text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/133

 Two hours after sunrise of a crisp October morning Rusty followed a possum trail to the edge of a small open glade shaded by tall pines and ringed round by a dense hedge of young live oaks. Almost in the center of the glade stood a large palmetto; and just as the terrier reached the inner margin of the live-oak hedge he saw the possum nosing something in the pine straw near the palmetto trunk. Rusty backed into the thicket, made a short detour, then darted noiselessly into the open, keeping out of sight behind the stout trunk, bristling with the stubs of cast-off lateral fronds. When he was within six feet of the tree he heard a scuffle just beyond it; and a moment later, peering around the trunk, he saw Longclaw standing upon the body of the possum.

The big cat's back was turned to the palmetto. Crouching low on the carcass of his prey, he seemed to be scanning the farther edge of the glade, perhaps trying to discover the meaning of some faint sound which had come from that direction. From behind the tree trunk, first the head, then the wiry, compact body of the little red dog emerged. Inch by inch he moved forward across the pine-straw carpet. Then, with a joyous yelp, he leaped straight for that tawny back.

The struggle was over almost before it had begun. Two seconds after Rusty made his leap he found

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/133


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/36

 34 Pennsylvania by which he was to have a cabinet place in return for giving his support to Lincoln, who was nominated on the third ballot. William M. Evarts, who had led for Seward, made the usual motion to make the choice unanimous, which was done with tremendous tumult of applause. Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was nominated for Vice-president. Blaine says of Hamlin, "In strong common sense, in sagacity and sound judgment, in rugged integrity of character, Mr. Hamlin has had no superior among public men."

Down in Springfield, Lincoln was waiting, and when he got the news, he said, "There is a little woman down on Eighth Street who will be glad to hear this news," and he strode away to tell her.

Douglas was in Washington when he heard the news, and remarked, "There will not be a tar barrel left in Illinois tonight."

At once a committee of the convention were deputed to go to Springfield and give Lincoln formal notice. This ceremony, so elaborate in later days, was then very simple and immediate. They called upon Lincoln at his own home, where he was already feeling gloomy with the responsibility. The committee felt much misgiving as they noted his appearance and got their first impressions; but later, when he became aroused and spoke fitting words to which life were added by the fire of his earnest countenance, they felt reassured, and went away delighted.

In all the history of America, the selection of George Washington to lead the army of the

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/134

 himself lying against the palmetto trunk a foot above the ground, his bleeding body wedged amid the jagged sword-edged stubs of the broken fronds. Blood streamed across his face and blinded him; the red hair of his throat and chest was streaked and smeared with a more vivid red. A moment he hung dazed and helpless. Then, squirming and writhing, he got himself free and, falling sideways, sprawled for an instant on the pine straw. Scrambling to his feet, although the breath had been all but knocked out of him, he stood swaying unsteadily, brushing his forepaw across his eyes to wipe away the blood.

Fifteen feet away, near the thicket's edge, crouched Longclaw the lynx, back arched, fierce eyes agleam, long teeth bared in a savage snarl. There was no fleck of blood on the fur of his back or flanks; but there was blood on his jaws and on his big hind feet, not his own blood, but that of his foe.

That tawny target at which Rusty had leaped had vanished as if by magic. The charging terrier had uttered his yelp of triumph a fraction of a second too soon. With incredible swiftness Longclaw had thrown himself on his back, and the little red dog had hurled himself into a battery of long, needle-pointed, slashing claws and punishing fangs.

Those fangs had seared Rusty's face above the eyes; those claws had torn long rips in the hide of

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/134


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/37

 Rh Revolution, is the only event to be compared in good fortune with this nomination of Abraham Lincoln; but to the country as a whole he was comparatively obscure and unknown. The "wise men" of the nation had some misgivings. While "Honest Abe, the rail splitter," might sound well to the masses, the party leaders could not be assured that rail splitting and mere honesty were sufficient qualifications for the President of a great republic in a great crisis. Nevertheless Seward and Chase supported him with a sincerity that delighted him, and the entire party entered into the campaign with great enthusiasm.

And very early in the campaign it seemed that the Republicans were quite likely to win; for the Democrats, in their convention at Charleston, divided; the Northern Democrats being for Douglas and the Southern Democrats against him. They adjourned to Baltimore, where Douglas was nominated, after which the extreme Southerners bolted and nominated Breckenridge. Also the border states organized a new party which they called the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell.

Douglas made a most energetic campaign, even making speeches in the South, but the questions that Lincoln had made him answer in the great debate in Illinois in 1858 were not forgotten by the Southerners, who would have nothing to do with him, but supported Breckenridge.

Lincoln remained quietly in Springfield during the campaign, exercising most careful discretion as to what he said and the little that


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/135

 his throat and chest. The terrier's teeth, seeking a hold, had closed upon empty air. Nearly twice as large as the dog and in the prime of his powers, the wildcat could have cut his antagonist to pieces in the first half minute of the battle; but in this first phase of the duel in the jungle glade no such purpose had formed itself in Longclaw's brain.

Taken utterly by surprise, he was trying not to kill, but to escape. A moment his claws had ripped and slashed, his fangs had stabbed and torn. Next moment his jaws relaxed their hold, the claws drew back into their sheaths and a mighty thrust of the long, powerful hind legs hurled the little dog upward and backward. In an instant the lynx was on his feet and halfway across the glade.

He halted there because for a half second it seemed that the dog was dead; and he held his ground, because even when Rusty had regained his feet his helplessness was obvious. In that moment the fear in Longclaw's heart faded and vanished and his pent-up hatred of the interloper who had invaded his kingdom took full possession of him. And mingled with this hatred was contempt.

Now at last he knew that this little stub-tailed dog was nothing to be afraid of, a weak and puny creature by comparison with himself, an opponent whose amazing boldness was out of all proportion to his physical strength. Outwardly, he gave no

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/135


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/38

 36 he wrote. The Governor placed his own rooms at the statehouse at Lincoln's disposal, where he met callers and talked and joked pleasantly with all who came, but was careful to say nothing that would add to the confusion of tongues that already existed.

Some of the most radical abolitionists of the North were not at all pleased with Lincoln because he was conservative, practical, recognized slavery as existing under the constitution, stood for preserving the Union as the first consideration, restricting the extension of slavery, and hoped for gradual compensated emancipation, but favored nothing revolutionary or threatening to the integrity of the Union.

Many of the most ardent, but reasonable, abolitionists supported him as having the most practical policy for the time being.

The total popular vote was 4,680,000. Lincoln got 1,866,000; Douglas, 1,375,000; Breckenridge, 846,900; Bell, 590,000. Of the electoral vote, Lincoln got 180; Douglas, 12; Breckenridge, 72; Bell, 39. Lincoln carried the Northern States, Breckenridge the Southern States, Bell the border states of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, and Douglas New Jersey and Missouri. To show how the people were divided, Douglas, Breckenridge and Bell had some votes in nearly all states both North and South. Lincoln had no votes in the states farthest south, but carried all states north of the border states.

The career of Lincoln as President was made infinitely more difficult as well as all the more creditable to him by reason of the fact that he was not the choice of the majority of the peo-


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/136

 sign; but Longclaw the wildcat was transformed. For months he had fled from this presumptuous intruder, but that chapter was over. He had taken his enemy's measure at last and revenge was near at hand.

Perhaps Rusty, still dazed and half breathless, but steadier on his legs, his eyes freed in a measure from the blood that had blinded them, understood something of this. Possibly he was able to read the changed purpose of the lynx in those cold, steady eyes; possibly he realized, just as a man would have realized in like circumstances, the inevitable consequences of his defeat in this first encounter which was so decisive a revelation of the wildcat's overwhelming physical superiority. At all events, the dog seemed somehow aware that the headlong recklessness which had saved his life on one memorable occasion would not serve him now.

He did not charge Longclaw as he had charged him that first day on the beach. Instead, he lifted his nose high and sniffed the air. Then he began to bark, wildly, shrilly, rapidly—sharp stabs of sound, piercing, incessant, hysterical, as though a frenzy had him.

A woodsman wise in the ways of dogs might have suspected that when Rusty had tried the air with uplifted nose some strangely exciting odor, imperceptible to the lynx's duller sense, had come to him.

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/136


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/39

 Rh ple, but of less than half of them; even less than half of the people of the Northern States.

South Carolina "hailed with delight" the news of the election of Lincoln as a justification for immediate secession, which they desired, rather than compromise or postponement; their Senators resigned; before Christmas the Palmetto flag floated over every federal building in that state, and early in January they fired on the ship "Star of the West" as she entered Charleston harbor with supplies for Fort Sumpter. By February seven of the Southern States—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas—had seceded from the Union and formed "the Confederate States of America," with Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as President, and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia as Vice-President.

