Edgar Rice Burroughs - "Out of Time's Abyss"

Charles Dickens - "The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin"

Horatio Alger - "Hector's Inheritance"

Lady Fanshawe - "Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Man of the Forest

Z >> Zane Grey >> The Man of the Forest




"Oh, Bo! Are you hurt?" cried Helen.

Evidently Bo's mouth was full of mud.

"Pp--su--tt! Ough! Whew!" she sputtered. "Hurt? No! Can't
you see what I lit in? Dale, the sun-of-a-gun didn't throw
me. He fell, and I went over his head."

"Right. You sure rode him. An' he tripped an' slung you a
mile," replied Dale. "It's lucky you lit in that bog."

"Lucky! With eyes and nose stopped up? Oooo! I'm full of
mud. And my nice -- new riding-suit!"

Bo's tones indicated that she was ready to cry. Helen,
realizing Bo had not been hurt, began to laugh. Her sister
was the funniest-looking object that had ever come before
her eyes.

"Nell Rayner -- are you -- laughing -- at me?" demanded Bo,
in most righteous amaze and anger.

"Me laugh-ing? N-never, Bo, "replied Helen. "Can't you see
I'm just -- just --"

"See? You idiot! my eyes are full of mud!" flashed Bo. "But
I hear you. I'll -- I'll get even."

Dale was laughing, too, but noiselessly, and Bo, being blind
for the moment, could not be aware of that. By this time
they had reached camp. Helen fell flat and laughed as she
had never laughed before. When Helen forgot herself so far
as to roll on the ground it was indeed a laughing matter.
Dale's big frame shook as he possessed himself of a towel
and, wetting it at the spring, began to wipe the mud off
Bo's face. But that did not serve. Bo asked to be led to the
water, where she knelt and, with splashing, washed out her
eyes, and then her face, and then the bedraggled strands of
hair.

"That mustang didn't break my neck, but he rooted my face in
the mud. I'll fix him," she muttered, as she got up. "Please
let me have the towel, now. . . . Well! Milt Dale, you're
laughing!"

"Ex-cuse me, Bo. I -- Haw! haw! haw!" Then Dale lurched off,
holding his sides.

Bo gazed after him and then back at Helen.

"I suppose if I'd been kicked and smashed and killed you'd
laugh," she said. And then she melted. "Oh, my pretty
riding-suit! What a mess! I must be a sight. . . . Nell, I
rode that wild pony -- the sun-of-a-gun! I rode him! That's
enough for me. YOU try it. Laugh all you want. It was funny.
But if you want to square yourself with me, help me clean my
clothes."


Late in the night Helen heard Dale sternly calling Pedro.
She felt some little alarm. However, nothing happened, and
she soon went to sleep again. At the morning meal Dale
explained.

"Pedro an' Tom were uneasy last night. I think there are
lions workin' over the ridge somewhere. I heard one scream."

"Scream?" inquired Bo, with interest.

"Yes, an' if you ever hear a lion scream you will think it a
woman in mortal agony. The cougar cry, as Roy calls it, is
the wildest to be heard in the woods. A wolf howls. He is
sad. hungry, and wild. But a cougar seems human an' dyin'
an' wild. We'll saddle up an' ride over there. Maybe Pedro
will tree a lion. Bo, if he does will you shoot it?"

"Sure," replied Bo, with her mouth full of biscuit.

That was how they came to take a long, slow, steep ride
under cover of dense spruce. Helen liked the ride after they
got on the heights. But they did not get to any point where
she could indulge in her pleasure of gazing afar over the
ranges. Dale led up and down, and finally mostly down, until
they came out within sight of sparser wooded ridges with
parks lying below and streams shining in the sun.

More than once Pedro had to be harshly called by Dale. The
hound scented game.

"Here's an old kill," said Dale, halting to point at some
bleached bones scattered under a spruce. Tufts of
grayish-white hair lay strewn around.

"What was it?" asked Bo.

