Adventure Magazine Cover — page 54: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Bear-Tamer’s Daughter have been here. You shall tell es And lest you forget I shall take your tresses as a reminder.”’ (| NHEN Margarita finally rose from Py r| the ground she felt the cold wind on . her bare neck. Petrackio had cut off her tresses and was already on his horse galloping homeward at full gallop. She looked, after him and screamed. She shook her fists and stamped her feet and devised a thousand tortures for him and his father as soon as she should capture them. That very night she and her father were to pounce upon them in their gully and drag them to the cranny, to the private school, and teach them to dance. Ah! He would pay for that dearly! She would chain him herself, pass a ring through his upper lip, as she did to bears, and teach him tricks. And afterward—ah, afterward—he would know who Margarita was. She ran to her tent, looked at herself in the silver-handled mirror her father had given her once, and screamed again. He had cut off her hair! The coward! Better should he have killed her! How tould she ever show herself now? She would have to stay in her hut the whole Winter; avoid being seen by any one. Oh, why had he not killed her? He would pay for that. Oh, he would pay! She stam- peded the dogs and grazing horses and in her excitement tore through the camp like a whirlwind. A while later she blew the horn to call her father only too eager to start the jour- ney of revenge. But when she saw her father descending the nearest mountain she went into the tent, and, covering her head with a colored shawl, a basma, she pre- tended to Costa that she had called him be- cause she was so wretchedly annoyed. She did not mention Petrackio’s visit. ‘“‘What’s the basma on your head?” Costa asked. “Washed my hair, ¢atuca.”’ “What do you want, Margarita? Why have you called me? Here, what is the mat- ter with that bear there? Bleeding, I see, and loose too. By all the devils! Mar- garita, what have you been up to?” “Oh, leave him. He is like a kitten again. Leave him, father. Why don’t you ever get real ones again? When Spring comes I go with you hunting.” “But what has happened to the bear, 93 Margarita? Has he thrown you? Did you call me because you were-afraid now that the beast is loose? Speak, you she-devil.” ‘“Afraid! I? Here.” And she went close to the bear. “But then why have you called me sud- denly?”’ “Oh, because I want you to take me to the village.” “So, so; well, that’s different! Let’s close up this martino until we come back, and let us go. Saddle my horse, Margarita, while you saddle yours.” As he spoke Costa roped the bear and dragged it to a fissure in the mountain for which a revolvy- ing rock served as a door. “That’s women. They are all alike when the time comes. Their feet burn. They want to go and come. She, too, like the rest,” muttered Costa as he finished his job. Father and daughter were not loquacious. Seclusion breeds silence. Margarita rode on her small horse, following at a few paces from her father’s mount. As she rode on she thought of him, of Petrackio. Of course he was a real one. But was she herself a real one? How he had knocked the whip from her hand and- thrown her to the ground! It had come with such sudden- ness and force that she did not know how it had been done. But she still felt the grip of his fingers on her arm, the hardness of his knee between her shoulders and the quick hot breath as he spoke to her while she was at his mercy. “Snake! I don’t kill women. I want your father to know that I have been here.” That was bravery. She would fight him, him alone. She would tame him. But not like that, not as one tames a bear. That was not the way. He was a man. By the time they had reached the market- place of the village Margarita had recon- structed the whole episode of the morning a hundred times and had judged carefully her and his actions. She had very little to reproach herself with. She had acted as she should, have. And her He...No. He should have killed her. No. No. That would not have been the right thing. To cut off her hair, to provoke her father by the insult, was greater bravery. By the time they had tethered their horses to the trees in front of the inn Mar- garita had weighed him carefully in her mind and decided that he was a real one. Not a word to her father. She would COPMiCcoookKSs (S@