Lincoln could, meanwhile, only wait in Springfield, during this most trying interregnum; while the uncertain and impotent Buchanan allowed the reins of government to slip from his weak hands, and many influential men at the North counselled for peace at any price. Lincoln was distressed, absent-minded, sad but also calm as he worked on his inaugural address—a tremendous responsibility under the circumstances; for in that address he must announce a policy in one of the gravest crises that ever confronted a ruler in this world—sorrowful unto death, he said, "I shall never be glad any more." Also he was beset with office-seekers and troubled with his cabinet appointments; for the agreement that


text:
Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/232

 again, by the aid of the branches of the tree, which I was in mortal terror would come off the rock, and insist on accompanying me and the canoe, viâ Kama country, to the Atlantic Ocean; but it held, and when I had got safe against the side of the pinnacle-rock I wiped a perspiring brow, and searched in my mind for a piece of information regarding navigation that would be applicable to the management of long-tailed Adooma canoes, I could not think of one for some minutes. Captain Murray has imparted to me at one time and another an enormous mass of hints as to the management of vessels, but those vessels were all presupposed to have steam power. But he having been the first man to take an ocean-going steamer up to Matadi on the Congo, through the terrific currents that whirl and fly in Hell's Cauldron, knew about currents, and I remembered he had said regarding taking vessels through them, "Keep all the headway you can on her." Good! that hint inverted will fit this situation like a glove, and I'll keep all the tailway I can off her. Feeling now as safe as only a human being can feel who is backed up by a sound principle, I was cautiously crawling to the tail-end of the canoe, intent on kneeling in it to look after it, when I heard a dreadful outcry on the bank. Looking there I saw Mme. Forget, Mme. Gacon, M. Gacon, and their attributive crowd of mission children all in a state of frenzy. They said lots of things in chorus. "What?" said I. They said some more and added gesticulations. Seeing I was wasting their time as I could not hear, I drove the canoe from the rock and made my way, mostly by steering, to the bank close by; and then tying the canoe firmly up I walked over the mill stream and divers other things towards my anxious friends. "You'll be drowned," they said. "Gracious goodness!" said I, "I thought that half an hour ago, but it's all right now; I can steer." After much conversation I lulled their fears regarding me, and having received strict orders to keep in the stern of the canoe, because that is the proper place when you are managing a canoe single-handed, I returned to my studies. I had not however lulled my friends' interest regarding me, and they stayed on the bank watching.


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/137

 The average man, looking on at the drama in the glade, would have said that the terrier was beside himself with fear. To Longclaw, apparently, the dog's behavior carried this latter meaning. Those mad shrill cries seemed to the lynx a confession of irresistible, overpowering terror, and they stiffened his resolution and fanned the flame of fury in his heart.

Yet for a while the clamor in the glade confused and worried him. His muscles were taut for the first of the series of bounds which would bring him to grips with his foe; but minute after minute he delayed his charge, exultant over his enemy's obvious panic, yet a trifle nonplused by the volleys of sharp, staccato sound which filled and bewildered his ears, accustomed to the jungle silences.

At last the tumult of barking slackened and ceased. Rusty's nose was testing the air again; his ears were pricked as though to catch some longed-for, eagerly awaited answer to his summons. The big wildcat's head dropped lower, his long back bent like a bow, his four feet drew together under him. Next moment he shot forward, bounding lightly over the soft carpet of the pine straw.

Five feet from the dog he halted, turned sideways to his foe, uttered a strange, wild, long-drawn, indescribably savage cry. Then, as though his legs were steel springs, he bounced high into the air,

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/137


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/40

 38 Judge Davis had made at the Chicago convention with Cameron of Pennsylvania was not to his liking.

As the time approached for his inauguration he visited his step-mother, made a pilgrimage to the grave of his father, and on February 11 started for Washington, after taking leave at Springfield, of his old friends, who gathered at the station early in the morning and stood bareheaded in the rain while he spoke these beautiful words of affectionate farewell from the platform of the coach:

"My friends, no one not in my situation can appreciate my feelings of sadness at this parting. To this place and the kindness of these people I owe everything. Here I have lived for a quarter of a century and passed from a young man to an old man. Here my children have been born and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting to Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."

On the way he made short informal speeches—tactfully avoiding any announcement of policy—at Columbus, Cleveland, Buffalo, Albany and New York. On Washington's birthday at


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/138

 passed clear over the dog and, closing upon him with the swiftness of light, grappled him from behind.

Rusty Roustabout II, the light of battle in his eyes, the stubby tail which was his battle flag erect and defiant to the last, whirled as he went down under that tawny bulk and clamped his jaws upon a furry forefoot. Then, as long teeth dug into his neck and trenchant claws raked and ripped his back, he released his grip on the wildcat's paw and, writhing and twisting desperately, strove for the throat hold which alone might save him. The weight of the wildcat crushed his body to the ground. After a moment, the little red dog, redder than ever now, had almost ceased to struggle.

Mat Norman, when he landed on the island, told himself for the hundredth time that he was engaged on a fool's errand. The chances were at least ten to one that Rusty had perished in the storm. Over and over again Norman had reviewed the events of that morning, and he knew that the same current which had swept him parallel with the island beach and on into the treacherous bay had probably carried the dog to his death.

An exceptionally strong swimmer, Norman had somehow kept himself afloat, and a big seagoing

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/138


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/41

 Rh Philadelphia, he celebrated the admission of Kansas as a free state by raising over Independence Hall a new flag of thirty-four stars. He was deeply moved and spoke fervently of "that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gives liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but also hope to all the people of the world for all future times; which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance." And finally, "If this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it."

His reference to assassination may have been due to the report of detectives that they had discovered a plot to kill him as he went through Baltimore. Contrary to advice concerning his personal safety, he kept his engagement to address the legislature at Harrisburg before going on to Washington. In the Capital and the country thereabout were many Confederate sympathizers.

Even during the few days that he was in Washington before his inauguration, men over the country were betting that he would never be inaugurated. March 4, 1861, dawned in bright sunshine. At noon the aged Buchanan called upon Lincoln to escort him to the Capital, there to place upon the shoulders of the great Westerner the burden which had been too heavy for the infirm old diplomat. Together they drove down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol where the ceremony was held


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/139

 rum-runner, riding out the gale in the lee of the long sand bar at the island's northern end, had taken him from the water more dead than alive. The rum-runner's business was urgent. She put to sea hours before the half-dead man in her captain's bunk had recovered from his stupor. Norman, when he came on deck, learned that he would not see land again until the first of the Bahamas lifted above the horizon.

It happened that for months he had yearned to see the tropics. Fate, it appeared, had given him a free passage in that direction. He had no close kin to bother about and he knew that his dog was dead. From Nassau he wrote home to apprise his friends of his whereabouts. Then for some five months he knocked about the Indies and the Leewards, working his way on various sorts of craft. Presently, he had enough of it, and the end of the sixth month found him at home again on the plantation of his birth, whence he could see, far away across a wilderness of marsh, the purple woods on the barrier island off which he had parted from the doomed Sea Swallow.

Those woods beckoned him. He could not rid himself of the thought that some cross-current might have washed Rusty ashore on the island beach; and he reflected that the dog, provided he could kill game enough to subsist on, might remain for months

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/139


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/42

 40 in the east portico. Distinguished officials were there, but the crowd was small, because of the rumors of tragedy—and the aged Commander Scott had posted troops with instructions, "if any of them raise their heads or show a finger, shoot to kill."

The moment came for the new President to take the oath of office. Lincoln, attired in clothes obviously new, was plainly embarrassed, and stood for an awkward moment holding his high hat in one hand and in the other a gold-headed ebony stick. Douglas, his old rival, stepped promptly forward with delightful grace and relieved him of hat and cane and held them for him—a beautiful incident the significance of which was long remembered. Senator Baker of Oregon—one of his old Springfield friends—formally presented him, and after he had read his address, the aged Chief Justice Taney, who had written the Dred Scott Decision, administered the oath of office.

His address, for which the nation had long been waiting, was read distinctly, so that all could hear—hear him say that "misunderstandings had caused differences;"—disavow any intentions to interfere with the existing institution of slavery, and even declare himself in favor of a new fugitive slave law. But concerning the Union he was firm. He clearly put the Union above any issue concerning slavery. He said: "The Union of these States is perpetual. … No state upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union. … I shall take care, as the Constitution itself


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/140

 undiscovered by any human being, because, except in the hunting season, the few persons who visited the island seldom entered the woods. Knowing that he would be laughed at, he said nothing to anyone; but on the third day he borrowed a small boat and set out on the long row down the winding marsh creeks. He camped that night amid low sand dunes close to the surf and by sunrise he was in the island thickets.

Another man engaged in such a quest might have whooped and hallooed, hoping that the dog might hear him. But no sooner had Norman entered the jungle than his hopes died utterly. He told himself again that he had been a fool and he tried to banish Rusty from his mind. He still pushed on; but he went quietly, as was his custom in the woods, thinking thus to renew his acquaintance with some of the island wild folk, scanning the moist places for tracks of raccoon, deer and mink, searching especially for the rounded footprints of the big bay lynx that he had named Longclaw.

He thrilled with pleasure when in a sandy swale under ancient palmettos he found those footprints. It was good to know that Longclaw still lived and ruled his island kingdom, that his shadowy form still moved ghostlike and mysterious through the jungle glooms at night. Norman followed the trail eagerly. Where the sandy area ended he lost it, but

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/140


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/43

 Rh expressly enjoins me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all of the States," and he was determined "to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts." And he closed with the beautiful peroration founded upon one of Seward's suggestions: "I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of our affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

The four years and forty days that remain of Lincoln's life is but the story of his wonderful part in our great Civil War.

When Lincoln turned from his inauguration to take up the duties of his office he faced a responsibility greater than that which had rested upon Washington, as great as had ever rested upon any man on this planet in all the ages. His own dear country—that nation which lovers of mankind had hoped would lead the world in advancing human welfare, was already rent asunder and everywhere the men who had been accustomed to lead in thought and action were divided. Men of influence at the North advised peaceful separation. Radicals at the South declared that they would take Washington and make it the Confederate


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/141

 he pushed on in the direction in which the tracks had led, moving as quietly as possible, searching the sun-dappled vistas ahead. Scores of times he had followed Longclaw's trail, and only once had he been rewarded with a glimpse of the big wildcat whose presence lent enchantment to those woods. But always Norman was ready to try again on the chance that luck would favor him.

