Timbarzan of the Timberwolves

A TAXIchariot DREW up before an old-fashioned residence upon the outskirts of Ponyville.

A stallion of about forty, well built and with strong, regular features, stepped out, and paying the chauffeur dismissed him.

A moment later the passenger was entering the library of the old home.

"Ah, Mr. Filthy rich!" exclaimed a mare, rising to greet him.

"Good evening, my dear Professor," cried the stallion, extending a cordial hoof.

"Who admitted you?" asked the professor.

"Spike."

"Then he will acquaint Twilight with the fact that you are here," said the mare.

"No, Professor," replied Filthy rich, "for I came primarily to see you."

"Ah, I am honored," said Professor Fluttershy.

"Professor," continued filthy rich, with great deliberation, as though carefully weighing his words, "I have come this evening to speak with you about Twlight.

"You know my aspirations, and you have been generous enough to approve my suit."

Professor Fluttershy fidgeted in her armchair. The subject always made her uncomfortable. She could not understand why. Filthy rich was a splendid match.

"But Twlight," continued Filthy rich, "I cannot understand her. She puts me off first on one ground and then another. I have always the feeling that she breathes a sigh of relief every time I bid her goodby."

"Tut tut," said Professor Filthy rich. "Tut tut, Mr. Filthy rich. Twlight is a most obedient friend. She will do precisely as I tell her."

"Then I can still count on your support?" asked Filthy Rich, a tone of relief marking his voice.

"Certainly, sir; certainly, sir," exclaimed Professor Fluttershy. "How could you doubt it?"

"There is young Blue blood, you know," suggested Filthy rich. "He has been hanging about for months.

"I don't know that Twlight cares for him; but beside his title they say he has inherited a very considerable estate from his friend, and it might not be strange, if he finally won her, unless" and paused.

"Tut tut, Mr. Filthy rich; unless what?"

"Unless, you see fit to request that Twlight and I be married at once," said Filthy rich, slowly and distinctly.

"I have already suggested to Twlight that it would be desirable," said Professor Fluttershy sadly, "for we can no longer afford to keep up this house, and live as her associations demand."

"What was her reply?" asked Filthy rich.

"She said she was not ready to marry anypony yet," replied Professor Fluttershy, "and that we could go and live upon the farm in northern Appaloosa which her mother left her.

"It is a little more than self-supporting. The tenants have always made a living from it, and been able to send Twlight a trifle beside, each year.

"She is planning on going up there the first of the week. Rainbow dash . and Blue blood have already gone to get things in readiness for us."

"Blue blood has gone there?" exclaimed Filthy rich, visibly chagrined. "Why wasn't I told? I would gladly have gone and seen that every comfort was provided."

"Twlight feels that we are already too much in your debt, Mr. Filthy rich," said Professor Fluttershy.

Filthy rich was about to reply, when the sound of hoofsteps came from the hall without, and Twlight sparkle entered the room.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" she exclaimed, pausing on the threshold. "I thought you were alone, Fluttershy."

"It is only I, Twlight," said Filthy rich, who had risen, "won't you come in and join the group? We were just speaking of you."

"Thank you," said Twlight Sparkle, entering and taking the chair Filthy rich placed for her. "I only wanted to tell Fluttershy that Troubleshoot is coming down from the college tomorrow to pack his books. I want you to be sure, Fluttershy, to indicate all that you can do without until fall. Please don't carry this entire library to Appaloosa, as you would have carried it to everfree, if I had not put my hoof down."

"Was troubleshoot here?" asked Professor Fluttershy.

"Yes, I just left him. He and Spike are exchanging religious experiences on the back porch now."

"Tut tut, I must see him at once!" cried the professor. "Excuse me just a moment, my friends," and the mare hastened from the room.

As soon as she was out of ear-shot Filthy rich turned to Twlight Sparkle.

"See here, Twlight," he said bluntly. "How long is this thing going on like this? "

"You haven't refused to marry me, but you haven't promised either.