"Deer, of course. Killed there an' eaten by a lion. Sometime
last fall. See, even the skull is split. But I could not say
that the lion did it."

Helen shuddered. She thought of the tame deer down at Dale's
camp. How beautiful and graceful, and responsive to
kindness!

They rode out of the woods into a grassy swale with rocks
and clumps of some green bushes bordering it. Here Pedro
barked, the first time Helen had heard him. The hair on his
neck bristled, and it required stern calls from Dale to hold
him in. Dale dismounted.

"Hyar, Pede, you get back," he ordered. "I'll let you go
presently. . . . Girls, you're goin' to see somethin'. But
stay on your horses."

Dale, with the hound tense and bristling beside him, strode
here and there at the edge of the swale. Presently he halted
on a slight elevation and beckoned for the girls to ride
over.

"Here, see where the grass is pressed down all nice an'
round," he said, pointing. "A lion made that. He sneaked
there, watchin' for deer. That was done this mornin'. Come
on, now. Let's see if we can trail him."

Dale stooped now, studying the grass, and holding Pedro.
Suddenly he straightened up with a flash in his gray eyes.

"Here's where he jumped."

But Helen could not see any reason why Dale should say that.
The man of the forest took a long stride then another.

"An' here's where that lion lit on the back of the deer. It
was a big jump. See the sharp hoof tracks of the deer." Dale
pressed aside tall grass to show dark, rough, fresh tracks
of a deer, evidently made by violent action.

"Come on," called Dale, walking swiftly. "You're sure goin'
to see somethin' now. . . . Here's where the deer bounded,
carryin' the lion."

"What!" exclaimed Bo, incredulously.

"The deer was runnin' here with the lion on his back. I'll
prove it to you. Come on, now. Pedro, you stay with me.
Girls, it's a fresh trail." Dale walked along, leading his
horse, and occasionally he pointed down into the grass.
"There! See that! That's hair."

Helen did see some tufts of grayish hair scattered on the
ground, and she believed she saw little, dark separations in
the grass, where an animal had recently passed. All at once
Dale halted. When Helen reached him Bo was already there and
they were gazing down at a wide, flattened space in the
grass. Even Helen's inexperienced eyes could make out
evidences of a struggle. Tufts of gray-white hair lay upon
the crushed grass. Helen did not need to see any more, but
Dale silently pointed to a patch of blood. Then he spoke:

"The lion brought the deer down here an' killed him.
Probably broke his neck. That deer ran a hundred yards with
the lion. See, here's the trail left where the lion dragged
the deer off."

A well-defined path showed across the swale.

"Girls, you'll see that deer pretty quick," declared Dale,
starting forward. "This work has just been done. Only a few
minutes ago."

"How can you tell?" queried Bo.

"Look! See that grass. It has been bent down by the deer
bein' dragged over it. Now it's springin' up."

Dale's next stop was on the other side of the swale, under a
spruce with low, spreading branches. The look of Pedro
quickened Helen's pulse. He was wild to give chase.
Fearfully Helen looked where Dale pointed, expecting to see
the lion. But she saw instead a deer lying prostrate with
tongue out and sightless eyes and bloody hair.

"Girls, that lion heard us an' left. He's not far," said
Dale, as he stooped to lift the head of the deer. "Warm!
Neck broken. See the lion's teeth an' claw marks. . . . It's
a doe. Look here. Don't be squeamish, girls. This is only an
hourly incident of everyday life in the forest. See where
the lion has rolled the skin down as neat as I could do it,
an' he'd just begun to bite in there when he heard us."

"What murderous work, The sight sickens me!" exclaimed
Helen.

"It is nature," said Dale, simply.

"Let's kill the lion," added Bo.

For answer Dale took a quick turn at their saddle-girths,
and then, mounting, he called to the hound. "Hunt him up,
Pedro."

Like a shot the hound was off.

"Ride in my tracks an' keep close to me," called Dale, as he
wheeled his horse.

"We're off!" squealed Bo, in wild delight, and she made her
mount plunge.

