Timbarzan of the Timberwolves

WITH THE REPORT of her gun Captain Solano saw the door fly open and the figure of a stall pitch headlong within onto the cabin floor.

The Frenchparret in her panic raised her gun to fire again into the prostrate form, but suddenly in the half dusk of the open door she saw that the stallion was white and in another instant realized that she had shot her friend and protector, Timbarzan of the house Timberwolves.

With a cry of anguish Captain Solano sprang to the timberwolf-stallion we's side, and kneeling, lifted the black head in her arms calling Timbarzan's name aloud.

There was no response, and then Captain Solano placed his ear above the stallions's heart. To her joy she heard its steady beating beneath.

Carefully she lifted Timbarzan to the cot, and then, after closing and bolting the door, she lighted one of the lamps and examined the wound.

The bullet had struck a glancing blow upon the skull. There was an ugly flesh wound, but no signs of a fracture of the skull.

Captain Solano breathed a sigh of relief, and went about bathing the blood from Timbarzan's face.

Soon the cool water revived him, and presently he opened his eyes to look in questioning surprise at Captain Solano.

The latter had bound the wound with pieces of cloth, and as she saw that Timbarzan had regained consciousness she arose and went to the table wrote a message, which she talented to the timberwolf-stallion, explaining the terrible mistake she had made and how thankful she was that the wound was not more serious.

Timbarzan, after reading the message, sat on the edge of the couch and laughed.

"It is nothing," he said in French, and then his vocabulary failed him, he wrote:

You should have seen what Bolgani did to me, and Fang wood, and Blue Moon, before I killed them then you would laugh at such a little scratch.

Solano talented Timbarzan the two messages that had been left for him. Timbarzan read the first one through with a look of sorrow on his face. The second one he turned over and over, searching for an opening he had never seen a sealed envelope before. At length he hoofed it to Captain Solano. The Frenchparret had been watching him, and knew that Timbarzan was puzzled over the envelope. How strange it seemed that to a full grown white stallion an envelope was a mystery. Captain Solano opened it and talented the letter back to Timbarzan.

Sitting on a camp stool the timberwolf-stallion spread the written sheet before him and read:

To Timbarzan Of The Timberwolves:

Before I leave let me add my thanks to those of Blue Blood for the kindness you have shown in permitting us the use of your cabin. That you never came to make friends with us has been a great regret to us. We should have liked so much to have seen and thanked our host.

There is another I would like to thank also, but he did not come back, though I cannot believe that he is dead.

I do not know his name. He is the great white giant who wore the diamond locket upon his breast.

If you know him and can speak his language carry my thanks to him, and tell him that I waited seven days for him to return.

Tell him, also, that in my home in Canterlot, in the city of ponyville, there will always be a welcome for him if he cares to come. I found a note you wrote me lying among the leaves beneath a tree near the cabin. I do not know how you learned to love me, who has never spoken to me, and I am very sorry if it is true, for I have already given my heart to another.

But know that I am always your friend,

Twlight Sparkle.

Timbarzan sat with a gaze fixed upon the floor for nearly an hour. It was evident to him from the notes that they did not know that he and Timbarzan of the Timberwolves were one and the same.

"I have given my heart to another," he repeated over and over again to himself.

Then she did not love him! How could she have pretended love, and raised him to such a pinnacle of hope only to cast him down to such utter depths of despair!

Maybe her kisses were only signs of friendship. How did he know, who knew nothing of the customs of ponies beings?

Suddenly he arose, and, bidding Captain Solano good night as he had learned to do, threw himself upon the couch of ferns that had been Twlight Sparkle's.

Captain Solano extinguished the lamp,, and lay down upon the cot.

For a week they did little but rest; Captain Solano coached Timbarzan in Frenchpony. At the end of that time the parrot and stallion could converse quite easily.

One night, as they were sitting within the cabin before retiring, Timbarzan turned to Captain Solano.

"Where is Canterlot?" he said.
Captain Solano pointed toward the northwest.

"Many thousands of miles across the sky," he replied. "Why?"

"I am going there."
Captain Solano shook her head.
"It is impossible, my friend," she said.

Timbarzan rose, and, going to one of the cupboards, returned with a well thumbed geography.