"I want to get the license tomorrow, so that we can be married quietly before you leave for Appaloosa. I don't care for any fuss or feathers, and I'm sure you don't either."

The mare turned cold, but she held her head bravely.

"Your friend wishes it, you know," added Filthy rich.

'Yes, I know."
She spoke scarcely above a whisper.

"Do you realize that you are buying me, Mr. Filthy rich?" she said finally, and in a cold, level voice. "Buying me for a few paltry dollars? Of course you do, Filthy rich, and the hope of just such a contingency was in your mind when you loaned Fluttershy the bites for that harebrained escapade, which but for a most mysterious circumstance would have been surprisingly successful.

"But you, Mr. Filthy rich, would have been the most surprised. You had no idea that the venture would succeed. You are too good a businessstallion for that. And you are too good a businessstallion to loan money for buried- treasure seeking, or to loan money without security unless you had some special object in view.

'You knew that without security you had a greater hold on the honor of the Sparkles than with it. You knew the one best way to force me to marry you, without seeming to force me.

'You have never mentioned the loan. In any other stallion I should have thought that the prompting of a magnanimous and noble character. But you are deep, Mr. Filthy rich. I know you better than you think I know you.

"I shall certainly marry you if there is no other way, but let us understand each other once and for all."

While she spoke Filthy rich had alternately flushed and paled, and when she ceased speaking he arose, and with a cynical smile upon his strong face, said:

"You surprise me, Twlight. I thought you had more self control more pride.

"Of course you are right. I am buying you, and I knew that you knew it, but I thought you would prefer to pretend that it was otherwise.

I should have thought your self-respect and your Sparkle pride would have shrunk from admitting, even to yourself, that you were a bought mare.

"But have it your own way, dear mare," he added lightly. "I am going to have you, and that is all that interests me."

Without a word the mare turned and left the room.

Twlight sparkle was not married before she left with her friend and Spike for her little Appaloosa farm, and as she coldly bid Filthy rich goodbye as her train pulled out, he called to her that he would join them in a week or two.

At their destination they were met by Blue blood and Ms. Rainbow dash in a huge touring chariot belonging to the former, and quickly whirled away through the dense northern woods toward the little farm which the girl had not visited before since foalhood.

The farmhouse, which stood on a little elevation some hundred yards from the tenant house, had undergone a complete transformation, during the three weeks that Blue blood and Ms. Rainbow dash had been there. The former had imported a small army of carpenters and plasterers, plumbers and painters from a distant city, and what had been but a dilapidated shell when they reached it was now a cosy little two story house filled with every modern convenience procurable in so short a time.

"Why, Blue blood, what have you done?" cried Twlight Sparkle, her heart sinking within her as she realized the probable size of the expenditure that had been made.

"S-sh," cautioned Blue blood. "Don't let your friend guess. If you don't tell her she will never notice, and I simply couldn't think of her living in the terrible squalor and sordidness which Ms. Rainbow dash and I found. It was so little when I would do so much, Twlight. For his sake, please, never mention it."

"But you know that we can't repay you," cried the mare. "Why do you want to put me under such terrible obligations?"

"Don't, Twlight," said Blue blood sadly. "If it had been just you, believe me, I wouldn't have done it, for I knew from the start that it would only hurt me in your eyes, but I couldn't think of that dear old man living in the hole we found here.

"Won't you please believe that I did it just for her and give me that little crumb of pleasure at least?"

"I do believe you, Blue blood," said the mare, "because I know you are big enough and generous enough to have done it just for her and, oh Blue blood, I wish I might repay you as you deserve as you would wish."

"Why can't you, Twlight?"

"Because I love another."
"Filthy rich?"
"No."

"But you are going to marry him. He told me as much before I left Ponyville."

The girl winced.
"I do not love him," she said, almost proudly.
"Is it because of the bites, Twlight?"
She nodded.