Helen urged her horse after them and they broke across a
comer of the swale to the woods. Pedro was running straight,
with his nose high. He let out one short bark. He headed
into the woods, with Dale not far behind. Helen was on one
of Dale's best horses, but that fact scarcely manifested
itself, because the others began to increase their lead.
They entered the woods. It was open, and fairly good going.
Bo's horse ran as fast in the woods as he did in the open.
That frightened Helen and she yelled to Bo to hold him in.
She yelled to deaf ears. That was Bo's great risk -- she did
not intend to be careful. Suddenly the forest rang with
Dale's encouraging yell, meant to aid the girls in following
him. Helen's horse caught the spirit of the chase. He gained
somewhat on Bo, hurdling logs, sometimes two at once.
Helen's blood leaped with a strange excitement, utterly
unfamiliar and as utterly resistless. Yet her natural fear,
and the intelligence that reckoned with the foolish risk of
this ride, shared alike in her sum of sensations. She tried
to remember Dale's caution about dodging branches and snags,
and sliding her knees back to avoid knocks from trees. She
barely missed some frightful reaching branches. She received
a hard knock, then another, that unseated her, but
frantically she held on and slid back, and at the end of a
long run through comparatively open forest she got a
stinging blow in the face from a far-spreading branch of
pine. Bo missed, by what seemed only an inch, a solid snag
that would have broken her in two. Both Pedro and Dale got
out of Helen's sight. Then Helen, as she began to lose Bo,
felt that she would rather run greater risks than be left
behind to get lost in the forest, and she urged her horse.
Dale's yell pealed back. Then it seemed even more thrilling
to follow by sound than by sight. Wind and brush tore at
her. The air was heavily pungent with odor of pine. Helen
heard a wild, full bay of the hound, ringing back, full of
savage eagerness, and she believed Pedro had roused out the
lion from some covert. It lent more stir to her blood and it
surely urged her horse on faster.

Then the swift pace slackened. A windfall of timber delayed
Helen. She caught a glimpse of Dale far ahead, climbing a
slope. The forest seemed full of his ringing yell. Helen
strangely wished for level ground and the former swift
motion. Next she saw Bo working down to the right, and
Dale's yell now came from that direction. Helen followed,
got out of the timber, and made better time on a gradual
slope down to another park.

When she reached the open she saw Bo almost across this
narrow open ground. Here Helen did not need to urge her
mount. He snorted and plunged at the level and he got to
going so fast that Helen would have screamed aloud in
mingled fear and delight if she had not been breathless.

Her horse had the bad luck to cross soft ground. He went to
his knees and Helen sailed out of the saddle over his head.
Soft willows and wet grass broke her fall. She was surprised
to find herself unhurt. Up she bounded and certainly did not
know this new Helen Rayner. Her horse was coming, and he had
patience with her, but he wanted to hurry. Helen made the
quickest mount of her experience and somehow felt a pride in
it. She would tell Bo that. But just then Bo flashed into
the woods out of sight. Helen fairly charged into that green
foliage, breaking brush and branches. She broke through into
open forest. Bo was inside, riding down an aisle between
pines and spruces. At that juncture Helen heard Dale's
melodious yell near at hand. Coming into still more open
forest, with rocks here and there, she saw Dale dismounted
under a pine, and Pedro standing with fore paws upon the
tree-trunk, and then high up on a branch a huge tawny
colored lion, just like Tom.

Bo's horse slowed up and showed fear, but he kept on as far
as Dale's horse. But Helen's refused to go any nearer. She
had difficulty in halting him. Presently she dismounted and,
throwing her bridle over a stump, she ran on, panting and
fearful, yet tingling all over, up to her sister and Dale.

"Nell, you did pretty good for a tenderfoot," was Bo's
greeting.

