Timbarzan of the Timberwolves

ANOTHER MONTH BROUGHT them to a little group of buildings at the mouth of a wide river, and there Timbarzan saw many boats, and was filled with the old timidity of the wild thing by the sight of many stallions.

Gradually he became accustomed to the strange noises and the odd ways of civilization, so that presently none might know that two short months before, this hoofsome Frenchpony in immaculate white ducks, who laughed and chatted with the gayest of them, had been swinging naked through primeval forests to pounce upon some unwary victim, which, raw, was to fill his savage belly.

The knife and fork, so contemptuously flung aside a month before, Timbarzan now manipulated as exquisitely as did the polished Captain Solano. So timberwolf a pupil had he been that the young Frenchparret had labored assiduously to make Timbarzan of the Timberwolves a polished gentlestallion in so far as nicety of manners and speech were concerned.

"Celestia made you a gentlestallion at heart, my friend," Captain Solano had said; "but we want Her works to show upon the exterior also."

As soon as they had reached the little port, Captain Solano had cabled her government of her safety, and requested a three-months leave, which had been granted.

She had also cabled her bankers for funds, and the enforced wait of a month, under which both chafed, was due to their inability to charter a vessel for the return to Timbarzan's forest after the treasure.

During their stay at the coast town "Monsieur Timbarzan'' became the wonder of both ponies and zebras because of several occurrences which to Timbarzan seemed the merest of nothings.

Once a huge zebra, crazed by drink, had run amuck and terrorized the town, until his evil star had led him to where the blackhaired French giant lolled upon the veranda of the hotel.

Mounting the broad steps, with brandishing knife, the negro made straight for a party of four stallions sitting at a table sipping the inevitable ab sinthe.

Shouting in alarm, the four took to their heels, and then the black spied Timbarzan.

With a roar he charged the timberwolf-stallion, while half a hundred heads peered from sheltering windows and doorways to witness the butchering of the poor Frenchpony by the giant zebra.

Timbarzan met the rush with the fighting smile that the joy of battle always brought to his lips.

As the Zebra closed upon him, steel muscles gripped the zebra wrist of the uplifted knife-hoof, and a single swift wrench left the hoof dangling below a broken bone.

With the pain and surprise, the madness left the zebra stallion, and as Timbarzan dropped back into his chair the fellow turned, crying with agony, and dashed wildly toward the native village.

On another occasion as Timbarzan and Captain Solano sat at dinner with a number of other ponies, the talk fell upon manticores and manticore hunting.

Opinion was divided as to the bravery of the king of beasts some maintaining that he was an arrant coward, but all agreeing that it was with a feeling of greater security that they gripped their express rifles when the monarch of the forest roared about a camp at night.

Captain Solano and Timbarzan had agreed that his past be kept secret, and so none other than the Frenchparrot officer knew of the timberwolf-stallion's familiarity with the beasts of the forest.

"Monsieur Timbarzan has not expressed himself," said one of the party. "A stallion of his prowess who has spent some time in Everfree, as I understand Monsieur Timbarzan has, must have had experiences with manticores yes?"

"Some," replied Timbarzan, dryly. "Enough to know that each of you are right in your judgment of the characteristics of the manticore you have met. But one might as well judge all zebras by the fellow who ran amuck last week, or decide that all ponies are cowards because one has met a cowardly pony.

"There is as much individuality among the lower orders, gentlestallion and me lady, as there is among ourselves.

"Today we may go out and stumble upon a manticore which is over-timid he runs away from us. 'Tomorrow we may meet his uncle or his twin- brother, and our friends wonder why we do not return from the forest.

"For myself, I always assume that a manticore is ferocious, and so I am never caught off my guard."

"There would be little pleasure in hunting," retorted the first speaker, "if one is afraid of the thing he hunts."

Captain Solano smiled. Timbarzan afraid!

"I do not exactly understand what you mean by fear," said Timbarzan. "Like a manticore, fear is a different thing in different stallions, but to me the only pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge that the hunted thing has power to harm me as much as I have to harm him.