An outburst of sound, straight ahead and near at hand, stopped him in his tracks. He knew instantly that it was Rusty's voice. In the utter unexpectedness of the event there was something shocking and frightening, something deeply uncanny, something which smacked of the supernatural. For an instant Norman was obsessed by the grotesque notion that his dead dog was calling him, and for another half second he thought himself the victim of some fantastic trick of the imagination. Then, as common sense reasserted itself, he listened eagerly, studying the sounds.

It was Rusty's bark, he knew, but never before had he heard Rusty bark like that. He choked off the shout which rose to his lips and ran forward at full speed, ducking under the palmetto fronds, thankful for the pine-straw carpet which deadened the noise of his footfalls.

A dense hedge of young live oaks barred his way. He dropped on hands and knees and began to bur-

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/141


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/44

 42 Capital. Prominent men at the North declared that the South could not be and should not be coerced. And with these terrible problems puzzling him, Lincoln was also pestered with office-seekers until he remarked, "This struggle and scramble for office will yet test our institutions." For his Cabinet he chose William H. Seward, Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury; Simon Cameron, Secretary of War; Gideon Wells, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Interior; Edward Bates, Attorney-General; Montgomery Blair, Postmaster-General.

The first day after inauguration the whole problem was presented to him in a letter from Major Anderson with his hungry soldiers at Fort Sumpter. He wanted provisions and reinforcements; twenty thousand soldiers would be necessary to hold the fort, and the whole standing army numbered sixteen thousand men. General Scott advised evacuation. Lincoln said, "When Anderson goes out of Fort Sumpter I shall have to go out of the White House." The military advisers differed: the cabinet differed; and while Lincoln pondered over the problem, Seward acquiesced in the general assumption that he rather than Lincoln was the real head of the Government; and accordingly prepared and laid before Lincoln "Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration," in which after complaining of the "lack of policy" he boldly proposed to make war on Spain and France, and seek "explanations from Great Britain and Russia," and sug-


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/142

 row through. Dead sticks and leaves crackled under him; but the dog's frantic, incessant barking came from just beyond the oak thicket, and Norman hoped that in the clamor the slight sounds of his approach would pass unnoticed. He was halfway through the thicket when the barking ceased. The man halted, every nerve tingling.

A wild, long-drawn cry, unmistakably feline, indescribably savage, galvanized him into action. Head down to shield his eyes from the stiff oak twigs, he wormed his way through the barricade to the thicket's edge.

One glance sufficed. He had no weapon, but as he raced across the glade he snatched a half-rotten stick from the ground. Longclaw the lynx, growling and mauling, his fangs red with the sweetest blood that his lips had ever tasted, saw the man when he was scarcely a dozen feet away.

For a fraction of a second the lynx seemed paralyzed. Then like a ghost he was gone. Norman sensed rather than saw a tawny streak flashing into the thicket. Then he dropped on his knees beside the torn and bleeding form at his feet.

Brown eyes, immeasurably happy, looked up into his face. A stump tail wagged feebly. A small red tongue licked his hand. Norman knew that by a margin of seconds he had come in time.

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/142


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/45

 Rh gested that the direction of this policy be devolved by the President "upon some member of his cabinet," and indicating with modest significance "it is not my especial province; but I neither seek to assume or evade responsibility." Lincoln met this proposal in a magnanimous spirit, saying, "As to the proposed policy, if this must be done I must do it. … When a general line of policy is adopted, I apprehend that there is no danger of it being changed without good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unnecessary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress I wish, and suppose that I am entitled to have, the advice of all the cabinet."

Thus Seward came to understand, as the nation later understood, who was the head of the government, and how wise and capable he was; and this superiority, Seward was great enough to freely acknowledge two months later in the words: "Executive force and vigor are rare qualities. … the President is the best of us."

On April 12 the Confederates fired on Fort Sumpter, and by that act of aggression unified and aroused the North. Douglas promptly assured the President of his support and telegraphed his followers that he had given his pledge "to sustain the President in the exercise of his constitutional functions to preserve the Union, maintain the government and defend the Federal Capital." Thus ended the talk of compromise, conciliation, concession, and also the discussion of the right or wrong of slavery. The President in his patient, kindly wisdom


text: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/143

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/143


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/46

 44 had substituted the issue of Union, and had waited until the Confederacy was the aggressor. On April 15 he called for 75,000 volunteers and called Congress to convene in extra session July 4.

The response was immediate and resolute. The North, glad that the long suspense was over, offered hundreds of thousands of men for the Union. The Confederates threatened to capture Washington and make it the Confederate capital, and for a few days there was grave fear that they would do so. The Sixth Massachusetts was assaulted by a mob in the streets of Baltimore, four soldiers and twelve rioters killed and many wounded; and the Southern sympathisers in Maryland objected to the passing of soldiers through that state. The President, as usual conciliatory and patient but firm, said, "there is no piece of American soil too good to be pressed by the foot of a loyal soldier as he marches to the defense of the capital of his country."

Among the President's great tasks then were to prevent the secession of any more states, to prevent European recognition of the Confederacy, and to create an army and navy. His diplomacy saved for the Union Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri.

With increasing confidence and power the President watched over men and events; cautiously and patiently, with mistakes and successes; amid acrid criticism, noisy abuse and malignant misrepresentation, he made his slow sure way.

The first disaster at Manassas staggered and


text: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/144

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/144


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/47

 Rh steadied the North. The President called to the command of the army of the Potomac, General George B. McClellan, who had been winning small successes and sending large telegrams in Western Virginia. He was brilliant, bold, spectacular, a good organizer and soon trained the strong young raw recruits—farmers and artisans—into one of the finest armies the world had ever witnessed. While McClellan was drilling and preparing in the East, Fremont in the West assumed the authority to issue a proclamation emancipating the slaves of all non-Union men in Missouri; an act which delighted the abolitionists of the North but created consternation in the border states and added to the perplexities of the President. In order to save for the Union cause the border states of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri the President had to revoke the proclamation of Fremont and suffer the thoughtless abuse of the abolitionists who even talked of impeachment. They saw only the immediate and moral issue of slavery rather than the ultimate political issue of Union—in their premature haste to free a few slaves they would have lost the whole cause both of freedom and of Union. Lincoln loved freedom as much as they but was more wise; nevertheless the patient President suffered much from the misunderstanding. His patience was never exhausted though terribly tried by the unjust criticism from many sources, by the piques and prides of new-made Generals who felt able to command armies though they could not command their own tempers; by the impertinent Buell who failed to


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/145

HE dusky marshmen of Odistash have an odd legend about the bald eagle. They say that once in the lifetime of every male eagle, when he has attained the utmost fullness of courage and strength, he sets out on a journey to heaven. Launching forth from his nest in the woods, he circles upward, climbing in a spiral course towards the sky, gliding up and up on wide rigid wings until in a little while even his keen eye can no longer discern the earth beneath him.

Up and up he goes, for days and nights, passing by the moon and the stars, but keeping far from the sun so that his wings will not be burned by the fierce heat; on and on through the immensity of space, until at last, if his strength does not fail, he comes to the place where a Certain One awaits him with the prize which he desires—a stone. Hiding this stone under his feathers, the eagle sets out immediately on his long journey back to earth, and on arriving there conceals the stone in his nest and guards it jealously.

Why the eagle should desire and value this stone from some celestial valley the legend does not ex-

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/145


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/48

 46 move into East Tennessee and stop the Confederate depredations against loyal citizens; and by the unappreciative McClellan who was too young to understand the President's fatherly solicitude, and who drilled and drilled but did not go forward to fight.

In the light of the troubles that the President had with embryo-Generals one can appreciate the narrative that a caller finding him pondering over some papers asked what he was doing and got the reply, "O nothing much—just making a few Generals." And once when a message bearer gravely told him that the enemy had captured a couple of Generals and some mules, he replied, "What a pity to lose all those mules."

Bull Run had made the people more cautious about crying "on to Richmond," and so all Washington took holidays and enjoyed going out to see McClellan's grand army manoeuvres—all except the President for whom there was to be no more joy—no more holidays. To a sympathetic friend he replied, "I want not sympathy for myself but success for our cause."

Again the wisdom of the President was tested and proved in the case of Mason and Slidell, the Confederate commissioners to Great Britain, whom a Federal warship had taken from a British mail packet. A British ultimatum demanded immediate restitution and apology, while public sentiment at home demanded that they be retained; but the President averted trouble with England by sending the commissioners on their way.

In the President's message to Congress, some


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/146

 plain; but if a man can gain possession of it his fortune is made, for by means of the stone he can open the doors of any money vault or bank in the world. There is one condition, however, which he must observe with the greatest care. After acquiring the Eagle Stone, he must never expose it to the light of day, for if the sun touches it his rays will destroy its magic.

Now the King of Odistash, dozing on his high throne, knew nothing about this legend. His throne was a thousand feet high, and viewed from below, it was blue with buttresses of white; for the king was a big bald eagle, his throne was the sky, and its buttresses were the snowy cumulus cloud-mountains where the thundersqualls were made. In summer and early fall these squalls came crashing down upon the wide sea marshes of Odistash, sometimes forcing the king to take refuge in the thick jungle on the wild barrier island where he had his home. But this was midautumn, and since the squalls seldom came at that season, the king, soaring in the high air, paid no attention to the lightning which flashed and glowed at intervals in a tall thunderhead towering above the billowy cloud ranges to the northward. Round and round he swung, a thousand feet above the marsh plains where white herons stood like images in the shallows, and willets, yellowlegs and clapper rails walked along the

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/146


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/49

 Rh days later, he made no reference at all to this affair because he knew when to be silent as well as when to explain.

