CHAPTER XXXIV.

CHASED BY A MADMAN.

Bonny's bed was nearest the side of the hut, while Alaric lay beyond him towards its centre. Morning was breaking when the former awoke from a troubled dream, so filled with a presentiment of impending evil that his forehead was bathed in a cold perspiration. For the space of a minute he lay motionless, striving to reassure himself that his terror was without foundation. All at once he became conscious that some one was talking in a low tone, and, glancing in that direction, saw the form of their host, magnified by the dim light into gigantic proportions, bending over Alaric. The man held an uplifted knife, and was muttering to himself in German; but at Bonny's cry of horror he leaped to his feet, and disappeared through the doorway.

"What is the matter?" asked Alaric, sleepily, only half awakened by Bonny's cry. "Been having bad dreams?"

"Yes, and a worse reality," answered the other, huskily. "Oh, Rick! he was going to kill you, and if I hadn't waked when I did we should both have been dead by this time. He has made up his mind to murder us, I know he has."

A minute later Alaric had heard the whole story, and, as excited as Bonny himself, was hurriedly slipping on his coat and boots. They knew not which way to go, nor what to do, but both were eager to escape from the hut into the open, where they might at least have a chance to run in case of an attack.

As they emerged from the doorway, casting apprehensive glances in every direction, Alaric's baseball, that had been left in one of his coat pockets the evening before, slipped through a hole in the lining and fell to the ground. Hardly conscious of what he was doing, the lad stooped to pick it up. At that same instant came the sharp crack of a rifle, and the "ping" of a bullet that whistled just above his head.

"He is shooting at us!" gasped Bonny. "Come, quick, before he can reload."

Without another word the lads dashed into the clump of trees sheltering the camp, and down the slope on which it stood. They would have preferred going the other way but the rifle-shot had come from that direction, and so they had no choice. Their movements being at first concealed by the timber, there was no sign of pursuit until they gained the open valley and started to cross it. Then came a wild yell from behind, and they knew that their flight was discovered.

Breathlessly they sped through the dewy meadow, sadly impeded by its rank growth of grass and flowers, toward a narrow exit through the wall bounding its lower end that Alaric had long ago discovered. Through this a brawling stream made its way, and by means of its foaming channel the boys hoped to effect an escape.

As they gained the rocky portal Bonny glanced back and uttered a cry of dismay, for their late host was in plain view, leaping down the slope toward the meadow they had just crossed. He was then bent on overtaking them, and the pursuit had begun in earnest.

As there was no pathway besides that offered by the bed of the stream, they were forced to plunge into its icy torrent and follow its tumultuous course over slippery rocks, through occasional still pools whose waters often reached to the waist, and down foaming cascades, with a reckless disregard for life or limb. In this manner they descended several hundred feet, and when from the bottom they looked up over the way they had come they felt that they must surely have been upborne by wings. But there was no time for contemplation, for at that moment a plunging bowlder from above warned them that their pursuer was already in the channel.

Now they were in a forest, not of the giant trees they would find at a lower altitude, but one of tall hemlocks and Alpine firs, growing with such density that the panting fugitives could with difficulty force a way between them. They stumbled over prostrate trunks, slipped on beds of damp mosses, were clutched by woody fingers, from whose hold their clothing was torn with many a grievous rent; and, with all their efforts, made such slow progress that they momentarily expected to be overtaken. Nor were their fears groundless, for they had not gone half a mile ere a crashing behind them told that their pursuer was close at hand. As they exchanged a despairing glance, Bonny said, "The only thing we can do is to hide; for I can't run any further."

"Where?" asked Alaric.

"Here," replied Bonny, diving as he spoke into a bed of ferns. Alaric followed, and as they flattened themselves to the ground, barely concealed by the green tips nodding above their backs, the madman leaped into the space they had just vacated, and stood so close to them that they could have reached out and touched him. His cap had disappeared, his hair streamed over his shoulders like a tawny mane; his clothing was torn, a scratch had streaked his face with blood, and his deep-set eyes shone with the wild light of insanity. He had flung away his rifle; but his right hand clutched a knife, keen, and long-bladed. The crouching lads held their breaths as he paused for an instant beside them. Then, uttering a snarling cry, he dashed on, and with cautiously lifted heads they watched him out of sight.

"Whew!" ejaculated Bonny, "that was a close call. But I say, Rick, this business of running away and being chased seems quite like old times, don't it?"

"Yes," answered Alaric, with a shuddering sigh of mingled relief and apprehension, "it certainly does, and this is the worst of all. But what shall we do now?"

