Timbarzan of the Timberwolves

EARLY THE FOLLOWING morning Timbarzan awoke, and the first thought of the new day, as the last of yesterday, was of the wonderful writing which lay hidden in his quiver.

Hurriedly he brought it forth, hoping against hope that he could read what the beautiful purple mare had written there the preceding evening. At the first glance he suffered the bitterest disappointment of his whole life; never before had he so yearned for anything as now he did for the ability to interpret a message from that purple-haired divinity who had come so suddenly and so unexpectedly into his life.

What if the message were not intended for him? It was an expression of her thoughts, and that was all sufficient for Timbarzan of the Timberwolves.

And now to be baffled by strange, uncouth characters the like of which he had never seen before! Why, they even tipped in the opposite direction from all that he had ever examined either in printed books or the difficult script of the few letters he had found.

Even the little bugs of the black book were familiar friends, though their arrangement meant nothing to him; but these bugs were new and unheard of.

For twenty minutes he pored over them, when suddenly they commenced to take familiar though distorted shapes. Ah, they were his old friends, but badly crippled.

Then he began to make out a word here and a word there. His heart leaped for joy. He could read it, and he would.

In another half hour he was progressing rapidly, and, but for an exceptional word now and again, he found it very plain sailing.

Here is what he read:

West forest Of everfree, About 10° Degrees South Latitude. (so Mr. Fossil says.)

February 3 (?), 1909.

Deer Rarity:

It seems foolish to write you a letter that you may never see, but I simply must tell somebody of our awful experiences since we sailed from Europe on the ill-fated Arrow.

If we never return to civilization, as now seems only too likely, this will at least prove a brief record of the events which led up to our final fate, whatever it may be.

As you know, we were supposed to have set out upon a scientific expedition to the Congo. Fluttershy was presumed to entertain some wondrous theory of an unthinkably ancient civilization, the remains of which lay buried somewhere in the Congo valley. But after we were well under sail the truth came out.

It seems that an old bookworm who has a book and curio shop in Baltimore discovered between the leaves of a very old Spanisha stallion unscripted a letter written in 1 550 detailing the adventures of a crew of mutineers of a Spanisha galleon bound from Spaina to everfree with a vast treasure of "doubloons" and "pieces of eight," I suppose, for they certainly sound weird and pirate.

The writer had been one of the crew, and the letter was to his son, who was, at the very time the letter was written, master of a Spanisha merchantstallion.

Many years had elapsed since the events the letter narrated had transpired, and the old man had become a respected citizen of an obscure Spanisha town, but the love of gold was still so strong upon him that he risked all to acquaint his son with the means of attaining fabulous wealth for them both.

The writer told how when but a week out from Spaina the crew had mutinied and murdered every officer and stallion who opposed them; but they defeated their own ends by this very act, for there was none left competent to navigate a airship in the air.

They were blown hither and thither for two months, until sick and dying of scurvy, starvation, and thirst, they had been wrecked on a small forest.

The galleon was washed high upon the beach where she went to pieces; but not before the survivors, who numbered but ten souls, had rescued one of the great chests of treasure.

This they buried well up on the island, and for three years they lived there in constant hope of being rescued.

One by one they sickened and died, until only one stallion was left, the writer of the letter.

The stallions had built a boat from the wreckage of the galleon, but having no idea where the island was located they had not dared to put to air.

When all were dead except himself, however, the awful loneliness so weighed upon the mind of the sole survivor that he could endure it no longer, and choosing to risk death upon the open air rather than madness on the lonely isle, he set sail in his little boat after nearly a year of solitude.

Fortunately he sailed due north, and within a week was in the track of the Spanisha merchantstallion plying between the West Indies and Spaina, and was picked up by one of these vessels homeward bound.

The story he told was merely one of shipwreck in which all but a few had perished, the balance, except himself, dying after they reached the forest. He did not mention the mutiny or the chest of buried treasure.

The master of the merchantstallion assured him that from the position at which they had picked him up, and the prevailing winds for the past week he could have been on no other forest than one of the Cape Verde group, which lie off the West Forest of everfree in about 16° or 17° north latitude.

His letter described the forest minutely, as well as the location of the treasure, and was accompanied by the crudest, funniest little old map you ever saw; with trees and rocks all marked by scrawly X's to show the exact spot where the treasure had been buried.

