第18章 WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG(7)

While most of Lilian Gersdale's fright was for the man beloved, there was a large portion of it due to the man himself.Never had she dreamed so formidable and magnificent a savage lurked under the starched shirt and conventional garb of her betrothed.And never had she had any conception of how a man battled.Such a battle was certainly not modern; nor was she there beholding a modern man, though she did not know it.For this was not Mr.James J.Ward, the San Francisco business man, but one, unnamed and unknown, a crude, rude savage creature who, by some freak of chance, lived again after thrice a thousand years.

The hounds, ever maintaining their mad uproar, circled about the fight, or dashed in and out, distracting the bear.When the animal turned to meet such flanking assaults, the man leaped in and the club came down.Angered afresh by every such blow, the bear would rush, and the man, leaping and skipping, avoiding the dogs, went backwards or circled to one side or the other.

Whereupon the dogs, taking advantage of the opening, would again spring in and draw the animal's wrath to them.

The end came suddenly.Whirling, the grizzly caught a hound with a wide sweeping cuff that sent the brute, its ribs caved in and its back broken, hurtling twenty feet.Then the human brute went mad.A foaming rage flecked the lips that parted with a wild inarticulate cry, as it sprang in, swung the club mightily in both hands, and brought it down full on the head of the uprearing grizzly.Not even the skull of a grizzly could withstand the crushing force of such a blow, and the animal went down to meet the worrying of the hounds.And through their scurrying leaped the man, squarely upon the body, where, in the white electric light, resting on his club, he chanted a triumph in an unknown tongue--a song so ancient that Professor Wertz would have given ten years of his life for it.

His guests rushed to possess him and acclaim him, but James Ward, suddenly looking out of the eyes of the early Teuton, saw the fair frail Twentieth Century girl he loved, and felt something snap in his brain.He staggered weakly toward her, dropped the club, and nearly fell.Something had gone wrong with him.Inside his brain was an intolerable agony.It seemed as if the soul of him were flying asunder.Following the excited gaze of the others, he glanced back and saw the carcass of the bear.The sight filled him with fear.He uttered a cry and would have fled, had they not restrained him and led him into the bungalow.

......

James J.Ward is still at the head of the firm of Ward, Knowles & Co.But he no longer lives in the country; nor does he run of nights after the coyotes under the moon.The early Teuton in him died the night of the Mill Valley fight with the bear.

James J.Ward is now wholly James J.Ward, and he shares no part of his being with any vagabond anachronism from the younger world.And so wholly is James J.Ward modern, that he knows in all its bitter fullness the curse of civilized fear.

He is now afraid of the dark, and night in the forest is to him a thing of abysmal terror.His city house is of the spick and span order, and he evinces a great interest in burglarproof devices.His home is a tangle of electric wires, and after bed-time a guest can scarcely breathe without setting off an alarm.Also, he had invented a combination keyless door-lock that travelers may carry in their vest pockets and apply immediately and successfully under all circumstances.But his wife does not deem him a coward.She knows better.And, like any hero, he is content to rest on his laurels.His bravery is never questioned by those friends who are aware of the Mill Valley episode.