"I don't know of anything else but to keep right on down hill after going far enough to one side to give his course a wide berth. I'd like awfully to have some breakfast, but I wouldn't go back to that camp for it if it were the only place in the world. I'd about as soon starve as eat another mouthful of goat, anyway. We are sure to come out somewhere, though, if we only stick to a downward course long enough."

So the boys bore to the right, and within a few minutes had the satisfaction of noting certain gleamings through the trees that betokened some kind of an opening. Guided by these, they soon came to a ridge of bowlders and gravel, forming one of the lateral moraines of a glacier that lay in glistening whiteness beyond.

"We might as well follow along its edge," suggested Bonny; "for all these glaciers seem to run down hill, and, bad as the walking is over mud and rocks, we can make better time here than through the woods."

They had not gone more than a mile in this fashion, and believing that they had successfully eluded their pursuer, were rapidly recovering from their recent fright, when they were startled by a cry like that of a wild beast close at hand. Glancing up, they were nearly paralyzed with terror to see the madman grinning horribly with delight at having discovered them, and about to rush down the steep slope to where they stood.

There was but an instant of hesitation, and then both lads sprang out on the rugged surface of the glacier, and made a dash for its far-away opposite side.

They ran, slipped, stumbled, took flying leaps over the parted white lips of narrow crevasses, and made detours to avoid such as were too wide to be thus spanned. They had no time to look behind, nor any need. The fierce cries of the madman warned them that he was in hot pursuit and ever drawing nearer. At one place the ice rang hollow beneath their feet, and they even fancied that it gave an ominous crack; but they could not pause to speculate as to its condition. That it was behind them was enough.

Ere half the distance was passed they were drawing their breath with panting sobs, and Bonny, not yet wholly recovered from his illness, began to lag behind. Noting this, Alaric also slackened his speed; but his comrade gasped: "No, Rick. Don't stop. Save yourself. I'm done for. You can't help me. Good-by."

Thus saying, and too exhausted to run further, the lad faced about to meet their terrible pursuer, and struggle with him for a delay that might aid the escape of his friend. To his amazement, there was no pursuer, nor in all that white expanse was there a human being to be seen save themselves.

At his comrade's despairing words Alaric too had turned, with the determination of sharing his fate; so they now stood side by side breathing heavily, and gazing about them in wondering silence.

"What has become of him?" asked Bonny at length, in an awed tone, but little above a whisper.

"I don't know," replied Alaric. "He can't have gone back, for there hasn't been time. He can't be in hiding, for there is no place in which he could conceal himself, nor have we passed any crevasse that he could not leap. But, if he has slipped into one! Oh, Bonny! it is too awful to think of!"

"I heard him only a few seconds ago," said Bonny, in the same awed tone, "and his voice sounded so close that with each instant I expected to be in his clutches."

"Bonny," exclaimed Alaric, "do you remember a place that sounded hollow?"

"Yes."

"We must go back to it; for I believe he has broken through. If it is in our power to help him we must do it; if not, we must know what has happened."

They had to retrace their steps but a few yards before coming to a fathomless opening with jagged sides and splintered edges, where the thin ice that had afforded them a safe passage had given way beneath the heavier weight of their pursuer. No sound save that of rushing waters came from the cruel depths, nor was there any sign.

The boys lingered irresolutely about the place for a few minutes, and then fled from it as from an impending terror.

For the remainder of that day, though no longer in dread of pursuit, they made what speed they might down the mountain-side, following rough river-beds, threading belts of mighty forest, climbing steep slopes, and descending others into narrow valleys.

The sun was near his setting, and our lads were so nigh exhausted that they had seated themselves on a moss-covered log to rest, when they were startled by a heavy rending crash that echoed through the listening forest with a roar like distant thunder.

The boys looked at each other, and then at what bits of sky they could see through the far-away tree-tops. It was of unclouded blue, and the sun was still shining.

"Rick!" cried Bonny, starting to his feet. "I believe it was a falling tree."

"Well?"

"I mean one that was made to fall by axe and saw."

"Oh, Bonny!" was all that Alaric could reply; but in another instant he was leading the way through tall ferns and along the stately forest aisles in the direction from which had come the mighty crash.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

A NEW WATER ROUTE TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

BY CYRUS C. ADAMS.