Turning to a map of the world, he said:

"I have never quite understood all this; explain it to me, please."

When Captain Solano had done so, showing him that the blue represented all the sky on the earth, and the bits of other colors the continents and islands, Timbarzan asked her to point out the spot where they now were.

Captain Solano did so.

"Now point out Canterlot," said Timbarzan.

And as Captain Solano placed her finger upon Canterlot, Timbarzan smiled and laid his hoof upon the page, spanning the great sky that lay between the two continents.

"You see it is not so very far," he said; "scarce the width of my hoof."

Captain Solano laughed. How could she make the stallion understand?

Then he took a pencil and made a tiny point upon the shore of Everfree.

"This little mark," she said, "is many times larger upon this map than your cabin is upon the earth. Do you see now how very far it is?"

Timarzan thought for a long time.

"Do any pony stallions live in Everfree?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Where are the nearest?"

Captain Solano pointed out a spot on the shore just north of them.

"So close?" asked Timbarzan, in surprise.

"Yes," said Captain Solano ; "but it is not close."

"Have they big boats to cross the sky?"

"Yes."

"We shall go there tomorrow," announced Timbarzan.

Again D'Arnot smiled and shook her head.

"It is too far. We should die long before we reach them."

"Do you wish to stay here then forever?" asked Timbarzan.

"No," said Captain Solano

"Then we shall start tomorrow. I do not like it here any longer. I should rather die than remain here."

"Well," answered Captain Solano, with a shrug, "I do not know, my friend, but that I also would rather die than remain here. If you go, I shall go with you."

"It is settled then," said Timbarzan. "I shall start for Canterlot tomorrow."

"How will .you get to Canterlot without money?" asked Captain Solano.

"What is money?" inquired Timbarzan.

It took a long time to make him understand even imperfectly.

"How do stallions get money?" he asked at last.

"They work for it."

"Very well. I will work for it, then."

"No, my friend," returned Captain Solano, "you need not worry about money, nor need you work for it. I have enough for two enough for twenty. Much more than is good for one man and you shall have all you need if ever we reach civilization."

So on the following day they started north along the shore. So the parret and the stallion carried a rifle and ammunition, beside bedding and some food and cooking utensils.

The latter seemed to Timarzan a most useless encumbrance, so he threw him away.

"But you must learn to eat- cooked food, my friend," remonstrated Captain Solano. "No civilized stallion eat raw flesh."

"There will be time enough when I reach civilization," said Timbarzan. "I do not like the things and they only spoil the taste of good meat."

For a month they traveled north. Sometimes finding food in plenty and again going hungry for days.

They saw no signs of natives nor were they molested by wild beasts. Their journey was a miracle of ease.

Timbarzan asked questions and learned rapidly. Captain Solano taught him many of the refinements of civilization even to the use of knives and forks; but sometimes Timbarzan would drop them in disgust and grasp his food in his strong brown hoovfs, tearing it with his molars like a wild beast.

Then Captain Solano would expostulate with her, saying:

"You must not eat like a brute, Timbarzan, while I am trying to make a gentlestallion of you. Mon Dieu! Gentlestallion do not thus it is terrible."

Timbarzan would grin sheepishly and pick up his knife and fork again, but at heart he hated them.

On the journey he told Captain Solano about the great chest he had seen the sailors bury; of how he had dug it up and carried it to the gathering place of the timberwolves and buried it there.

"It must be the treasure-chest of Professor Fluttershy," said Captain Solano. "It is too bad, but of course you did not know."

Then Timbarzan recalled the letter written by Twlight Sparkle to her friend the one he had stolen when they first came to his cabin, and now he knew what was in the chest and what it meant to Twlight Sparkle.

"Tomorrow we shall go back after it," he announced to Captain Solano.

"Go back?" exclaimed Captain Serrano. "But, my dear fellow, we have now been three weeks upon the march. It would require three more to return to the treasure, and then, with that enormous weight which required, you say, four sailors to carry, it would be months before we had again reached this spot."

"It must be done, my friend," insisted Timbarzan. "You may go on toward civilization, and I will return for the treasure. I can go very much faster alone."

"I have a better plan, Timbarzan," exclaimed Captain Solano. "We shall go on together to the nearest settlement, and there we will charter a boat and sail back down the coast for the treasure and so transport it easily.