"It was a fine chase," said Dale. "You both rode well. I
wish you could have seen the lion on the ground. He bounded
-- great long bounds with his tail up in the air -- very
funny. An' Pedro almost caught up with him. That scared me,
because he would have killed the hound. Pedro was close to
him when he treed. An' there he is -- the yellow
deer-killer. He's a male an' full grown."

With that Dale pulled his rifle from its saddle-sheath and
looked expectantly at Bo. But she was gazing with great
interest and admiration up at the lion.

"Isn't he just beautiful?" she burst out. "Oh, look at him
spit! Just like a cat! Dale, he looks afraid he might fall
off."

"He sure does. Lions are never sure of their balance in a
tree. But I never saw one make a misstep. He knows he
doesn't belong there."

To Helen the lion looked splendid perched up there. He was
long and round and graceful and tawny. His tongue hung out
and his plump sides heaved, showing what a quick, hard run
he had been driven to. What struck Helen most forcibly about
him was something in his face as he looked down at the
hound. He was scared. He realized his peril. It was not
possible for Helen to watch him killed, yet she could not
bring herself to beg Bo not to shoot. Helen confessed she
was a tenderfoot.

"Get down, Bo, an' let's see how good a shot you are, said
Dale. Bo slowly withdrew her fascinated gaze from the lion
and looked with a rueful smile at Dale.

"I've changed my mind. I said I would kill him, but now I
can't. He looks so -- so different from what I'd imagined."

Dale's answer was a rare smile of understanding and approval
that warmed Helen's heart toward him. All the same, he was
amused. Sheathing the gun, he mounted his horse.

"Come on, Pedro," he called. "Come, I tell you," he added,
sharply, "Well, girls, we treed him, anyhow, an, it was fun.
Now we'll ride back to the deer he killed an' pack a haunch
to camp for our own use."

"Will the lion go back to his -- his kill, I think you
called it?" asked Bo.

"I've chased one away from his kill half a dozen times.
Lions are not plentiful here an' they don't get overfed. I
reckon the balance is pretty even."

This last remark made Helen inquisitive. And as they slowly
rode on the back-trail Dale talked.

"You girls, bein' tender-hearted an' not knowin' the life of
the forest, what's good an' what's bad, think it was a pity
the poor deer was killed by a murderous lion. But you're
wrong. As I told you, the lion is absolutely necessary to
the health an' joy of wild life -- or deer's wild life, so
to speak. When deer were created or came into existence,
then the lion must have come, too. They can't live without
each other. Wolves, now, are not particularly deer-killers.
They live off elk an' anythin' they can catch. So will
lions, for that matter. But I mean lions follow the deer to
an' fro from winter to summer feedin'-grounds. Where there's
no deer you will find no lions. Well, now, if left alone
deer would multiply very fast. In a few years there would be
hundreds where now there's only one. An' in time, as the
generations passed, they'd lose the fear, the alertness, the
speed an' strength, the eternal vigilance that is love of
life -- they'd lose that an' begin to deteriorate, an'
disease would carry them off. I saw one season of
black-tongue among deer. It killed them off, an' I believe
that is one of the diseases of over-production. The lions,
now, are forever on the trail of the deer. They have
learned. Wariness is an instinct born in the fawn. It makes
him keen, quick, active, fearful, an' so he grows up strong
an' healthy to become the smooth, sleek, beautiful,
soft-eyed, an' wild-lookin' deer you girls love to watch.
But if it wasn't for the lions, the deer would not thrive.
Only the strongest an' swiftest survive. That is the meanin'
of nature. There is always a perfect balance kept by nature.
It may vary in different years, but on the whole, in the
long years, it averages an even balance."

"How wonderfully you put it!" exclaimed Bo, with all her
impulsiveness. "Oh, I'm glad I didn't kill the lion."

"What you say somehow hurts me," said Helen, wistfully, to
the hunter. "I see -- I feel how true -- how inevitable it
is. But it changes my -- my feelings. Almost I'd rather not
acquire such knowledge as yours. This balance of nature --
how tragic -- how sad!"

"But why?" asked Dale. "You love birds, an' birds are the
greatest killers in the forest."