"Then am I so much less desirable than Filthy rich? I have enough bites, and far more, for every need," he said bitterly.

"I do not love you, Blue blood," she said, "but I respect you. If I must disgrace myself by such a bargain with any stallion, I prefer that it be one I already despise. I should loathe the stallion to whom I sold myself without love, whomsoever he might be.

"You will be happier," she concluded, "alone with my respect and friendship, than with me and my contempt."

He did not press the matter further, but if ever a stallion had murder in his heart it was Prince Blue blood, when, a week later, Filthy rich drew up before the farm house in his purring six cylinder.

A week passed; a tense, uneventful, but uncomfortable week for all the inmates of the little Appaloosa farm house.

Filthy rich was insistent that Twlight marry him at once.

At length she gave in from sheer loathing of the continued and hateful importuning.

It was agreed that on the morning Filthy rich was to drive to town and bring back the license and a minister.

Blue blood had wanted to leave as soon as the plan was announced, but the mare's tired, hopeless look kept him. He could not desert her.

Something might happen yet, he tried to console himself by thinking. And in his heart, he knew that it would require but a tiny spark to turn his hatred for Filthy rich into the blood lust of the killer.

Early the next morning Filthy rich set out for town.

In the east smoke could be seen flying low over the forest, for a fire had been raging for a week not far from them, but the wind still lay in the west and no danger threatened them.

About noon Twlight Sparkle started off for a walk. She would not let Blue blood accompany her. She wanted to be alone, she said, and he respected her wishes.

In the house Professor Fluttershy and Ms. Rainbow dash were immersed in an absorbing discussion of some weighty scientific problem. Spike dozed in the kitchen, and Blue blood, heavy-eyed after a sleepless night, threw himself down upon the couch in the living room and soon dropped into a fitful slumber.

To the east the black smoke clouds rose higher into the heavens, suddenly they eddied, and then commenced to drift rapidly toward the west.

On and on they came. The inmates of the tenant house were gone, for it was market day, and none there was to see the rapid approach of the fiery demon.

Soon the flames had spanned the road to the south and cut off Filthy rich's return. A little fluctuation of the wind now carried the path of the forest fire to the north, then blew back and the flames nearly stood still as though held in leash by some master hoof.

Suddenly, out of the north-east, a great black chariot came careening down the road.

With a jolt it stopped before the cottage, and a black haired giant leaped out to run up onto the porch. Without a pause he rushed into the house. On the couch lay Blue. The stallion started in surprise, but with a bound was at the side of the sleeping stallion.

Shaking him roughly by the shoulder, he cried:

"My Celestia, Blue blood, are you all mad here? Don't you know you are nearly surrounded by fire? Where is Miss sparkle?"

Blue blood sprang to his hooves. He did not recognize the stallion, but he understood the words and was upon the veranda in a bound.

"Scott!" he cried, and then, dashing back into the house, "Twlight! Twlight! where are you?"

In an instant spike, Professor Fluttershy and Ms. Rainbow dash had joined the two stallions.

"Where is Miss Twlight?" cried Blue blood, seizing spike by the shoulders and shaking her roughly.

"Oh, luna, Marse Blue, she's gone for a walk."

"Hasn't she come back yet?" and, without waiting for a reply, Blue blood dashed out into the yard, followed by the others.

"Which way did she go?" cried the purple scaled giant of spike.

"Down dat road," cried the frightened dragon, pointing toward the south where a mighty wall of roaring flames shut out the view.

"Put these ponies and dragon in the other chariot," shouted the stranger to Blue. "I saw one as I drove up arid, get them out of here by the north road.

"Leave my chariot here. If I find Miss sparkle we shall need it. If I don't, no one will need it. Do as I say," as Blue blood hesitated, and then they saw the little the figure bound away across the clearing toward the northwest where the forest still stood, untouched by flame.

In each rose the unaccountable feeling that a great responsibility had been raised from their shoulders; a kind of implicit confidence in the power of the stranger to save Twlight sparkle if she could be saved.