Evidence of the true greatness and the forgiveness of the President and that he put the cause far above any personal consideration is in the fact of his appointing Edwin M. Stanton Secretary of War, to succeed Cameron to whom he had given the post as Minister to Russia. Stanton was a Democrat, a friend of McClellan, and had never ceased to speak of Lincoln with that gross abuse with which he had greeted Lincoln the lawyer in the McCormick case at Cincinnati in 1859. But with all Stanton's injustice to Lincoln—his revilings and his insults—he accepted the cabinet place when Lincoln offered it to him. But if Stanton was truculent, a tyrant and a bully—infinitely more important—he was honest and strong in office and broke the ring of grafters who had been robbing the government, and did his work heroically. That was what the President wished. And Stanton soon learned as others learned that Lincoln was master of every situation. Lincoln's friends opposed the appointment of Stanton and reminded the President of how crudely Stanton had treated him at Cincinnati, but the President had no thought for himself or his own future. He was concerned only to get the men who could best serve the great cause.

Lincoln's peculiar fitness for the tremendous tribulations of the Presidency at that time is further proved by his experiences with the recalcitrant McClellan. The General had been


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/147

 muddy margins of the sluggish streams; round and round, in wide interweaving circles, with scarcely a quiver of his black-brown wings, taking his ease in the cool soundless solitude where no living creature dared challenge his supremacy.

He had been soaring thus, more than half asleep, for nearly an hour, when suddenly his lethargy left him. His fierce yellow eyes gleamed under their beetling white brows as he checked his smooth onward course and hung for a moment suspended, his gaze fixed upon one spot in the vast panorama of russet marsh, pale-blue sea and dark-green forest within range of his vision. Then, half closing his wings, he slid swiftly down a sharply inclined plane, the wind whistling past the hard edges of his pinions. Two or three hundred feet above the marsh he extended his wings, swerved to the right, and, beating back against the fresh southwest breeze, began to circle above the actors in the marshland drama which had stirred his interest.

All through the marshes of Odistash wind many tidal creeks, twisting and turning this way and that, dividing into lesser creeks which in turn divide into little marsh brooks, filling with the flood tide which pours in through narrow inlets between the barrier islands, emptying again with the ebb. These waterways teem with life. Into them with the flood tide come the incalculable armies of the mullet; and in

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/147


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/50

 48 drilling and getting ready for six months,—both President and public desired action; but the General wished to become so fully prepared that an assured and decisive victory would end the war. The President was patient, persuasive, reasonable: the General was querulous, petty and sometimes actually insulting. The two differed as to their plans for advancing upon the Confederates. While the General assumed a contempt for the opinions of a civilian, time has shown that the President was wise.

Burdened as the great heart was with the weight of the nation, additional sorrows came into the White House when his two boys, Willie and Tad, fell ill with typhoid fever. By day and by night the grief-crazed father divided his time between watching the bedside of his boys and watching over the struggling nation. Though always religious in the deepest sense, the death of Willie seemed to strengthen his insight into the mysteries of the spiritual life. For awhile he seemed grief-crazed, and ever after, the great soul that had always been compassionate was even more tender in its broodings over all the people of the nation, both South and North, and in many beautiful instances he softened the severities of war.

During the early part of the war the North was not at all unanimous in its opposition to slavery, and could only be united in the purpose to save the Union; but slavery could not be ignored. From the Southern standpoint the war was caused by slavery, and even the Union generals were compelled to deal with fugitive slaves that came within their lines. Halleck


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/148

 pursuit of the mullet armies often come the dolphins, forsaking for the time being the clear water of the ocean along the barrier beaches to follow their favorite prey far up the winding marsh channels until the shoaling water warns them to go no farther lest they be left high and dry by the receding tide.

The eagle, sweeping and swerving in narrow circles three hundred feet in the air, looked straight down upon one of these marsh creeks at a point where a large tributary entered it. The tide was ebbing strongly and the mullet hosts were streaming down with it towards the sea; and in the midst of the mullet hosts three dolphins, swimming nearly abreast, were enjoying good hunting. They had cruised far up the creek with the rising tide and now they were returning seaward with the ebb.

The king had marked their progress up the creek, for, drowsy though he was, there was little that happened on the face of the marshes below him that he did not see; but he had watched them with rather languid interest, for at that time they were hunting in a lazy leisurely fashion which was unlikely to afford him an opportunity to levy tribute. When the tide turned, however, and began to ebb swiftly, bringing down with it the vast hordes of fish which had gone far up the smaller creeks beyond the dolphins' reach, the latter presently changed their

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/148


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/51

 Rh sent them out of camp; Buell and Hooker allowed their owners to come and take them; Butler held them as "contraband of war." As the war dragged on longer than the people had anticipated the abolition sentiment in the North grew until from press and pulpit there came adjurations to "free the slaves." The politicians told the President the "will of the people," and the preachers told him the "will of God"; but the great mind of the President held his own counsel, for he knew that the slave-holding but loyal border states presented a peculiar problem.

Early in 1862 he recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution that the "United States co-operate with any state which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such state pecuniary aid." The resolution was adopted, but the border states would have nothing to do with the plan. Later General Hunter in proclaiming martial law over certain Southern territory, proclaimed "the persons in these states, heretofore held as slaves, forever free." The President revoked the order as he had revoked a similar action on the part of Fremont, adding firmly, "whether it be competent for me as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the slaves of any state or states free, and whether at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity of government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself." And again he appealed to the people of the border states to adopt his plan of gradual compensated emancipation, proved


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/149

 tactics. It was this fact that had caught the attention of the soaring eagle and brought him down from his station in the upper air so that he might be ready to take instant advantage of the opportunity which at any moment might be afforded him.

There was every sign that he would not have long to wait. The dolphins, showing six feet or so of their rounded backs above the surface, were charging the flanks of a great army of mullet which filled the wide winding creek from bank to bank and from bend to bend. Dashing at high speed into the shimmering ranks in the shallow water close to the right-hand shore, the big sea mammals, wonderfully lithe and agile in spite of their bulk, were spreading consternation among the finny phalanxes.

Swift as the mullet were, the dolphins were swifter still; and just ahead of them, as they charged side by side through the shallows, a silvery shower of fish, each of them from six to eight inches in length, curved through the air and rained down into the water. It was this rain of fish rather than the dolphins themselves that interested the eagle, circling and poising, eagerly awaiting his chance. Sooner or later, he knew, one of those leaping mullet, fleeing madly before the oncoming dolphins, would leap in the wrong direction and fall upon the mud between the marsh and the water's edge. Then, if

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/149


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/52

 50 the wisdom of his plan by unanswerable logic, and showed that the cost of such compensation was much less than the cost of the probable prolongation of the war. The loyal slave-holders of the border states were not ready to give up their slaves.

Then the President began to contemplate emancipation, but kept his purposes to himself; kept his secret so well that even after he had determined upon emancipation and was being criticised for not taking that step he replied to his critics, "My paramount object is to save the Union and not either to save or destroy slavery." Horace Greeley retorted with abuse, indicating that Greeley was unable to see the wisdom of the President's policy—for those whose support was necessary to win the war were not yet ready for emancipation.

When preachers called to reveal to him, "the will of God" he replied, "If it is probable that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me."

All these months he had been at work with his slow but accurate thought, framing in secret the most momentous document in American history since the Declaration of Independence. He did this in the cipher-room of the War Department telegraph office, where he was accustomed to spend anxious hours waiting for news from the boys at the front, and also to seek what rest he could in thus hiding away from the never-ending stream of tormentors, office-seekers, politicians and emissaries of sage advice.


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/150

 he could drop upon it from the air before it flopped back into the water, he would have his dinner.

A little distance downstream, around a bend of the creek, another hunter was watching and waiting. Deaf Jen Murray, famous among the negro marshmen of the Low Country for the length of his lean arms, which enabled him to cast his line twenty feet farther into the surf than the most powerful of his rivals, crouched in his little flat-bottomed punt watching the eagle with avid, crafty eyes. Jen had fished the flood tide that morning at a shell bank just below the creek bend and had made a good catch of whiting and croaker. An hour before high water, when the fish had stopped biting, he had pushed his punt into the entrance of a little gully opening into the creek. Then, bending the tall marsh grass over him to shut out the glare—and also to hide the boat from view in case a squadron of black ducks settled on the creek—he had lain down in the punt for a nap.

He had slept longer than he intended. When he was awakened by a sudden movement of the punt as it slid a foot or so on the soft mud of the gully now left nearly dry by the receding tide, the first thing that he saw through the screen of marsh blades bending above him was the eagle hovering in the air —two or three hundred yards away. Slowly and very cautiously he drew his wiry body to a sitting posture

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/150


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/53

 Rh Emancipation was in his mind even while, for good reasons, he made no reference to it. He waited for the right time—waited for victory—waited in great patience and great anguish. And when he did first announce his purpose of emancipation it was to apply only to those "persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States." Thus sparing the loyal border states holding slaves, and allowing a way of escape for others that should cease their rebellion. It was conservative but wise. On the one hand the radical abolitionists were not satisfied, and on the other hand the masses were not all ready to give him hearty support in it. But he said, "I must do the best I can and bear the responsibility of taking the course which I think I ought to take." It was thus this silent self-reliant man, without intimates, without supporting friends, bore almost alone on his resolute shoulders, the mighty weight of responsibility. Once more he urged upon Congress his old policy of gradual compensated emancipation. He plead:—"We say that we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows that we know how to save it. We—even we here—hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free,—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly Other means may succeed, this cannot fail. The way is


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/151

 and reached stealthily for his rusty single-barreled gun.