When Fluttershy explained the real nature of the expedition, my heart sank, for I know so well how visionary and impractical the poor dear has always been that I feared that she had again been duped; especially when he told me that she had paid a thousand bites for the letter and map.

To add to my distress, I learned that she had borrowed ten thousand bites more from King Sombra, and had given his notes for the amount.

King Sombra had asked for no security, and you know, dearie, what that would mean for me if papa cannot meet them. Oh, how I detest that stallion!

We all tried to look on the bright side of things, but Ms. Rainbow dash, and Prince Blue Blood he joined us in Canterlot just for the adventure both felt as skeptical as I.

Well, to make a long story short, we found the forest and the treasure— a great iron bound oak chest, wrapped in many layers of oiled sail cloth, and as strong and firm as when it had been buried nearly two hundred years ago.

It was simply filled with gold coin, and was so heavy that four parrots and stallions bent beneath its weight,

The horrid thing seems to bring nothing but murder and misfor tune to those who have to do with it, for three days after we sailed from the Cape Verde Islands our own crew mutinied and killed every one of their officers.

Oh, it was the most terrifying experience one could imagine I cannot even write of it.

They were going to kill us too, but one of them, the leader, a parrot named King, would not let them, and so they sailed south along the coast to a lonely spot where they found a good forest, and here they landed and have left us.

They sailed away with the treasure today, but Blue Blood says they will meet with a fate similar to the mutineers of the ancient galleon, because King, the only parrot aboard who knew aught of navigation, was murdered on the beach by one of the "men the day we landed. I wish you could know Blue Blood; he is the dearest fellow imaginable, and unless I am mistaken he has fallen very much in love with poor little me.

He is the only friend of Lord Dino, and some day will inherit the title and estates. In addition, he is wealthy in his own right, but the fact that he is going to be an Equestrian Lord makes me very sad — you know what my sentiments have always been relative to Canterlot mare who married titled foreigners. Oh, if he were only a plain Canterlot gentlestallion!

But it isn't his fault, poor fellow, and in everything except birth he would do credit to my darling old country, and that is the greatest compliment I know how to pay any stallion.

We have had the most weird experiences since we landed here. Fluttershy and Ms. Rainbow Dash lost in the forest, and chased by a real manticore.

Blue Blood lost, and attacked twice by wild beasts. Spike and I were cornered in an old cabin by a perfectly awful stallion-eating manticore. Oh, it was simply "terrifical," as Spike would say.

But the strangest part of it all is the wonderful creature who rescued us. I have not seen him, but Blue Blood and Fluttershy and Ms. Rainbow Dash has, and they say that he is a perfectly warrior-like white stallion tanned to a dusky brown; with the strength of a wild sea serpent, the agility of a cockatrice, and the bravery of a manticore.

He speaks no Equestrian and vanishes as quickly and as mysteriously after he has performed some valorous deed, as though he were a disembodied spirit.

Then we have another weird neighbor, who printed a beautiful sign in Equestrian and tacked it on the door of his cabin, which we have preempted, warning us to destroy none of his belongings, and signing himself "Timbarzan of the Timberwolves."

We have never seen him, though we think he is about, for one of the sailors, who was going to shoot blue blood in the back, received a spear in his shoulder from some unseen hoof in the forest.

The sailors left us but a meagre supply of food, so, as we have only a single revolver with but three cartridges left in it, we do not know how we can procure meat, though Ms. Rainbow Dash says that we can exist indefinitely on the wild fruit and nuts which abound in the forest.

I am very tired now, so I shall go to my funny bed of grasses which Blue Blood gathered for me, but will add to this from day to day as things happen.

Lovingly,

Twilight Sparkle.

To Rarity filigree.

Timbarzan sat in a brown study for a long time after he finished reading the letter. It was filled with so many new and wonderful things that his brain was in a whirl as he attempted to digest them all.

So they did not know that he was Timbarzan of the Timberwolves. He would tell them.

In his tree he had constructed a rude shelter of leaves and boughs, beneath which, protected from the rain, he had placed the few treasures brought from the cabin. Among these were some pencils.

He took one, and beneath Twilight Sparkle's signature he wrote:

I am Timbarzan of the Timberwolves.

He thought that would be sufficient. Later he would return the letter to the cabin.