"Don't tell me that -- don't prove it," implored Helen. It
is not so much the love of life in a deer or any creature,
and the terrible clinging to life, that gives me distress.
It is suffering. I can't bear to see pain. I can STAND pain
myself, but I can't BEAR to see or think of it."

"Well," replied. Dale, thoughtfully, "There you stump me
again. I've lived long in the forest an' when a man's alone
he does a heap of thinkin'. An' always I couldn't understand
a reason or a meanin' for pain. Of all the bafflin' things
of life, that is the hardest to understand an' to forgive --
pain!"


That evening, as they sat in restful places round the
camp-fire, with the still twilight fading into night, Dale
seriously asked the girls what the day's chase had meant to
them. His manner of asking was productive of thought. Both
girls were silent for a moment.

"Glorious!" was Bo's brief and eloquent reply.

"Why?" asked. Dale, curiously. "You are a girl. You've been
used to home, people, love, comfort, safety, quiet."

"Maybe that is just why it was glorious," said Bo,
earnestly. "I can hardly explain. I loved the motion of the
horse, the feel of wind in my face, the smell of the pine,
the sight of slope and forest glade and windfall and rocks,
and the black shade under the spruces. My blood beat and
burned. My teeth clicked. My nerves all quivered. My heart
sometimes, at dangerous moments, almost choked me, and all
the time it pounded hard. Now my skin was hot and then it
was cold. But I think the best of that chase for me was that
I was on a fast horse, guiding him, controlling him. He was
alive. Oh, how I felt his running!"

"Well, what you say is as natural to me as if I felt it,"
said Dale. "I wondered. You're certainly full of fire, An',
Helen, what do you say?"

"Bo has answered you with her feelings," replied Helen, "I
could not do that and be honest. The fact that Bo wouldn't
shoot the lion after we treed him acquits her. Nevertheless,
her answer is purely physical. You know, Mr. Dale, how you
talk about the physical. I should say my sister was just a
young, wild, highly sensitive, hot-blooded female of the
species. She exulted in that chase as an Indian. Her
sensations were inherited ones -- certainly not acquired by
education. Bo always hated study. The ride was a revelation
to me. I had a good many of Bo's feelings -- though not so
strong. But over against them was the opposition of reason,
of consciousness. A new-born side of my nature confronted
me, strange, surprising, violent, irresistible. It was as if
another side of my personality suddenly said: 'Here I am.
Reckon with me now!' And there was no use for the moment to
oppose that strange side. I -- the thinking Helen Rayner,
was powerless. Oh yes, I had such thoughts even when the
branches were stinging my face and I was thrilling to the
bay of the hound. Once my horse fell and threw me. . . . You
needn't look alarmed. It was fine. I went into a soft place
and was unhurt. But when I was sailing through the air a
thought flashed: this is the end of me! It was like a dream
when you are falling dreadfully. Much of what I felt and
thought on that chase must have been because of what I have
studied and read and taught. The reality of it, the action
and flash, were splendid. But fear of danger, pity for the
chased lion, consciousness of foolish risk, of a reckless
disregard for the serious responsibility I have taken -- all
these worked in my mind and held back what might have been a
sheer physical, primitive joy of the wild moment."

Dale listened intently, and after Helen had finished he
studied the fire and thoughtfully poked the red embers with
his stick. His face was still and serene, untroubled and
unlined, but to Helen his eyes seemed sad, pensive,
expressive of an unsatisfied yearning and wonder. She had
carefully and earnestly spoken, because she was very curious
to hear what he might say.

"I understand you," he replied, presently. "An' I'm sure
surprised that I can. I've read my books -- an' reread them,
but no one ever talked like that to me. What I make of it is
this. You've the same blood in you that's in Bo. An' blood
is stronger than brain. Remember that blood is life. It
would be good for you to have it run an' beat an' burn, as
Bo's did. Your blood did that a thousand years or ten
thousand before intellect was born in your ancestors.
Instinct may not be greater than reason, but it's a million
years older. Don't fight your instincts so hard. If they
were not good the God of Creation would not have given them
to you. To-day your mind was full of self-restraint that did
not altogether restrain. You couldn't forget yourself. You
couldn't FEEL only, as Bo did. You couldn't be true to your
real nature."