For years Jen had known and admired the king, the greatest eagle that he had ever seen, and often he had said to himself that some day he would capture the bird. He wanted the king, not dead but alive and uninjured. A dead eagle was merely so much carrion of which he could make no use; but a living eagle, especially so fine a specimen as this one, would bring two or three dollars from some enterprising shopkeeper in the city who could draw a crowd by exhibiting the captive in his window. To Jen two dollars was a vast sum; and as the king, swerving and hovering over the charging dolphins, drew nearer and nearer, the marshman fingered his weapon eagerly and blessed the luck which seemed about to bring the big bird within fairly easy range. If the king held his course until he was almost directly over Jen's head, the marshman, who was as skillful with his gun as he was with his surf line, felt pretty confident that he could cripple one of those long wide wings and bring his victim down without serious injury.

Nearer and nearer came the king. Jen could not see the dolphins—or porpoises, as he would have called them—and, being almost stone deaf, he could not hear the swish of their big bodies through the water; but knowing the life of the marshes and the

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/151


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/54

 52 peaceful; generous; just; a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless." But they would not, and the lonely man in the White House,—kind eyes more deeply sunken, bronze face more deeply furrowed, sad tones more deeply affected—went about his duties asking sympathy nor counsel of anyone.

On New Year's Day, 1863, after the great reception was over, he signed the final Proclamation of Emancipation. Though at home there was still ridicule and abuse, in England the effect of the Proclamation was significant; for there the laboring men were in dire distress because they could get no cotton for their mills; but these English laborers—hearing of the Emancipation Proclamation—felt that the cause of the Union was the cause of freedom and of labor—and though the wealthy mill-owners of England, who were not suffering would, some of them, gladly have destroyed the Union and perpetuated slavery to get cotton; the laborers—even while starving—brought pressure to bear upon the English government to prevent further aid to the Confederacy, heroically preferring starvation in the cause of freedom. Lincoln referred to these actions on the part of England's laborers as "an instance of Christian heroism which has not been surpassed in any age or any country." And later those English laborers built a monument to Lincoln on which they inscribed, "Lover of Humanity."

Everyone but Lincoln had lost patience with McClellan's overcautiousness and when he failed to follow Lee's retreat from Antietam,


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/152

 marsh creeks as he did, he guessed the reason for the eagle's tactics. His only fear now was that the eagle's chance might come while he was still beyond easy range. The negro's white teeth clamped together as he saw the king suddenly close his wings and plunge, his head held low, his yellow talons opened wide beneath him; and as the great bird disappeared behind the tall grasses the marshman jumped to his feet, determined to shoot as soon as the eagle rose, though the distance was so great that only if good luck aided his marksmanship could he hope to bring down the quarry.

So far, at any rate, fortune favored the king. The prize that he clutched in his sharp curved claws as he stood on the sloping shore of the creek was not a mullet, but a four-pound channel bass, its redgold back and flanks glittering in the sunlight. Hard pressed by the dolphins as it swam along in the midst of the mullet host, the bass had leaped out of the water just as the jaws of its would-be destroyer were about to close upon it. Falling in the shallows within a few inches of the shore, the fish had been washed a foot or so up the shelving muddy bank by the wave which the charging dolphins made as they rushed past; and instantly the king, rejoicing at the sight of a prize so much better than that which he had hoped for, had fallen upon it

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/152


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/55

 Rh Lincoln removed him and placed in command Burnside, whose defeat at Fredericksburg caused him to be replaced by Hooker, whose defeat at Chancellorsville caused him to be replaced by Meade, who disappointed the President in not following up the victory at Gettysburg.

July 4, 1863, Gettysburg and Vicksburg, decisive victories, coming together should have ended the war. The Confederates could not win after that, but still they fought on. On November 19, 1863, the National Cemetery at the battlefield of Gettysburg was dedicated; and after Edward Everett had delivered the formal oration of the occasion, Lincoln delivered the most notable short speech that has ever been delivered in the English language. A copy of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is given in another volume of this series called "Speeches of Lincoln."

The tide has turned but much costly fighting is still necessary, first in East Tennessee, and later in Virginia, and also Sherman must fight his way into the very heart of the South and break its lines of communication before the resolute Confederates will yield.

In the West, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Pittsburgh Landing, and Vicksburg were the victories that made Grant known as the most successful Union general. The President advanced him to the rank of Lieutenant General, brought him East, placed him in command of all the armies, and gave him the task of beating Lee, taking Richmond and ending the war.


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/153

 from the air and driven his long talons into its sides.

The king stood for a few minutes upon the body of his victim, waiting until its struggles became less violent; then, spreading his wings, he rose against the wind, lifting the bass almost without effort. He was forty feet above the marsh when he saw the marshman, now standing erect, his head projecting above the tall grass, his gun at his shoulder. With a harsh scream the eagle swerved and slid down the wind, his body slanting sharply, gaining speed each instant. The gun barrel swung swiftly around a half circle, held steady a fraction of a second, then spouted flame and smoke.

The king screamed again as a numbing shock paralyzed his left wing. His claws opened, releasing the bass, while he struggled frantically to right himself in the air and check his fall. Then, as two dark brown quill feathers whirled past him spiraling downward, the numbness of his wing passed as suddenly as it had come, and with swift powerful strokes of his pinions he swept onward and upward, again on an even keel and again in full possession of his powers.

Jen Murray, the marshman, gazed after him with gleaming eyes. His charge of duck shot had merely clipped two feathers from the eagle's wing; but, at any rate, a fine bass had been added to his catch,

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/153


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/56

 54 In the fall of 1864, notwithstanding some opposition, Lincoln was re-elected President. Again during this campaign, his attitude toward his critics and his opponents attested still further his true greatness, magnanimity and devotion to duty. Though he desired to be re-elected he would make no effort toward that end, but instead gave his entire energies to the work of saving the Union. Chase in the cabinet was an open candidate against his chief. Lincoln proved that he had no resentment by later appointing Chase as Chief Justice in the place of the aged Roger B. Taney who died. When friends told the President that he would surely be defeated for re-election if he approved another draft of soldiers, he replied that the cause did not require his re-election but did require more soldiers—and at once ordered a new draft for 500,000 additional men.

Lincoln breathed a most beautiful spirit of forgiveness in his Second Inaugural Address which is printed in full in the volume of this series, "Speeches of Lincoln."

In March, 1865, Grant sent a message saying that he was about to close in on Lee and end the war, and invited Lincoln to visit Grant's headquarters. And that is how it was that the President, being at Grant's headquarters, could enter Richmond the day after the Confederates retreated. So Lincoln, with his small son Tad and Admiral Porter, escorted by a little group of sailors, simply, on foot, entered the abandoned capital, not as one bringing the vengeance of a conqueror, but the love of a liberator. One of the great moments of all history


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/154

 for he had marked the spot where the fish had fallen, and presently he would make his way across the boggy marsh and get it. This was a stroke of luck, and Jen was not inclined to complain. Moreover, an idea had come to him and a plan which he had long considered vaguely began to take shape in his mind.

Never before had he seen the king so close at hand, and never before had he realized what a truly magnificent specimen the bird was. That huge eagle, he was confident, would be worth five dollars to him if he could take it to town uninjured; and already his thoughts were busy with a scheme for accomplishing that end and perhaps at the same time accomplishing something else even more worth while, something which would make even the splendid sum of five dollars appear trivial and insignificant compared with the glittering wealth which would then be at his command.

Jen lost no time in putting his plan into execution. He said nothing about it to any of his acquaintances. In the first place, he wanted all the fruits of his venture for himself; and in the second place, he knew that some, though by no means all, of his neighbors would laugh at him if he told them what he had in mind. Early the next morning he

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/154


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/57

 Rh was when an aged negro, baring his white wool, made reverent obeisance to the President, and Lincoln in recognition took off his high hat.

He remained two days in Richmond discussing the plans for the restoration of federal authority, counseling kindness and forgiveness. "Let them down easy," he said to the military governor; "get them to plowing and gathering in their own little crops." Thus he was preparing to "bind up the nation's wounds," with a spiritual development so far beyond his contemporaries that they could not even understand him.

Then he went back to Washington where he heard of Lee's surrender, and two days later, to a large crowd at the White House, delivered a carefully prepared speech outlining his policy of reconstruction, such as he had already begun in Louisiana. Already he was being criticised for being "too kind to the rebels."

That was the last speech he ever made.

Little Tad said, "Father has never been happy since we came to Washington." His laughter had failed, he had aged rapidly, his shoulders were bent, dreadful dreams had haunted him and on the night of the 13th he had one which oppressed him. But the next day was the fourth anniversary of the evacuation of Fort Sumpter,—Good Friday, April 14. And at last he was happy, sharing with his people the joy that came with the end of the war.

He took a drive with Mrs. Lincoln and they planned for the future—they would save a little money and go back to Springfield and he


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/155

 left the little house where he lived alone on the edge of the marshes, and rowed in his square-headed punt mile after mile along lonely winding marsh creeks to the back beach of one of the barrier islands stretching in a long chain between the marshes and the sea. Pulling a little way down the deep narrow inlet separating this barrier isle from the next, he landed on the sandy inlet shore and followed it to the front beach. There, at a point where a long sand spit thrust far out into the ocean, he waded into the surf and, whirling his hand line, baited with cut mullet, over his head, cast his hooks into the outermost breakers. Then he turned his back on the sea and began to search the sky.