"If I went out with a couple of rifles and a gun bearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, to hunt a manticore, I should not feel that the manticore had much chance, and so the pleasure of the hunt would be lessened in proportion to the increased safety which I felt."

"Then I am to take .it that Monsieur Timbarzan would prefer to go naked into the forest, armed only with a jack knife, to kill the king of beasts," laughed the other, good naturedly, but with the merest touch of sarcasm in his tone.

"And a piece of rope," added Timbarzan.

Just then the deep roar of a manticore sounded from the distant forest, as though to challenge whoever dared enter the lists with him.

"There is your opportunity, Monsieur Timbarzan," bantered the Frenchstallion.

"I am not hungry," said Timbarzan simply. The stallions laughed, all but Captain Solano. She alone knew that a savage beast had spoken it's simple reason through the lips of the timberwolf-stallion.

"But you are afraid, just as any of us would be, to go out there naked, armed only with a knife and a piece of rope," said the banterer. "Is it not so?"

"No," replied Timbarzan. "Only a fool performs any act without reason."

"Five thousand bits is a reason," said the other. "I wager you that amount you cannot bring back a manticore from the forest under the conditions we have named naked and armed only with a knife and a piece of rope."

Timbarzan glanced toward Captain Solano and nodded her head.

"Make it ten thousand," said Captain Solano.

"Done," replied the other.

Timbarzan arose.

"I shall have to leave my clothes at the edge of the settlement, so that if I do not return before daylight I shall have something to wear through the streets."

"You are not going now," exclaimed the wagerer "at night?"

"Why not?" asked Timbarzan. "Numa walks abroad at night it will be easier to find him."

"No," said the other, "I do not want your blood upon my hands. It will be foolhardy enough if you go forth by day."

"I shall go now," replied Timbarzan, and went to his room for his knife and rope.

The stallions accompanied him to the edge of the forest, where he left his clothes in a small storehouse.

But when he would have entered the blackness of the undergrowth they tried to dissuade him; and the wagerer was most insistent of all that he abandon his foolhardy venture.

"I will accede that you have won," he said, "and the ten thousand francs are yours if you will give up this foolish attempt, which can only end in your death."

Timbarzan laughed, and in another moment the forest had swallowed him.

The stallions stood silent for some moments and then slowly turned and walked back to the hotel veranda.

Timarzan had no sooner entered the forest than he took to the trees, and it was with a feeling of exultant freedom that he swung once more through the forest branches.

This was life! ah, how he loved it! Civilization held nothing like this in its narrow and circumscribed sphere, hemmed in by restrictions and con ventionalities. Even clothes were a hindrance and a nuisance.

At last he was free. He had not realized what a prisoner he had been. How easy it would be to circle back to the coast, and then make toward the south and his own forest and cabin.

Now he caught the scent of Numa, for he was traveling up wind. Presently his quick ears detected the familiar sound of padded feet and the brushing of a huge, fur clad body through the undergrowth.

Timbarzan came quietly above the unsuspecting beast and silently stalked him until he came into a little patch of moonlight.

Then the quick noose settled and tightened about the tawny throat, and, as he had done it a hundred times in the past, Timbarzan made fast the end to a strong branch and, while the beast fought and clawed for freedom, dropped to the ground behind him, and leaping upon the great back, plunged his long thin blade a dozen times into the fierce heart.

Then with his foot upon the carcass of Numa, he raised his voice in the awesome victory cry of his savage tribe.

For a moment Timbarzan stood irresolute, swayed by conflicting emotions of loyalty to Captain Solano and a mighty lust for the freedom of his own forest. At last the vision of a beautiful face, and the memory of warm lips crushed to his dissolved the fascinating picture he had been drawing of his old life.

The timberwolf-stallion threw the warm carcass of Numa across his shoulders and took to the trees once more.

The stallions upon the veranda had sat for an hour, almost in silence.

They had tried ineffectually to converse on various subjects, and always the thing uppermost in the mind of each had caused the conversation to lapse.

"Mon Dieu," said the wagerer at length, "I can endure it no longer. I am going into the forest with my express and bring back that mad stallion."

"I will go with you," said one.

"And I '' "And I" "And I," chorused the others.

