As It Was in the Beginning

by Philip Verrill Mighels

"To be so perfectly fearless!" she murmured, half aloud, and so crept away to her dark, uncomfortable cave.

Grenville pocketed the documents, still lying face up on his rock. He finally slept beside the fire, to finish his plans in dreams.

These plans, which were vague enough that night, matured fairly early in the morning. He had resolved to try for the tiger at the spring.

Fully expecting to encounter abundant signs of the animal conflict of the midnight hours, he descended the trail before Elaine had appeared, intent upon removing such evidence of trouble as might be found disturbingly near their tower.

There was nothing at all along the trail to show that a fight had taken place. Where the grass and shrubbery began in the clearing below the walls, there was one mere tuft of hair upon a twig. But a rod removed from this there was at least a hint as to what might have caused the engagement.

This was a trampled and slightly reddened ring where something had been eaten—some quarry doubtless captured by the smaller of the prowlers, who had found himself suddenly attacked and driven from the feast by the master hunter of the jungle, on whose sacred preserves he had probably dared to poach.

Grenville proceeded to the spring, not only to fetch a fresh supply of water, but as well to indulge in a vigorous washing of his hands and face, and to make some observations.

He found that by breaking several limbs a none too comfortable seat in the branches of a rubber tree might be prepared, provided he could climb to the perch. With a very long fuse attached to his bomb he might be enabled to execute a coup upon the tiger, under cover of the night. Could he only slay some animal—another wild hog, for instance—and place it here as a lure, his chances of securing the tiger's attendance would be infinitely increased.

A number of things were essential to his plan. The first, a rope ladder, was the simplest of the lot. That he could fashion with ease. His greatest problem was the fire with which to ignite his fuse, should he wish to explode his bomb. The wood he had found, that so amazingly retained its glow, might answer his needs for, perhaps, two hours, as he sat high up in the tree. It was all he possessed, and upon it he must needs rely. But how he should manage to discern his beast, in the darkness, when the prowler came at last to drink, was more than he could determine.

"A dead-fall might do for the brute," he soliloquized aloud, as the business revolved in his mind. "But I couldn't get one ready by to-night."