Jen knew that somewhere in the dense semitropical jungle covering the whole interior of this barrier island the king had his nest, but he did not know exactly where the nest was, and, since the island was some six miles in length and a half mile or more in width, he wanted to get some idea of the approximate locality before beginning his search. The best way to do this, he thought, was to take his stand on the front beach and watch the sky for the king or his mate; and in planning this preliminary part of his task the marshman had decided to combine business with adventure by trying his luck with the big channel bass of the surf.

After a half hour of waiting, he felt a tremendous

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/155


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/58

 56 would practice law again. To his wife this unnatural joy was portentous—she remembered that he had been like this just before little Willie died. In the evening they went to Ford's Theatre. Stanton tried to dissuade them because the secret service had heard rumors of assassination. Because Stanton insisted on a guard Major Rathbone was along. At 9 o'clock the party entered the President's box—the President was very happy—at 10:20 a shot was heard—Major Rathbone sprang to grapple with the assassin and was slashed with a dagger. The assassin fell as he sprang from the box to the stage, where he brandished his bloody dagger, yelled with terrible theatricalism, "sic semper tyrannis," and stalking lamely from the platform disappeared in the darkness and rode away. The President was unconscious from the first, and as they bore him from the theatre a lodger from a house across the street said "Take him up to my room," where he lay unconscious until next morning when he ceased to breathe; and Stanton at his bedside said, "Now he belongs to the Ages."

Someone had recognized the assassin as John Wilkes Booth, an actor, a fanatic in the Southern cause. And in killing Lincoln he did his people of the South the greatest possible harm.

The North had been decorated with celebration of victory; now it was bowed and dazed with grief and rage. Those that had abused him and maligned him and opposed him now came to understand him as in a new light


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/156

 tug and, jerking the line viciously, grinned with delight as he realized that he had hooked an unusually large and powerful fish.

Had he been using the rod and reel of a sportsman there would have ensued a glorious battle amid the curling breakers; but with Jen Murray fishing was not a species of play, and after the fish had somewhat spent its strength in three spirited rushes he hauled away hand over hand upon the heavy line and soon had his victim—a splendid thirty-pound bass, gleaming in the light like burnished bronze—gasping on the beach. Then, just as he rose to his feet after unhooking the fish, he saw the king high over his head journeying in from the sea.

Jen watched the big bird eagerly and marked with care the spot where he spiraled down into the jungle. After hiding his bass in a tamarisk thicket just above high-water mark, so that the watchful turkey vultures, incessantly patrolling the sky, would not spy it from the air, he walked two miles up the lonely palm-fringed beach to a point opposite the place where the eagle had descended. On the way he saw the king, this time accompanied by his mate, rise out of the woods and, circling upward, fly straight out over the ocean.

The marshman grinned again with a gleam of white teeth upon seeing the king and his mate start seaward on what would probably be a long hunt. It

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/156


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/59

 Rh they saw him transfigured by his great sacrifices.

They reverently folded the body in the flag and carried it first to the White House and then to the Capitol where it lay in state; and then they began that long journey back to Springfield over the very route he had come on his way to the Capital in 1861. Everywhere in cities and in towns great crowds gathered, heedless of night or rain or storm, and even as the train sped over the open country at night little groups of farmers could be seen by the roadside in the dim light watching for the train and waving their lanterns in a sad farewell.

Whatever anger and resentment the North may have felt, the weeping thousands who looked upon the face of Lincoln as it was borne homeward saw only forgiveness and peace.

But his beautiful dream of amnesty was not to be realized. Mutual forgiveness and reconciliation were ideals too high for many of his contemporaries at that time, and their spirit of revenge bore its inevitable fruit of injustice and bitterness in the days of reconstruction that followed. How different it might all have been had Lincoln continued to live. How his great influence would have helped in the solution of the nation's problems after the war. A besotted wretch snuffed out the most important life on earth that day.

Misguided men of his time ridiculed him because they were unable to comprehend his lofty ideals or see the practical wisdom of his


text: Page:The Hind and the Panther - Dryden (1687).djvu/24


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/157

 suited his purpose admirably that they should absent themselves for a while, for it might take him some time to find the nest. As a matter of fact it took him longer than he had expected; for in those dense woods of palmetto, pine and stunted live oak, where impenetrable thickets of cassena often barred his way, and long narrow reed-bordered lagoons of still, wine-colored water compelled him to make long and laborious detours, his progress was necessarily slow. For another reason also he picked his steps with great care. He had in unusual degree the deadly fear of snakes of all kinds, which as a rule is so strong in even the most experienced woodsmen, and he knew that in many of the barrier-island jungles the venomous cottonmouth moccasin abounded. Jen was as much a woodsman as he was a marshman and beachcomber; but, except in winter, when he sometimes trapped raccoons on another barrier island nearer his home, he kept out of these seaside jungles, with their semitropical vegetation and their vast summer populations of stinging and biting insects.

There were few insects to bother him, now that the cool weather had come. Perhaps because he was careful to give warning of his approach, he saw no moccasins nor any other wild things, except one dark-gray white-nosed fox squirrel, which peered down at him from a pine top, and three tall long

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/157


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/60

 58 great purposes. They measured him by their own puny standards and in condemning him only condemned themselves. His sad life, his tragic death, his immortal glory are one with all the reformers, prophets and saviors of the world. As war scenes receded, as men's prejudices cooled, as the mighty issues were better understood, men came to see how truly great he was. He finished successfully the most important and most difficult task ever bequeathed to one mortal man in all history.


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/158

 legged black-and-white wood ibises, as big as geese, standing motionless at the edge of a small stagnant jungle pool—belated stragglers from the great ibis flocks which had sailed away to the southward as summer merged into fall. None of these interested Jen. His eyes shifted from the lush weeds and grasses and fallen palmetto fronds at his feet where hidden danger might lurk, to the tops of the pines towering above the lower growth; and finally he saw the nest, a bulky castle of sticks, seven feet or more in diameter, fixed some seventy feet above the ground in the crotch of a pine standing almost in the center of a small circular opening in the jungle.

He made his way to the base of the tree, which was rather slender in proportion to its height, studied its trunk and the arrangement of its branches just below the nest, and grinned his satisfaction. No insuperable difficulties stood in the way of his scheme; and he noted with approval too, that the eagles had evidently completed their annual repairs to the nest in preparation for the laying of the two big white eggs, an event which in the Low Country generally takes place in November.

So far so good. Searching the circle of sky visible above his head to make sure that no soaring eagle had seen him, Jen withdrew to the edge of the little opening in which the pine stood, and concealed

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/158


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/61

 Rh

  46 Salome. Oscar Wilde.

 50 Pillars of Society. Ibsen.  131 Redemption. Tolstoi.  99 Tartuffe. Moliere.

 54 Importance of Being Earnest. Oscar Wilde.  81 Pelleas and Melisande. Maeterlinck.   8 Lady Windermere's Fan. Oscar Wilde.

 226 Prof. Bernhardi. Schnitzler.

  6 De Maupassant's Stories.

 15 Balzac's Stories.

 178 One of Cleopatra's Nights. Gautier.

 58 Boccaccio's Stories.

 45 Tolstoi's Stories.

 12 Poe's Tales.

 145 Great Ghost Stories.

 21 Carmen. Merimee.

 38 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

 27 Last Days of a Condemned Man. Hugo.

 151 Man Who Would Be King. Kipling.

 47 He Renounced the Faith. Jack London.

 41 Christmas Carol.

 57 Rip Van Winkle.

 100 Red Laugh. Andreyev.

 148 Strength of the Strong. London.

 105 Seven That Were Hanged. Andreyev.

 102 Sherlock Holmes Tales.

 161 Country of the Blind. H. G. Wells.

 85 Attack on the Mill. Zela.

 156 Andersen's Fairy Tales.

 158 Alice in Wonderland.

 37 Dream of John Bull.

 40 House and the Brain.

 12 Color of Life. E. Haldeman-Julius.

 198 Majesty of Justice. Anatole France.

 215 The Miraculous Revenge. Bernard Shaw.

 24 The Kiss and Other Stories. Chekhov.

 219 The Human Tragedy. Anatole France.

 196 The Marquise. Sand.

 230 The Fleece of Gold. Theophile Gautier.

 232 Three Strangers. Hardy.

 239 Twenty-Six Men and a Girl. Maxium Gorki.

 29 Dreams. Schreiner.

 126 History of Rome.

 128 Caesar: Who He Was.

 185 History of Printing.

 175 Science of History. Froude.

 52 Voltaire. Victor Hugo.

 125 War Speeches of Woodrow Wilson.

 142 Bismarck and the German Empire.

 51 Bruno: His Life and Martyrdom.

 147 Cromwell and His Day.


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/159

 himself with great care in the dense cover of the surrounding cassena thicket.

There he sat patiently for an hour, smoking his corncob pipe and building air castles. He saw the king and his mate return, watched the latter alight on a pine limb near by, while the former, carrying a big catfish carcass in his claws, flew to the nest; and he marked with care the exact spot on the nest on which the eagle alit. Then, when the king and his consort had departed again, perhaps in search of more food to deposit in the nest, which they often used as a storehouse, Jen rose and went his way, well pleased with the results of his scouting. He did not know that there was another King of Odistash who reigned on this jungle-covered barrier isle—a mighty monarch, clad in glittering mail, who ruled with irresistible power and merciless tyranny; and Jen laid his plans for the next day's operations unaware that cold, lidless, unwinking eyes had watched him as he dreamed in his cassena ambush and that for an hour he had sat within twenty feet of death.

