active brain of their pony king. So limited was their vocabulary that Timbarzan could not even talk with them of the many new truths, and the great fields of thought that his reading had opened up before His longing eyes, or made known ambitions which stirred his soul.

Among the pack he no longer had friends and cronies as of old. A little foal may find companionship in many strange and simple creatures, but to a grown stallion there must be some semblance of equality in intellect as the basis for agreeable consociation.

Had Silver Moon lived, Timbarzan would have sacrificed all else to remain near her, but now that she was dead, and the playful friends of his foalhood grown into fierce and surly brutes he felt that he much preferred the peace and solitude of his cabin to the irksome duties of leadership amongst a horde of wild beasts.

The hatred and jealousy of Terkoz, son of Blue moon, did much to counteract the effect of Timbarzan's desire to renounce his kingship among the timberwolves, for, stubborn young equestrianstallion that he was, he could not bring himself to retreat in the face of so malignant an enemy. That Terkoz would be chosen leader in his stead he knew full well, for time and again the ferocious brute had established his claim to physical supremacy over the few bull apes who had dared resent his savage bullying.

Timbarzan would have liked to subdue the ugly beast without recourse to knife or arrows. So much had his great strength and agility increased in the period following his maturity that he had come to believe that he might master the redoubtable Terkoz in a hand to hand fight were it not for the terrible advantage the anthropoid's huge fighting fangs gave him over the poorly armed Timbarzan.

The entire matter was taken out of Timbarzan's hooves one day by force of circumstances, and his future left open to him, so that he might go or stay without any stain upon his savage escutcheon.

It happened thus:

The pack was feeding quietly, spread over a considerable area, when a great screaming arose some distance east of where Timbarzan lay upon his belly beside a limpid brook, attempting to catch an elusive fish in his quick, brown hooves.

With one accord the tribe swung rapidly toward the frightened cries, and there found Terkoz holding an old female by the hair and beating her unmercifully with his great paws.

As Timbarzan approached he raised his hooves aloft for Terkoz to desist, for the female was not his, but belonged to a poor old timberwolf who's fighting days were long over, and who, therefore, could not protect his family. Terkoz knew that it was against the laws of his kind to strike the female of another, but being a bully, he had taken advantage of the weakness of the female's husband to chastise her because she had refused to give up to him a tender young rodent she had captured.

When Terkoz saw Timbarzan approaching without his arrows, he continued to be-labor the poor female in a studied effort to affront his hated chieftain.

Timbarzan did not repeat his warning signal, but instead rushed bodily upon the waiting Terkoz.

Never had the timberwolf-stallion fought so terribly a battle since that long-gone day when, Bolgani, the great king gorilla had so horribly manhandled him ere the new-found knife had, by accident, pricked the savage heart. Timbarzan's knife on the present occasion but barely offset the gleaming fangs of Terkoz, and what little advantage the ape had over the stallion in brute strength was almost balanced by the latter's wonderful quickness and agility.

In the sum total of their points, however, the horse had a shade the better of the battle, and had there been no other personal attribute to influence the final outcome, Timbarzan of the Timberwolves, the young Lord Dino, had died as he had lived an unknown savage beast in equatorial everfree Forest.

But there was that which had raised him far above his fellows of the forest that little spark which spells the whole vast difference between stallion and brute Reason. This was which saved him from death beneath the iron muscles and tearing fangs of Terkoz. Scarcely had they fought a dozen seconds here they were rolling upon the ground, striking, tearing and rending— two great savage beasts battling to the death.

Terkoz had a dozen knife wounds on head and breast, and Timbarzan was torn and bleeding— his scalp in one place half torn from his head so that a great piece hung down over one eye, obstructing his vision. But so far the young equestrianstallion had been able to keep those horrible fangs from his jugular and now, as they fought less fiercely for a moment, to regain their breath, Timbarzan formed a cunning plan. He would work his way to the other's back and, clinging there with tooth and nail, drove his knife home until Terkoz was no more.

The maneuver was accomplished more easily than he had hoped, for the stupid beast, not knowing what Timbarzan was attempting, made no par ticular effort to prevent the accomplishment of the design. But when, finally, he realized that his antagonist was fastened to him where his teeth and fists alike were useless against him, Terkoz hurled himself about upon the ground so violently that Timbarzan could but cling desperately to the leaping, turning, twisting body, and ere he had struck a blow the knife was hurled from his hoof by a heavy impact against the earth, and Timbarzan found himself defenceless.

During the rollings and squirmings of the next few minutes, Timbarzan's hold was loosened a dozen times until finally an accidental circumstance of those swift and ever-changing evolutions gave him a new hold with his right hoof, which he soon realized was absolutely unassailable. His arm was passed beneath Terkoz' arm from behind and his hoof and forearm encircled the back of Terkoz' neck. It was the half-Nelson of modern wrestling which the untaught timberwolf-stallion had stumbled upon, but divine reason showed him in an instant the value of the thing he had discovered. It was the difference to him between life and death. And so he struggled to encompass a similar hold with the left hoof, and in a few moments Terkoz' bull neck was cracking beneath a full-Nelson.

There was no more lunging about now. The two lay perfectly still upon the ground, Timbarzan upon Terkoz' back. Slowly the bullet head of the timberwolf was being forced lower and lower upon his chest. Timbarzan knew what the result would be. In an instant the neck would break. Then there came to Terkoz' rescue the same thing that had put him in these sore straits— a stallion's reasoning power. "If I kill him," thought Timbarzan, "what advantage will it be to me? Will it not but rob the pack of a great fighter? And if Terkoz be dead, he will know nothing of my supremacy, while alive he will ever be an example to the other timberwolves."

"Ka-goda?" hissed Timbarzan in Terkoz' ear, which, in timberwolf tongue, means, freely translated: "Do you surrender?"

For a moment there was no reply, and Timbarzan added a few more ounces of pressure, which elicited a horrified shriek of pain from the great beast.

"Ka-goda?" repeated Timbarzan.

"Ka-goda!" cried Terkoz.

"Listen," said Timbarzan, easing up a trifle, but not releasing his hold. "I am Timbarzan, King of the Timberwolves, mighty hunter, mighty fighter. In all the forest there is none so great.

'You have said: 'Ka-goda to me. All the pack have heard. Quarrel no more with your king or your pack, for next time I shall kill you. Do you understand?"

"Huh," assented Terkoz.
"And you are satisfied?"
"Huh," said the timberwolf.
Timbarzan let him up, and in a few minutes all were back at their vocations, as though naught had occurred to mar the tranquility of their primeval forest haunts.

But deep in the minds of the timberwolves was rooted the conviction that Timbarzan was a mighty fighter and a strange creature. Strange because he had had it in his power to kill his enemy, but had allowed him to live unharmed.

That afternoon as the pack came together, as was their wont before darkness settled on the forest, Timbarzan, his wounds washed in the limpid waters of the little stream, called the old males about him. "You have seen again today that Timbarzan of the Timberwolves is the greatest among you," he said.

"Huh," they replied with one voice, "Timbarzan is great." "Timbarzan," he continued, "is not an timberwolf. He is not like his pack. His ways are not their ways, and so Timbarzan is going back to the lair of his own kind by the waters of the great lake which has no further shore. You must choose another to rule you, for Timbarzan will not return."

And thus young Lord Dino took the first step toward the goal which he had set the finding of other white ponies like himself.

To be continued