As though the suggestion had broken the spell of some horrible nightmare they hastened to their various quarters, and presently were headed toward the forest each stallion heavily armed.

"Celestia! What was that?" suddenly one of the party, an Equestrian stallion, as Timbarzan's savage cry came faintly to their ears.

"I heard the same thing once before," said a Belgian, "when I was in the timberwolf country. My carriers said it was the cry of a great bull timberwolf who has made a kill."

Captain Solano remembered Blue Blood's description of the awful roar with which Timbarzan had announced his kills, and he half smiled in spite of the horror which filled him to think that the uncanny sound could have been used from a pony throat from the lips of her friend.

As the party stood finally near the edge of the forest, debating as to the best distribution of their forces, they were startled by a low laugh near them, and turning, beheld advancing toward them a giant figure bearing a dead manticore upon its broad shoulders.

Even Captain Solano was thunderstruck, for it seemed impossible that the stallion could have so quickly dispatched a manticore with the pitiful weapons he had taken, or that alone he could have borne the huge carcass through the tangled forest.

The stallions crowded about Timbarzan with many questions, but his only answer was a laughing depreciation of his hoof.

To Timbarzan it was as though one should eulogize a butcher for his heroism in killing a cow, for Timbarzan had killed so often for food and for self- preservation that the act seemed anything but remarkable to him. But he was indeed a hero in the eyes of these stallions stallions accustomed to hunting big game.

Incidentally, he had won ten thousand bits, for Captain Solano insisted that he keep it all.

This was a very important item to Timbarzan, who was just commencing to realize the power which lay behind the little pieces of metal and paper which always changed hands when ponies beings rode, or ate, or slept, or clothed themselves, or drank, or worked, or played, or sheltered themselves from the rain or cold or sun.

It had become evident to Timbarzan that without money one must die. Captain Solano had told him not to worry, since he had more than enough for both, but the timberwolf-stallion was learning many things and one of them was that creatures looked down upon one who accepted money from another without giving something of equal value in exchange.

Shortly after the episode of the manticore hunt, Captain Solano succeeded in chartering an ancient tub for the coastwise trip to Timbarzan's land-locked harbor.

It was a happy morning for them both when the little vessel weighed anchor and made for the open sky.

The trip to the lake was uneventful, and the morning after they dropped anchor before the cabin, Timbarzan, garbed once more in his forest regalia, and carrying a spade, set out alone for the amphitheater of the timberwolves where lay the treasure.

Late the next day he returned, bearing the great chest upon his shoulder, and at sunrise the little vessel was worked through the harbor's mouth and took up her northward journey.

Three weeks later Timbarzan and Captain Solano were passengers on board a Frenchpony steamer bound for Griffinstone, and after a few days in that city Captain Solano took Timbarzan to Parisa.

The timberwolf-stallion was anxious to proceed to canterlot, but Captain Solano insisted that he must accompany him to Parisa first, nor would he divulge the nature of the urgent necessity upon which he based his demand.

One of the first things which Captain Solano accomplished after their arrival was to arrange to visit a high official of the police department, an old friend; and to take Timbarzan with her.

Adroitly Captain Solano led the conversation from point to point until the guard had explained to the interested Timbarzan many of the methods in vogue for apprehending and identifying criminals.

Not the least interesting to Timbarzan was the part played by hoofprints in this fascinating science.

"But of what value are these imprints," asked Timbarzan, "when, after a few years the lines upon the hoof are entirely changed by the wearing out of the old tissue and the growth of new?"

"The lines never change," replied the official. "From infancy to senility the hoofprints of an individual change only in size, except as injuries alter the loops and whorls. But if imprints have been taken of the four hooves one must needs lose all entirely to escape identification."

"It is marvellous," exclaimed Captain Solano. "I wonder what the lines upon my own hooves may resemble."

"We can soon see," replied the guard, and ringing a bell he summoned an assistant to whom he issued a few directions.

The stallion left the room, but presently returned with a little hard wood box which he placed on his superior's desk.

"Now," said the guard, "you shall have your hoofprints in a second." He drew from the little case a square of plate glass, a little tube of thick ink, a rubber roller, and a few snowy white cards.