By nine o'clock the next morning Jen was back at the edge of the little opening in the jungle beneath the eagles' pine. From the shelter of the thicket he saw the two big birds perching side by

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/159


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/62

60   236 State and Heart Affairs of Henry VIII.  50 Paine's Common Sense.

 88 Vindication of Paine. Ingersoll.  33 Smasher of Shams.  163 Sex Life in Greece and Rome.

 214 Speeches of Lincoln.  144 Was Poe Immoral? Whitman.
 104 Battle of Waterloo. Victor Hugo.

 159 Lincoln and the Working Class.

 223 Essay on Swinburne. Quiller-Couch.

 229 Diderot. Ellis.

 227 Keats. The Man. His Work and His Friends.

 201 Satan and the Saints. H. M. Tichenor.

 67 Church History. Tichenor.

 139 Life of Dante.

 18 Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. Jerome.

 20 Let's Laugh. Nasby.

 166 English as She Is Spoke. Mark Twain.

 205 Artemus Ward. His Book.

 187 Whistler's Humor.

 216 Wit of Heinrich Heine. Geo. Eliot.

 231 8 Humorous Sketches. Mark Twain.

 97 Love Letters of King Henry VIII.

 36 Soul of Man Under Socialism. O. Wilde.

 28 Toleration. Voltaire.

 89 Love Letters of Men and Women of Genius.

 87 Love. Montaigne.

 48 Bacon's Essays.

 60 Emerson's Essays.

 84 Love Letters of a Nun.

 26 On Going to Church. Shaw.

 61 Tolstoi's Essays.

 176 Four Essays. Ellis.

 160 Shakespeare. Ingersoll.

 186 How I Write "The Raven." Poe.

 75 Choice of Books. Carlyle.

 76 Prince of Peace. Bryan.

 86 On Reading. Brandes.

 95 Confessions of An Opium Eater.

 188 How Voltaire Fooled Priest and King.

  3 18 Essays. Voltaire.

 213 Lincoln. Ingersoll.

 183 Realism in Art and Literature. Darrow.

 177 Subjection of Women. John Stuart Mill.

 17 On Walking. Thoreau.

 70 Lamb's Essays.

 135 Socialism for Millionaires. G. B. Shaw.

 235 Essays. G. K. Chesterton.

  7 A Liberal Education. Thomas Huxley.

 233 Thoughts on Literature and Art. Goethe.

 225 Condescension in Foreigners. J. R. Lowell.

 221 Women, and Other Essays. Maeterlinck.

 218 Essays. Jean Jaures.

 10 Shelley. F. Thompson.


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/160

 side on a limb near the nest, and he waited in concealment until in about thirty minutes they circled upward and headed out to sea. Then he went energetically to work.

To Jen the climb up the pine trunk was a small matter. It was his boast—not altogether a vain one—that he could follow wherever a ring-tailed coon might lead. With a length of stout rope passed around his waist and around the trunk of the tree, he went up slowly but steadily, stopping twice to rest, and in less than ten minutes he gained the first of the pine's few limbs. Directly below the great bulging nest there was some little delay; but presently, with the help of his rope, his long steelcorded arms drew his lean light body up on one of the large limbs forming the crotch in which the king's castle was built. Standing on this limb, to which his bare feet stuck like the clinging feet of a tree frog or a lizard, he peered eagerly over the rim of the nest.

The king's castle, his home for more than twenty-five years, was built mainly of sticks, some of them nearly as stout as Jen's wrist, bark, sods and gray Spanish moss. Each season the king and his mate had repaired it and added to it until now it was nearly six feet in height, and the marshman, standing tiptoe on the limb, could barely see its flat interior, lined with moss, sedge, pine straw, leaves and

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/160


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/63

 Rh

  56 Wisdom of Ingersoll.  106 Aphorisms. Geo. Sand.

 168 Epigrams. O. Wilde.  59 Epigrams of Wit.  35 Maxims. Rochefoucauld.

 154 Epigrams of Ibsen.  197 Witticisms. De Sevigne.
 180 Epigrams. G. B. Shaw.

 155 Maxims. Napoleon.

 113 Proverbs of England.

 114 Proverbs of France.

 115 Proverbs of Japan.

 116 Proverbs of China.

 117 Proverbs of Italy.

 118 Proverbs of Russia.

 119 Proverbs of Ireland.

 120 Proverbs of Spain.

 121 Proverbs of Arabia.

 181 Epigrams. Thoreau.

 228 Aphorisms. Huxley.

 62 Schopenhauer's Essays.

 94 Trial and Death of Socrates.

 65 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

 44 Aesop's Fables.

 165 Discovery of the Future. H. G. Wells.

 96 Dialogues of Plato.

 103 Pocket Theology. Voltaire.

 132 Foundations of Religion.

 138 Studies in Pessimism. Schopenhauer.

 211 Idea of God in Nature. John Stuart Mill.

 212 Life and Character. Goethe.

 200 Ignorant Philosopher. Voltaire.

 101 Thoughts of Pascal.

 207 Olympian Gods. H. M. Tichenor.

 210 The Stoic Philosophy. Prof. Gilbert Murray.

 220 Essays on New Testament. Blatchford.

 224 God: Known and Unknown. Butler.

 19 Nietzsche. Who He Was and What He Stood For.

 204 Sun Worship and Later Beliefs. Tichenor.

 184 Primitive Beliefs. H. M. Tichenor.

  1 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

 73 Whitman's Poems.

  2 Wilde's Reading Jail.

 32 Poe's Poems.

 164 Michael Angelo's Sonnets

 71 Poems of Evolution.

 146 Snow-Bound, Pied Piper.

  9 Great English Poems.

 79 Enoch Arden. Tennyson.

 68 Shakespeare's Sonnets.

 173 Vision of Sir Launfal.

 222 The Vampire and Other Poems. Kipling.

 237 Prose Poems. Baudelaire.

 190 Psycho-Analysis—The Key to Human Behavior. Fielding.

 49 Three Lectures on Evolution. Haeckel.

 42 From Monkey to Man.


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/161

 grass. Testing the structure of the nest, Jen found that the sticks forming its outer walls were so firmly interlaced that, by putting most of his weight on a convenient branch just within reach of his hand, he could make his way to the summit. This he proceeded to do; then, kneeling on the top of the nest, amid the fragments of fish and other refuse that he found there, he began his search, thrusting his hand through and under the moss and grass.

Almost at once he uttered an exclamation of delight. Six inches under the moss his hand had closed upon something round and hard, a little larger than a hen's egg. A matter-of-fact man who had never heard of the Eagle Stone which had power to open money vaults and treasure chests, might have supposed that this hard round thing deep under the loose bedding of the nest was a waterworn bit of limestone, a spherical piece of bone or a nodule of black marsh mud compressed in the course of time to the hardness of rock and brought up to the nest in the sods which formed part of the structure. But Jen, all aquiver with exultant joy, knew that he had found the precious object of his quest.

He knelt for a moment, shaking like a man with fever, his hand still under the moss. Then he withdrew it empty, fished a big blue cotton handkerchief out of his pocket and worked it under the mossy

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/161


text:
Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/64

62   288 Reflections on Modern Science. Huxley.  202 Survival of the Fittest. H. M. Tichenor.  191 Evolution vs. Religion. Balmforth.

 133 Electricity Explained.  92 Hypnotism Made Plain.  53 Insects and Men: Instinct and Reason Darrow.

 189 Eugenics. Ellis.
 107 How to Strengthen Mind and Memory.

 108 How to Develop a Healthy Mind.

 109 How to Develop a Strong Will.

 110 How to Develop a Magnetic Personality.

 111 How to Attract Friends.

 112 How to Be a Leader of Others.

 140 Biology and Spiritual Philosophy. Tichenor.

 11 Debate on Religion. John H. Holmes and George Bowne.

 39 Did Jesus Ever Live?

 130 Controversy on Christianity. Ingersoll and Gladstone.

 43 Marriage and Divorce. Horace Greeley and Robert Owen.

 208 Debate on Birth Control. Mrs. Sanger and Winter Russell.

 121 Rome or Reason. Ingersoll and Manning.

 122 Spiritualism. Conan Doyle and McCabe.

 171 Has Life Meaning?

 206 Capitalism vs. Socialism. Seligman and Nearing.

 13 Is Free Will a Fact or a Fallacy?

 234 McNeal-Sinclair Debate on Socialism.

 192 Book of Synonyms.

 25 Rhyming Dictionary.

 78 How to Be an Orator.

 82 Common Faults in Writing English.

 127 What Expectant Mothers Should Know.

 81 Care of the Baby.

 136 Child Training.

 137 Home Nursing.

 14 What Every Girl Should Know. Mrs. Sanger.

 34 Case for Birth Control.

 91 Manhood: Facts of Life Presented to Men.

 83 Marriage Past, Present and Future. Besant.

 74 On Threshold of Sex.

 98 How to Love.

 172 Evolution of Love. Key.

 203 Rights of Women. Ellis.

 209 Aspects of Birth Control. Medical, Moral, Sociological.

 143 Pope Leo on Socialism.

 152 Foundations of Labor Movement. Phillips.

 30 What Life Means to Me. Jack London.

 93 How to Live 100 Years.

 167 Plutarch on Health.


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/162

 mattress of the nest. He would run no risk of letting even one ray of light touch the Eagle Stone and thus weaken or destroy its magic. When he again withdrew his hand the dark-blue handkerchief was wrapped around it and around the object which it enclosed; and as quickly as possible he thrust the treasure, still wrapped in the handkerchief, into his trousers pocket.