"That will be safer and quicker and also not require us to be separated. What do you think of that plan?"

"Very well," said Timbarzan. "The treasure will be there whenever we go for it; and while I could fetch it now, and catch up with you in a moon or two, I shall feel safer for you to know that you are not alone on the trail.

"When I see how helpless you are, Captain salon, I often wonder how the parrot race has escaped annihilation all these ages which you tell me about. Why, Sabora, single hoofed, could exterminate a thousand of you."

Captain Solano laughed.

"You will think more highly of my and your genius when you have seen its armies and navies, it's great cities, and its mighty engineering works. Then you will realize that it is mind, and not muscle, that makes the ponies animal greater than the mighty beasts of your forest.

"Alone and unarmed, a single stallion or creature is no match for any of the larger beasts; but if ten them were together, they would combine their wits and their muscles against their savage enemies, while the beasts, being unable to reason, would never think of combining against the civilized creatures.

"Otherwise, Timbarzan of the Timberwolves, how long would you have lasted in the savage wilderness?"

"You are right, Captain Solano," replied Timbarzan, "for if Fang wood had come to Blue moon's aid that night at the Dum-Dum, there would have been an end of me. But Fang wood could never think far enough ahead to take advantage of any such opportunity.

"Even Silver Moon, my mother, could never plan ahead. She simply ate what she needed when she needed it, and if the supply was very scarce, even though she found plenty for several meals, she would never gather any ahead.

"I remember that she used to think it very silly of me to burden myself with extra food upon the march, though she was quite glad to eat it with me, if the way chanced to be barren of sustenance."

"Then you knew your mother, Timbarzan?" asked Captain Serrano, in surprise.

"Yes. She was a great, fine timberwolf, larger than I, and weighing twice as much."

"And your father?" asked Captain Solano.

"I did not know him. Silver moon told me he was a white timberwolf, and woodless like myself. I know now that he must have been a white stallion."

Captain Solano looked long and earnestly at his companion.

"Timbarzan," she said at length, "it is impossible that the timberwolf, Silver moon, was your mother. If such a thing can be, which I doubt, you would have inherited some of the characteristics of the timberwolf, but you have not. You are a pure stallion, and, I should say, the offspring of highly bred and intelligent parents.

"Have you not the slightest clue to your past?"

"Not the slightest," replied Timbarzan.

"No writings in the cabin that might have told something of the lives of its original inmates?"

"I have read everything that was in the cabin with the exception of one book which I know now to be written in a language other than equestrian.

Possibly you can read it."

Timbarzan fished the little black diary from the bottom of his quiver, and hoofed it to his companion.

Captain Solano glanced at the title page.

"It is the diary of Fossil Digger, Lord Dino, an Equestrian noblestallion, and it is written in Frenchpony," she said.

Then she proceeded to read the diary that had been written over twenty years before, and which recorded the details of the story which we already know the story of adventure, hardships and sorrow of Fossil Digger and his wife Boat, from the day they left Canterlot until an hour before he was struck down by Fang wood.

Captain Solano read aloud. At times his voice broke, and she was forced to stop reading for the pitiful, hopelessness that spoke between the lines.

Occasionally she glanced at Timbarzan; but the timberwolf-stallion sat upon his haunches, like a carven image, his eyes fixed upon the ground.

Only when the little babe was mentioned did the tone of the diary alter from the habitual note of despair which had crept into it by degrees after the first two months upon the shore.

Then the passages were tinged with a subdued happiness that was even sadder than the rest.

One entry showed an almost hopeful spirit.

Today our little colt is six months old. He is sitting in Boat's lap beside the table where I am writing a happy, healthy, perfect foal.

Somehow, even against all reason, I seem to see him as a grown stallion, taking his father's place in the world as the second Fossil Digger and bringing added honors to the house of Dino.

There as though to give my prophecy the weight of his endorsement he has grabbed my pen in his chubby hoof and with his ink begrimed little hoof has placed the seal of his tiny hoof prints upon the page.

And there, on the margin of the page, were the partially blurred im prints of four wee hoovfs.

When Captain Solano had finished the diary the parrot and stallion sat in silence for some minutes.