"I don't agree with you," replied Helen, quickly. "I don't
have to be an Indian to be true to myself."

"Why, yes you do," said Dale.

"But I couldn't be an Indian," declared Helen, spiritedly.
"I couldn't FEEL only, as you say Bo did. I couldn't go back
in the scale, as you hint. What would all my education
amount to -- though goodness knows it's little enough -- if
I had no control over primitive feelings that happened to be
born in me?"

"You'll have little or no control over them when the right
time comes," replied Dale. "Your sheltered life an'
education have led you away from natural instincts. But
they're in you an' you'll learn the proof of that out here."

"No. Not if I lived a hundred years in the West," asserted
Helen.

"But, child, do you know what you're talkin' about?"

Here Bo let out a blissful peal of laughter.

"Mr. Dale!" exclaimed Helen, almost affronted. She was
stirred. "I know MYSELF, at least."

"But you do not. You've no idea of yourself. You've
education, yes, but not in nature an' life. An' after all,
they are the real things. Answer me, now -- honestly, will
you?"

"Certainly, if I can. Some of your questions are hard to
answer."

"Have you ever been starved?" he asked.

"No," replied Helen.

"Have you ever been lost away from home ?"

"No."

"Have you ever faced death -- real stark an' naked death,
close an' terrible?"

"No, indeed."

"Have you ever wanted to kill any one with your bare hands?"

"Oh, Mr. Dale, you -- you amaze me. No! . . . No!"

"I reckon I know your answer to my last question, but I'll
ask it, anyhow. . . . Have you ever been so madly in love
with a man that you could not live without him?"

Bo fell off her seat with a high, trilling laugh. "Oh, you
two are great!"

"Thank Heaven, I haven't been," replied Helen, shortly.

"Then you don't know anythin' about life," declared Dale,
with finality.

Helen was not to be put down by that, dubious and troubled
as it made her.

"Have you experienced all those things?" she queried,
stubbornly.

"All but the last one. Love never came my way. How could it?
I live alone. I seldom go to the villages where there are
girls. No girl would ever care for me. I have nothin'. . . .
But, all the same, I understand love a little, just by
comparison with strong feelin's I've lived."

Helen watched the hunter and marveled at his simplicity. His
sad and penetrating gaze was on the fire, as if in its white
heart to read the secret denied him. He had said that no
girl would ever love him. She imagined he might know
considerably less about the nature of girls than of the
forest.

"To come back to myself," said Helen, wanting to continue
the argument. "You declared I didn't know myself. That I
would have no self-control. I will!"

"I meant the big things of life," he said, patiently.

"What things?"

"I told you. By askin' what had never happened to you I
learned what will happen."

"Those experiences to come to ME!" breathed Helen,
incredulously. "Never!"

"Sister Nell, they sure will -- particularly the last-named
one -- the mad love," chimed in Bo, mischievously, yet
believingly.

Neither Dale nor Helen appeared to hear her interruption.

"Let me put it simpler," began Dale, evidently racking his
brain for analogy. His perplexity appeared painful to him,
because he had a great faith, a great conviction that he
could not make clear. "Here I am, the natural physical man,
livin' in the wilds. An' here you come, the complex,
intellectual woman. Remember, for my argument's sake, that
you're here. An' suppose circumstances forced you to stay
here. You'd fight the elements with me an' work with me to
sustain life. There must be a great change in either you or
me, accordin' to the other's influence. An' can't you see
that change must come in you, not because of anythin'
superior in me -- I'm really inferior to you -- but because
of our environment? You'd lose your complexity. An' in years
to come you'd be a natural physical woman, because you'd
live through an' by the physical."