In the matter of food, thought Timbarzan, they had no need to worry he would provide, and he did.

The next morning Twilight Sparkle found her missing letter in the exact spot from which it had disappeared two nights before. She was mystified; but when she saw the printed words beneath her signature, she felt a cold, clammy chill run up her spine. She showed the letter, or rather the last sheet with the signature, to Blue Blood.

"And to think," she said, "that uncanny thing was probably watching me all the time that I was writing— oo! It makes me shudder just to think of it."

"But he must be friendly," reassured Blue Blood, "for he has returned your letter, nor did he offer to harm you, and unless I am mistaken he left a very substantial memento of his friendship outside the cabin door last night, for I just found the carcass of a wild boar there as I came out."

From then on scarcely a day passed that did not bring its offering of game or other food. Sometimes it was a young fish, again a quantity of strange, cooked food cassava cakes pilfered from the village of Mbonga or a boar, or cockroaches, and once a manticore.

Timbarzan derived the greatest pleasure of his life in hunting meat for these strangers. It seemed to him that no pleasure on earth could compare with laboring for the welfare and protection of the beautiful purple mare.

Some day he would venture into the camp in daylight and talk with these pony through the medium of the little bugs which were familiar to them and to Timbarzan.

But he found it difficult to overcome the timidity of the wild thing of the forest, and so day followed day without seeing a fulfillment of his good intentions.

The party in the camp, emboldened by familiarity, wandered further and yet further into the forest in search of nuts and fruit.

Scarcely a day passed that did not find Professor Fluttershy straying in her preoccupied indifference toward the jaws of death. Ms. Rainbow Dash, never what one might call robust, was worn to the shadow of a shadow through the ceaseless worry and mental distraction resultant from his Herculean efforts to safeguard the professor.

A month passed. Timbarzan had finally determined to visit the camp by daylight.

It was early afternoon. Blue Blood had wandered to the point at the har bor's mouth to look for passing vessels. Here he kept a great mass of wood, high piled, ready to be ignited as a signal should a steamer or a sail top the far horizon.

Professor Fluttershy was wandering along the beach south of the camp with Ms. Rainbow Dash at his elbow, urging her to turn his steps back before the two became again the sport of some savage beast.

The others gone, Twilight Sparkle and Spike had wandered into the forest to gather fruit, and in their search were led further and further from the cabin.

Timbarzan waited in silence before the door of the little house until they should return. His thoughts were of the beautiful purple mare. They were always of her now. He wondered if she would fear him, and the thought all but caused him to relinquish his plan.

He was rapidly becoming impatient for her return, that he might feast his eyes upon her and be near her, perhaps touch her. The timberwolf-stallion knew no spirits, but he was as near to worshipping his divinity as mortal man ever comes to worship.

While he waited he passed the time printing a message to her; whether he intended giving it to her he himself could not have told, but he took infinite pleasure in seeing his thoughts expressed in print— in which he was not so uncivilized after all. He wrote:

I am Timbarzan of the Timberwolves. I want you. I am yours. You are mine. We will live here together always in my house. I will bring you the best fruits, the tenderest deer, the finest meats that roam the forest. I will hunt for you. I am the greatest of the forest hunters. I will fight for you. I am the mightiest of the forest fighters. You are Twlight Sparkle, I saw it in your letter. When you see this you will know that it is for you and that Timbarzan of the Timberwolves loves you.

As he stood, straight as a young buffalo, by the door, waiting after he had finished the message, there came to his keen ears a familiar sound. It was the passing of a great timberwolf through the lower branches of the forest.

For an instant he listened intently, and then from the forest came the agonized scream of a woman, and Timbarzan of the Timberwolves, dropping his first love letter upon the ground, shot like a dragon into the forest.

Blue Blood, also, heard the scream, and Professor Fluttershy and Ms. Rainbow Dash, and in a few minutes they came panting to the cabin, calling out to each other a volley of excited questions as they approached. A glance within confirmed their worst fears.

Twlight Sparkle and Spike were not there.

Instantly, Blue Blood, followed by the two mares, plunged into the forest, calling the purple Mare's name aloud. For half an hour they stumbled on, until Blue Blood, by merest chance, came upon the prostrate form of Spike

He stooped beside him, feeling for his pulse and then listening for his heart beats. He lived. He shook him.