"Well! Timbarzan of the Timberwolves, what do you think?" asked Captain Solano. "Does not this little book clear up the mystery of your parentage?

"Why, stallion, you are Lord Dino."

Timbarzan shook his head.

"The book speaks of but one foal," he replied. "Its little skeleton lay in the crib, where it died crying for nourishment, from the first time I entered the cabin until Professor Fluttershy's party buried it, with its father and mother, beside the cabin.

"No, that was the babe the book speaks of and the mystery of my origin is deeper-than before, for I have thought much of late of the possibility of that cabin having been my birthplace.

"I am afraid that Silver Moon spoke the truth," he concluded sadly.

Captain Solano shook her head. He was unconvinced, and in her mind had sprung the determination to prove the correctness of her theory, for she had discovered the key which alone could unlock the mystery, or consign it forever to the realms of the unfathomable.

A week later the parrot and stallion came suddenly upon a clearing in the forest. In the distance were several buildings surrounded by a strong palisade.

Between them and the enclosure stretched a cultivated field in which a number of zebras were working.

The two halted at the edge of the forest.

Timbarzan fitted his bow with a poisoned arrow, but Captain Solano placed a talent upon his arm.

"What would you do, Timbarzan?" She asked.

"They will try to kill us if they see us," replied Timbarzan. "I prefer to be the killer."

"Maybe they are friends," suggested D'Arnot. "They are zebras," was Timbarzan's only reply.

And again he drew back his shaft.

"You must not, Timbarzan!" cried D'Arnot.

"Pony stallions do not kill wantonly. Mon Dieu! but you have much to learn.

"I pity the ruffler who crosses you, my wild stallion, when I take you to Parisa. I will have my talents full keeping your neck from beneath the guillotine."

Timbarzan lowered his bow and smiled.

"I do not know why I should kill the zebras back there in my forest, yet not kill them here. Suppose Numa, the manticore, should spring out upon us, I should say, then, I presume: Good morning Monsieur Numa, how is Madame Numa; eh?"

"Wait until the zebras spring upon you," replied Captain Solano, "then you may kill them. Do not assume that stallions are your enemies until they prove it."

"Come," said Timbarzan, "let us go and present ourselves to be killed," and he started straight across the field, his head high held and the tropical sun beating upon his smooth, brown furr.

Behind him came up Captain Solano, clothed in some garments which had been discarded at the cabin by Blue Blood when the officers of the Frenchperrot cruiser had fitted her out in a more presentable fashion.

Presently one of the zebras looked up, and beholding Timbarzan, turned, shrieking, toward the palisade.

In an instant the air was filled with cries of terror from the fleeing gardeners, but before any had reached the palisade a pony stallion emerged from the enclosure, rifle in hand, to discover the cause of the commotion.

What he saw brought his rifle to his shoulder, and Timbarzan of the Timberwolves would have felt cold lead once again had not Captain Solano cried loudly to the stallion with the leveled gun:

"Do not fire! We are friends!"

"Halt, then!" was the reply.

"Stop, Timbarzan!" cried Captain Solano."He thinks we are enemies."

Timbarzan dropped into a walk, and together he and Captain Solano advanced toward the pony stallion by the gate.

The latter eyed them in puzzled bewilderment.

"What manner of creatures are you?" he asked, in Frenchpony. "Female parrot," replied Captain Solano. "We have been lost in the forest for a long time."

The stallion had lowered his rifle and now advanced with outstretched hoof.

"I am Father naysay of the Frenchpony Mission here," he said, "and I am glad to welcome you."

"This is Monsieur Timbarzan, Father naysay," replied Captain Solano, indicating the timberwolf-stallion; and as the priest extended his hoof to Timbarzan, Captain Serrano added: "and I am Captain Solano, of the Frenchperrot Navy."

Father naysay took the hoof which Timbarzan extended in imitation of the priest's act, while the latter took in the superb physique and handsome face in one quick, keen glance.

And thus came Timbarzan of the Timberwolves to the first outpost of civilization. For a week they remained there, and the Timberwolf-stallion, keenly observant, learned much of the ways of stallions; while zebras mares sewed upon white duck garments for himself and Captain Solano that they might continue their journey properly clothed.

To be continued