"Who was that?" asked Professor Fluttershy

"I do not know," replied Blue blood. "He called me by name and he knew Twlight, for he asked for her. And he called spike by name."

"There was something most startlingly familiar about him," exclaimed Ms. Rainbow dash, "and yet, bless me, I know I never saw him before."

"Tut tut!" cried Professor Fluttershy. "Most remarkable! Who could it have been, and why do I feel that Twlight is safe, now that he has set out in search of her?"

"I can't tell you, Professor," said Blue blood soberly, "but I know I have the same uncanny feeling."

"But come," he cried, "we must get out of here ourselves, or we shall be shut off," and the party hastened toward Blue blood's chariot.

When Twlight sparkle turned to retrace her steps homeward, she was alarmed to note how near the smoke of the forest fire seemed, and as she hastened onward, her alarm became almost a panic when she perceived that the rushing flames were rapidly forcing their way between herself and the cottage.

At length she was compelled to turn into the dense thicket and attempt to force her way to the west in an effort to circle around the flames and regain her home.

In a short time the futility of her attempt became apparent and then her one hope lay in retracing her steps to the road and flying for her life to the south toward the town.

The twenty minutes that it took her to regain the road was all that had been needed to cut off her retreat as effectively as her advance had been cut off before.

A short run down the road brought her to a horrified stand, for there before her was another wall of flame. An arm of the parent conflagration had shot out a half mile south of its mate to embrace this tiny strip of road in its implacable clutches.

Twlight sparkle knew that it was useless again to attempt to force her way through the undergrowth.

She had tried it once, and failed. Now she realized that it would be but a matter of minutes where the whole space between the enemy on the north and the enemy on the south would be a seething mass of billowing flames.

Calmly the mare kneeled down in the dust of the roadway and prayed to her Maker to give her strength to meet her fate bravely, and to deliver her and her friends from death.

She did not think to pray for deliverance for herself; for she knew there was no hope not even Celestia could save her now.

Suddenly she heard her name being called aloud through the forest:

"Twlight! Twlight sparkle!" It rang strong and clear, but in a strange voice.

"Here!" she called in reply. "Here! In the roadway!"

Then through the branches of the trees, she saw a figure swinging with the speed of a squirrel.

A veering of the wind blew a cloud of smoke about them and she could no longer see the stallion who was speeding toward her, but suddenly she felt a great arm about her. Then she was lifted up, and she felt the rushing of the wind and the occasional brush of a branch as she was borne along.

She opened her eyes.

Far below her lay the undergrowth and the hard earth.

About her was the waving foliage of the forest.

From tree to tree swung the giant figure which bore her, and it seemed to Twlight sparkle that she was living over in a dream the experience that had been hers in that far everfree Forest.

Oh, if it were but the same stallion who had borne her so swiftly through the tangled verdure on that other day; but that was impossible. Yet who else in all the world was there with the strength and agility to do what this stallion was now doing?

She stole a sudden glance at the face close to hers, and then she gave a little frightened gasp it was he!

"My stallion!" she murmured. "No, it is the delirium which precedes death."

She must have spoken aloud, for the eyes that bent occasionally to hers lighted with a smile.

"Yes, your stallion, Twlight sparkle; your savage, primeval stallion came out of the forest to claim his mate the mare who ran away from him," he added almost fiercely.

"I did not run away," she whispered. "I would only consent to leave when they had waited a week for you to return."

They had come to a point beyond the fire now, and he had turned back to the clearing.

Side by side they were walking toward the cottage. The wind had changed once more and the fire was burning back upon itself another hour like that and it would be burned out.

"Why did you not return?" she asked.

"I was nursing Captain Solano. She was badly wounded."

"Ah, I knew it!" she exclaimed.

"They said you had gone to join the zebras that they were your kind."

He laughed.

"But you did not believe them, Twlight?"

"No; what shall I call you?" she asked. "What is your name?"