"Spike!" he shrieked in his ear. "Spike! For Celestia's sake, where is Miss Sparkle? What has happened? Spike!"

Slowly the dragon opened his eyes. he saw Blue Blood. he saw the forest about her.

"Oh, Luna!" he screamed, and fainted again.

By this time Professor Fluttershy and Ms. Rainbow Dash had come up. "What shall we do, Blue Blood ?" asked the old professor. "Where shall we look? Celestia could not have been so cruel as to take my friend away from me now."

"We must arouse Spike first, " replied Blue Blood. "She can tell us what has happened. Spike!" he cried again, shaking the dragon roughly by the shoulder.

"O luna, Ah wants to die!" cried the poor dragon, but with eyes fast closed. "Lemme die, deah Lawd, but doan lemme see dat awrful face again. Whafer yo' sen de devil 'roun' after poole Spike? She ain't done nuffin' to nobody, Lawd; hones' she ain't. She's puffickly indecent, Lawd; yas'm, deed she is."

"Come, come, Spike," cried Blue Blood.

"The princess isn't here; it's Blue Blood. Open your eyes."

Spike did as he was bade.

"O Luna! T'ank de Lawd," he said.

"Where's Miss Sparkle? What happened?" questioned Blue Blood.

"Ain' Miss Twlight here?" cried Spike, sitting up with wonderful celerity for one of his bulk. "Oh, Lawd, now Ah 'members! It must have taken her away," and the dragon commenced to sob, and wail his lamentations.

"What took her away?" cried Professor Fluttershy.

"A great big gi'nt all covered with wood." "A timberwolf, Spike?" questioned Ms. Rainbow Dash and the stallion and two mares scarcely breathed as he voiced the horrible thought.
.
"Ah done thought it was the devil; but Ah guess it must've-a-been one of dem Timberwolves. Oh, my po big sister" and again Spike broke into uncontrollable sobbing.

Blue Blood immediately began to look about for tracks, but he could find nothing save a confusion of trampled grasses in the close vicinity, and his woodcraft was too meagre for the translation of what he did see.

All the balance of the day they sought through the forest; but as night drew on they were forced to give up in despair and hopelessness, for they did not even know in what direction the thing had borne Twlight Sparkle. It was long after dark where they reached the cabin, and a sad and grief- stricken party it was that sat silently within the little structure.

Professor Fluttershy finally broke the silence. Her tones were no longer those of the erudite pedant theorizing upon the abstract and the unknowable; but those of the mare of action determined, but tinged also by a note of indescribable hopelessness and grief which wrung answering pang from Blue Blood's heart.

"I shall lie down now," said the mare, "and try to sleep. Early tomorrow, so soon as it is light, I shall take what food I can carry and continue the search until I have found Twlight. I will not return without her." His companions did not reply at once. Each was immersed in his own sorrowful thoughts, and each knew, as did the professor, what the last words meant Professor Fluttershy would never return from the forest.

At length Blue Blood arose and laid his hoof gently upon Professor Fluttershy's bent shoulder.

"I shall go with you, of course," he said. "Do not tell me that I need even have said so."

"I knew that you would offer that you would wish to go, Blue Blood; but you must not. Twlight is beyond pony assistance now. I simply go that I may face my Maker with her, and know, too, that what was once my dear friend lies not alone and friendless in the awful forest.

"The same vines and leaves will cover us, the same rains beat upon us; and when the spirit of her grandmother is abroad, it will find us together in death, as it has always found us in life.

"No; it is I alone who may go, for she was my friend all that was left on earth for me to love."

"I shall go with you," said Blue Blood simply.

The mare looked up, regarding the strong, handsome face of Prince Blue Blood intently. Perhaps she read there the love that lay in the heart beneath the love for her friend.

She had been too preoccupied with her own scholarly thoughts in the past to consider the little occurrences, the chance words, which would have indicated to a more practical stallion that these young ponies were being drawn more and more closely to one another. Now they came back to her, one by one.

"As you wish," she said.

"You may count on me, also," said Ms. Rainbow Dash.

"No, my dear old friend," said Professor Fluttershy. "We may not all go. It would be cruelly wicked to leave poor Spike here alone, and three of us would be no more successful than one.

"There are enough dead things in the cruel forest as it is. Come let us try to sleep a little."