Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 1 — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

PRIDE OF TYSON. all, there was a singular and speaking deli- cacy of the features, particularly of curves about the mouth. Yet, in spite of eyes and mouth and hair she was not beautiful. She had not suffi- cient repose for real beauty. There was about her an unrest, the alertness of the wild. It danced in her eyes as visibly as the sparkling of the sun on the waters; it showed in the lightning, graceful movement of wrist and hand; and as she sat there, at ease, ohe felt that in the instant she could be on her feet and lost in the forest. Lost at a whirlwind speed that it would be folly to pursue. & Yet, the most perfect and Grecian repose. and regularity of feature could not have given her a greater charm than this piquancy, this uncertainty, this aloofness. She was like a perfume thrown on the wind and blown into one’s very soul. The eye of Tyson—a sharp, hungry eye—went from the brilliant bird to the girl beside the water and back again. 3 Suddenly, as the scolding of the blue beauty from the sappling reached a mo- ment’s pause, she tilted back her head, pursed her mouth, and whistled. It was an imitation so exact, so perfectly modulated, that Tyson held his breath to listen. The Jong strain, so light and sharp, broke, wav- ered, began again, rose, fell—the wild bird which calls for its mate, the weirdness of the pipe, the sharpness of the flute, the complaint of the violin, all gathered into the thin, sweet note. The scene was blotted out for Tyson. He stood instantly in an English garden at full night with the violets and the early roses breathing about him in the dark, and the shimmer of the lilies very faint by the pond, and the hedge gleaming under the moon, when the nightingale began its song. The whistling ended; he was flung across six thousand miles of sea and land to the sunny valley of the Chiluah. He looked up to the bird on the sapling. It sat quite still, with its head cocked a little to one side as if it still listened—laughably like a connoisseur of music. .Then the gleaming feathers of his throat swelled and bristled. He tucked back his crested head and began his long reply. 67 Her imitation had seemed perfect until the thin, pure reply of the bird began, and Tyson saw her frown with swift anger as the long, sweet note drew out. Before that first hote died away, the slender hand of the girl darted out as swiftlyvas the head of a Striking snake, and the next instant a Stone struck the sapling nes the very feet of the songster. The bird was away, his scolding floating back behind him; and the girl stood up, shaking her fist after him, and stamping in a fury of angry disappointment. Her eyes were still blazing, her mouth still sulky, when she turned again and faced Tyson. She did not spring back from him, but she started, and remained there poised— the wind moved her hair aside, fluttered her dress—in a picture she would have seemed to be running already. - But the alarm passed as the reflection of a cloud whips across the surface of a nar- row pool. She cast another angry glance in the diréction of the bird. ‘It was the wind that made me miss,” she said. “ It moved the tree.” , ‘“No,” said Tyson, “ your aim was .too. low.” Her anger 1 rose like flame blown leaping by a touch of wind; instantly she was aglow. She cried: “It was not too low! Thé wind—”’ “I saw the stone strike,” said Tyson. “It landed below the feet of the bird.” ‘“No, no, no!” she stormed. “It did not!” : It thrilled him oddly to feel her opposi- tion. Seeing her so angrily defiant, he was more sharply aware of her youth—the lines so slender at once, and so rounded. There is something in that age between girlhood and womanhood which carries home to the heart like music. He could not keep back the smile. ; She leaned and stood erect again with a swiftness no eye could follow. In her hand she hek] another stone, and this one of formidable proportions. “Tf you mock me—” she threatened. “Well?” asked Tyson. “T never miss twice,” said the girl. He regarded the stone about which her COmiclbooks C@