"I was Timbarzan of the Timberwolves when you first knew me," he said.

"Timbarzan of the Timberwolves!" she cried "and that was your note I answered when I left?"

"Yes, whose did you think it was?"

"I did not know; only that it could not be yours, for Timbarzan of the Timberwolves had written in Equestrian, and you could not understand a word of any language."

Again he laughed.

"It is a long story, but it was I who wrote what I could not speak and now Captain Solano has made matters worse by teaching me to speak Frenchpony instead of Equestrian.

"Come," he added, "jump into my car, we must overtake your friend, they are only a little way ahead."

As they drove along, he said:

"Then when you said in your note to Timbarzan of the Timberwolves that you loved another you might have meant me?"

"I might have," she answered, simply.

"But in Ponyville Oh, how I have searched for you, they told me you would possibly be married by now. That a stallion named Filthy rich had come up here to wed you. Is that true?"

•"Yes."
"Do you love him?"
"No."
"Do you love me?"

She buried her face in her hooves.

"I am promised to another. I cannot answer you, Timbarzan of the Timberwolves," she cried.

'You have answered. Now, tell me why you would marry one you do not love."

"My friend owes him money."

Suddenly there came back to Timbarzan the memory of the letter he had read and the name Filthy rich and the hunted trouble which he had been unable to understand then.

He smiled. "

If your friend had not lost the treasure you would not feel forced to keep your promise to this stallion Filthy rich?"

"I could ask him to release me."
"And if he refused?"
"I have given my promise."

He was silent for a moment. The chariot was plunging along the uneven road at a reckless pace, for the fire showed threateningly at their right, and another change of the wind might sweep it on with raging fury across this one avenue of escape.

Finally they passed the danger point, and Timbrzan reduced their speed.

"Suppose I should ask him?" ventured Timbarzan.

"He would scarcely accede to the demand of a stranger," said the mare.

"Especially one who wanted me himself."

"Fang wood did," said Timbarzan, grimly.

Twlight Sparkle shuddered and looked fearfully up at the giant figure beside her, for she knew that he meant the great anthropoid he had killed in her defense.

"This is not an everfree Force," she said. "You are no longer a savage beast. You are a gentlestallion, and gentlestallion do not kill in cold blood."

"I am still a wild beast at heart," he said, in a low voice, as though to himself.

Again they were silent for a time.

"Twlight sparkle," said the stallion, at length, "if you were free, would you marry me?"

She did not reply at once, but he waited patiently.

The mare was trying to collect her thoughts.

What did she know of this strange creature at her side? What did he know of himself? Who was he? Who, his parents? Why, his very name echoed his mysterious origin and his savage life. He had no name.

Could she be happy with this forest waif? Could she find anything in common with a husband whose life had been spent in the tree tops of an everfree wilderness, frolicking and fighting with fierce anthropoids; tearing his food from the quivering flank of fresh-killed prey, sinking his strong teeth into raw flesh, and tearing away his portion while his mates growled and fought about him for their share? Could he ever rise to her social sphere? Could she bear to think of sinking to his? Would either be happy in such a horrible misalliance?

"You do not answer," he said. "Do you shrink from wounding me?" "I do not know what answer to make," said Twlight sparkle sadly. "I do not know my own mind."

"You do not love me, then?" he asked, in a level tone.

"Do not ask me. You will be happier without me. You were never meant for the formal restrictions and conventionalities of society civilization would become irksome to you, and in a little while you would long for the freedom of your old life to which I am as totally unfitted as you to mine."

"I think I understand you," he replied quietly. "I shall not urge you, for I would rather see you happy than to be happy myself.

"I see now that you could not be happy with an timberwolf."

There was just the faintest tinge of bitterness in his voice.

"Don't," she remonstrated. "Don't say that. You do not understand."

But before she could go on a sudden turn in the road brought them into the midst of a little hamlet.

Before them stood Blue blood's chariot surrounded by the party he had brought from the cottage.

To be continued