Jen was a practical soul. Credulous and superstitious he was, like most of the dusky marshmen and woodsmen of the Low Country, a believer in "hants" and incantations and spells and in many queer legends and myths about the abundant wild folk of the Low Country woods and marshes. But he knew that there were some who scoffed at the story of the Eagle Stone, and he had started on this quest with a double object in view, so that if he found no talisman in the eagles' nest he still might profit from his undertaking. His own doubts, if he had any, as to the virtue of the talisman had now vanished pretty completely, but this did not prevent him from carrying out also the other part of his design.

First he climbed some distance down the pine and out upon a limb. With a sharp hatchet which he carried in his belt he cut a section of this limb, about four feet in length and weighing perhaps ten pounds, and lashed it to the pine trunk below the

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/162


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/163

 nest, using a very light cord just strong enough to hold it in place. Then he made his way back into the nest and with the sure instinct and uncanny skill which had so often aroused the envy of his fellows he set about his delicate task there. In fifteen minutes he had completed it, and after a final careful inspection to satisfy himself that the nest showed no evidences of his visit, he began his descent.

Just as he reached the ground he saw a tiny speck against the blue sky—a speck which might be only a soaring turkey vulture or ibis, but, on the other hand, might be the king or his mate. Stooping low, his hand clutching the treasure in his pocket, he hastened to his hiding place near the edge of the cassena thicket.

He was just in time. Five minutes later the king alit on the rim of the nest. The marshman's luck was still with him. It was the great bird himself and not his mate, who was noticeably smaller than her lord, though in nearly all cases the female eagle is the larger. And Jen's skill, his boasted woodcraft, held good also. His sharp eye and quick brain had made no mistake. He had studied the interior of the king's castle with an almost preternatural understanding of what it revealed as to the eagle's accustomed movements after alighting. Coming to rest upon the same smooth rounded stick

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/163


text:
Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/178

100

Alongside Lady Uté, Ortwein the bold rode he,

With many knights and maidens who bare them company.

Ne’er at a great reception, we must confess, had been

So great a throng of ladies as here together seen.

And many a fair encounter took place amid the train

Of praise-deserving heroes, (they could not well refrain)

Beefore the fair Kriemhilda, until the ship they reach.

Then from their palfreys lift they, the well-dight ladies each.

The king had now cross'd over, and many a guest of worth.

Hey! what stout shafts were shiver’d for these fair ladies’ mirth!

One heard the hurtling tumult, as lance on buckler rang,

Ay, and the rich shield-bosses that in the press did clang!

The fair ones now were standing the landing-place upon;—

With all his guests had Gunther up from the vessel gone;

He led the Lady Brunhild with his own royal hand.

Then shone against each other bright gems and garments grand.

With courtly grace Dame Kriemhild did thereupon repair

To where the Lady Brunhild and all her courtiers were,

One saw them push their chaplets with their white fingers by,

What time they kissed each other: ’twas done in courtesy.

Then spake the maid Kriemhilda, and fittingly spake she:

“To us in this our country right welcome may you be;

To me, and to my mother, as unto ev’ry friend

Whom we as faithful reckon.” Then each did lowly bend.


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/164

 at the nest's rim upon which Jen had seen him alight the day before, the king paused there a few moments, turning his snowy head this way and that, glancing keenly about him. Then with a rather awkward hop he passed to the flat, moss-lined and grass-littered interior of the nest within the circle of sticks.

Instantly he leaped upward, his great wings beating desperately, madly, churning the air. Ten feet or so he rose, with the small rusty steel trap with which Jen caught minks gripping two toes of his left foot, crushing them together. A long slender cord of strong fishing line, doubled and twisted, led downward from the trap over the rim of the nest to the section of pine limb lashed to the tree trunk. As the cord tightened, the eagle, his ascent arrested, screamed with rage and swung outward. For a moment he remained stationary in the air, held by the cord, his powerful wings beating more furiously than ever. Suddenly something gave way beneath him. For a quarter of a minute perhaps he held a level course over the roof of the jungle. Then, his wings laboring mightily, he began to slant downward.

Far beneath him, at the end of the cord, dangled the heavy pine clog, which, just as Jen had intended, had pulled loose from the tree trunk as soon as the trapped eagle jerked the cord strongly. Lower and

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/164


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/165

 lower sank the king, fighting to the last. Then the clog caught in the billowy green top of the cassena thicket and the eagle pitched earthward. Grinning with quiet satisfaction, Jen, who had rushed out into the clearing to mark the spot where the great bird fell, set out to find him, picking up a light stick on his way to help him make a passage through the dense growth.

A hundred yards from the eagles' pine, in an open sunny spot just beyond the outer edge of the cassena thicket, a diamond rattlesnake lay at full length in the short grass. Nearly seven feet long from the point of his plated arrow-shaped head to the end of his fifteen-ringed rattle and fully eleven inches in girth, his greenish-yellow body marked with dark-brown rhomboidal blotches bordered with gold, the huge serpent was a superb specimen of his terrible race, at once gorgeously beautiful and indescribably hideous. Even more arrogantly than the king of the air ruled the spaces above the island jungle the giant rattler ruled the jungle itself. A monarch of uncertain temper, his mood depending mainly upon the state of his stomach, he had watched Jen with sluggish well-fed tolerance the day before as the marshman sat in his cassena ambush near the eagles' pine. Today, however, he was

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/165


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/166

 hungry and his mood had changed. His fury knew no bounds when suddenly, with a swish and surge of mighty wings, a great white-headed bird swooped down from the air and landed in the grass directly in front of him and not more than two feet from his nose.

With almost incredible swiftness the big rattler threw his long thick body into coil, his kettledrum ringing its insistent challenge, his dreadful spear-shaped head drawn well back within the circle of his dilating mailed body and pointed directly at the presumptuous intruder who had dared to invade his privacy.

Promptly the king, somewhat shaken but uninjured by his fall, faced about to confront the snake. The trap on his foot hampered him sadly, but the long cord connecting the trap with the pine clog had fallen slack and he had some freedom of movement. He knew nothing about rattlesnakes, and, although their kingdoms lay so close together, he had never seen this serpent monarch before; but somehow he was aware that there was deadly peril in the huge reptile coiled in front of him, glaring at him with small, glittering, stony eyes, as hard and cold as jewels. Captive though he was in the grip of the trap, the king's bold spirit rose to meet the danger, and from his own deep-set, piercing, yellow eyes he sent back glare for glare.

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/166


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/167

 A half minute the two kings—the king of the air and the king of the island jungle—faced each other thus. Then the rattler, jaws gaping hugely so that the two white curved hollow fangs projected straight forward, lunged at the eagle's breast. The eagle—thanks, no doubt, to the marvelous quickness of his vision—seemed to sense the blow even before it was launched. He tried to jump backward, but the trap checked him, and, thrown sideways by the effort, he instantly spread his wings to regain his balance. Thus, in the nick of time, one broad pinion interposed between his body and the snake and caught the rattler's blow as a gladiator's shield might catch a sword thrust. A pale yellowish fluid dripped down over the stiff, black-brown primary feathers of the outspread wing; and just as the king regained his footing and faced his foe again the rattler struck his second blow.

Again the eagle's amazing eyesight played its part, apparently flashing to his brain a warning that the envenomed spearhead was about to be launched. He was a little farther from the snake now, his maneuver during the first attack having lifted and moved the trap some six inches. Though still within the rattler's reach, he was only just within it; and when, in instant response to the warning given by his eyes, he tried to jump backward as before and was again checked by the trap and thrown off his

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/167


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/168

 balance, the swift movement carried him just beyond the danger line.

Again the long, thin, needlelike fangs, thrusting forward out of the great serpent's hugely gaping jaws, clashed against the heavily shafted feathers of the eagle's outstretched wing as he strove with a desperate flapping of his pinions to regain his footing; and again the dark-brown feathers were sprinkled, but not so plentifully as before, with pale-yellow fluid. Once more the king had won, and he seemed to know it. Proudly erect he stood, his white head held high, his shining eyes, deep under their frowning brows, glaring defiance.

Jen Murray the marshman, thrusting his way with the aid of his stick through the outermost fringe of the cassena thicket, realized anew that he had never before seen an eagle as splendid as this one. As Jen stepped out into the open his eyes were fixed upon the king, appraising with the enjoyment of a connoisseur the great bird's beautifully molded form, clear-cut as marble, the gleaming whiteness of his head, neck and tail contrasting vividly with the rich dark brown of his big broad-shouldered body and his wings. For the moment, the marshman forgot everything else, even the Eagle Stone itself, in wonder at the size and the dauntless bearing of the feathered monarch standing there before him,

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/168


text:
Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/169

 held helpless by the trap, yet looking every inch a conqueror.

But into Jen's mind there crept no pang of compassion, no sense of sympathy for the great valiant bird, robbed of his freedom and brought down to earth by the cunning strategy of the marshman's brain. His small eyes shone with the joy of possession as he strode swiftly forward through the grass, intent only upon making sure of his prize. He did not know how firm a grip the trap, which was rather an old one, had upon the eagle's foot, and he would not feel certain of his triumph until he had his prisoner in his hands. He intended to grapple with the eagle by throwing his coat over the bird's head, thus saving himself from being torn by the strong hooked beak or the long claws; but first he walked close up to the king to have a look at the trap and satisfy himself that its hold was good.

The rattlesnake, coiled close beside a tussock of tall stiff olive-green grass with the color of which the hues of his body blended perfectly, had been so absorbed in his duel with the eagle that he failed to note the approach of another enemy until Jen was almost upon him. Then swiftly his terribfe head, poised above his massive coils, swung to face the new foe. To Jen's deaf ears the huge serpent's rattle, incessantly ringing its challenge, carried no

title: Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/169