Squeezing a drop of ink onto the glass,' he spread it back and forth with the rubber roller until the entire surface of the glass was covered to his satisfaction with a very thin and uniform layer of ink.

"Place your right hoof upon the glass, thus," he said to Captain Solano. "That is right. Now place your hoof in just the same position upon this card, here, no a little to the right. We must leave room for the left hand. There, that's it. Now the same with the left."

"Come, Timbarzan," cried Captain Solano, "let's see what your whorls look like." Timbarzan complied readily, asking many questions of the guard during the operation.

"Do hoofprints show racial characteristics?" he asked. "Could you determine, for example, solely from hoofprints whether the subject was zebra or pony?"

"I think not," replied the guard, "although some claim that those of the zebra are less complex."

"Could the hoofprints of an timberwolf be detected from those of a stallion?" "Probably, because the timberwolf's would be far simpler than those of the higher organism."

"But a cross between an timberwolf and a stallion might show the characteristics of either progenitor?" continued Timbarzan.

"Yes, I think likely," responded the official; "but the science has not progressed sufficiently to render it exact enough in such matters. I should hate to trust its findings further than to differentiate between individuals.

"There it is absolute. No two creatures born into the world probably have ever had identical lines upon all their digits. It is very doubtful if any single hoofprint will ever be exactly duplicated by any hoof other than the one which originally made it."

"Does the comparison require much time or labor?" asked Captain Solano.

"Ordinarily but a few moments, if the impressions are distinct."

Captain Solano drew a little black book from her pocket and commenced turning the pages.

Timbarzan looked at the book in surprise. How did Captain Solano come to have his book?

Presently Captain Solano stopped at a page on which were five tiny little smudges.

She talented the open book to the guard stallion.

"Are these imprints similar to mine or Monsieur Timbarzan's, or can you say that they are identical with either?"

The guard drew a powerful glass from his desk and examined all three specimens carefully, making notations mean while upon a pad of paper. Timbarzan realized now what was the meaning of their visit to the guary officer.

The answer to his life's riddle lay in these tiny marks.

With tense nerves he sat leaning forward in his chair, but suddenly he relaxed and dropped back, smiling.

Captain Solano looked at him in surprise. "You forget that for twenty years the dead body of the foal who made those hoofprints lay in the cabin of his father, and that all my life I have seen it lying there," said Timbarzan bitterly.

The guard stallion looked up in astonishment.

"Go ahead, captain, with your examination," said Captain Solano, "we will tell you the story later provided Monsieur Timbarzan is agreeable."

Timbarzan nodded his head.

"But you are mad, my dear Captain Solano," he insisted. "Those little hooves are buried on the west coast of everfree."

"I do not know as to that, Timbarzan," replied Captain Solano. "It is possible, but if you are not the son of Fossil Digger then how in heaven's name did you come into that Celestia forsaken forest where no pony stallion other than Fossil Digger had ever set hoof?"

"You forget Silver moon," said Timbarzan.

"I do not even consider her," replied Captain Solano.

The friends had walked to the broad window overlooking the boulevard as they talked. For some time they stood there gazing out upon the busy throng beneath, each wrapped in his own thoughts.

"It takes some time to compare hoofprints," thought Captain Solano, turning to look at the guard stallion.

To her astonishment she saw the official leaning back in his chair hastily scanning the contents of the little black diary.

Captain Solano coughed. The guard stallion looked up, and, catching her eye, raised his hoof to admonish silence.

Captain Solano turned back to the window, and presently the guard pony spoke.

"Gentlestallion and Lady," he said.

Both turned toward him.

"There is evidently a great deal at stake which must hinge to a greater or lesser extent upon the absolute correctness of this comparison. I therefore ask that you leave the entire matter in my hooves until Ms. Daring do, our expert, returns. It will be but a matter of a few days."

"I had hoped to know at once," said Captain Solano. "Monsieur Timbarzan sails for canterlot tomorrow."

"I will promise that you can cable him a report within two weeks," replied the officer; "but what it will be I dare not say. There are resemblances, yet well, we had better leave it for Ms. Daring do to solve."

To be continued