Any man who reveals to the world a great river on which steamboats can ply for hundreds of miles is a benefactor, and his name will be recorded among important explorers. Dr. Ludwig Wolf, in 1886, found a new water route to central Africa, and in all the good work he did until his death he never won a greater prize. Dr. Wolf loved the big continent, and he said that in all his life in Africa he never experienced such almost insupportable heat as he endured in Philadelphia during the Centennial Exposition. But he was convinced that women from the temperate zones should not try to live in tropical Africa, and believed that white men who spend their lives there should humanely renounce the idea of taking wives from their own race, and should marry women who were born in tropical countries.

Dr. Wolf's little steamer puffed up the big Sankuru River, threading its way among many islands, and revealing a great new highway and many unaccustomed sights. One day Dr. Wolf was astounded to see, some ways up the river, what appeared to be a raging snow-storm. Of course snow never falls there, but the illusion was perfect. It was caused by myriads of white butterflies zigzagging through the air. Two or three years later a black boy named Pitti, who had been taken from his home on this river to Germany, came rushing to his friends, exclaiming; "Oh, look out of the window! The air is full of butterflies." It was snowing hard. You see, the first impressions both of the learned doctor and of the ignorant little black boy were erroneous, because neither of them was in a country that he knew very well. You will see on your map that the great northern bend of the Congo is like a bent bow, and far below it is the string of the bow--the Sankuru--pieced out at one end by the Kassai River, which unites it with the Congo, while the other end stretches far across, almost to the other end of the bow. Dr. Wolf's discovery added almost 800 miles of navigable waters to the Congo basin, stretching almost due east to central Africa. Many a boy who loves adventure would think it a proud honor to add so important a fact to geographic knowledge, but I wonder how many boys would be willing to pay the great price that Dr. Wolf and all the pioneer explorers have had to pay for the discoveries that made them famous.

How would you like to be among hostile natives, many hundreds of miles from the nearest white settlement, with no means of transportation except a wheezy little steamboat that was likely to blow up or break down beyond repair at any moment? The worn-out _En Avant_, which carried Dr. Wolf's little party, was tired all the time, and incessantly on the verge of giving up entirely. There was no machinist on board to coax the complaining engine into good humor. The boiler-plates were sprung, and every morning the cracks were plastered over with a fresh layer of clay. Some of the tubing and the furnace grates gave out, and the doctor mournfully sacrificed gun-barrels from his slender stock of fire-arms to replace the worn-out parts. Of course, he would have repaired his rickety little steamer before he started if he had had anything with which to patch it up. With everything right at our hand at home, we have little idea of the countless perplexities that beset the explorer. Some years ago the French carried a steamboat in sections, at great cost, to the bank of a river in the French Congo, where they wished to launch it, and there the vessel lay uselessly on the shore for more than a year, because they had lost one little package that had to be replaced from Europe before a fire could be kindled under the boiler. Dr. Wolf was not able to move up stream as fast as a land party would have travelled; and around sharp bends in the river, under full pressure of steam, he was often two hours in making 700 feet against the rapid current.

Until he had ascended far towards the sources of the river, he found the Sankuru a noble stream, one to two miles in width; and, curiously enough, the natives on the north bank were very hostile, while those living south of the river were perfectly friendly and hospitable. The wide river was a boundary between peoples who differed from each other in many respects. This has often been observed in savage lands. On the middle Congo, where the river for long stretches is from fifteen to twenty miles wide and crowded with islands, there are thousands of natives who, until recently, had never seen the opposite shore nor the people who live there.

Soon after the explorer entered the Sankuru he had an adventure with the hostile natives of the north shore that a little resembled the fabled story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith. The doctor was steaming along about twenty feet from the bank, when he saw a girl, wearing ornaments that showed she was the daughter of a chief, leaping through the grass towards the water and shouting:

"Stop, you fools! Don't shoot! Let them go! They will not harm you!"

Dr. Wolf took in the situation in an instant. He saw a party of Bassongo-Mino crouching in the herbage at the water's edge, their bowstrings drawn, all ready to launch the arrows. The girl sprang in among them and knocked the bow and arrow from the hands of the man nearest to her. She cowed the men with her loud upbraidings, and they lowered their weapons as the steamer swept past. There is little doubt that her word of command, spoken in behalf of white strangers, the like of whom she had never seen before, saved the lives of some of Dr. Wolf's party. Perhaps she knew how grateful they were for her humane and friendly act, though they had no opportunity to express their gratitude.

Sometimes the more important women among these barbarous tribes exert great influence. At another place on the Sankuru Dr. Wolf thanked his lucky stars that a woman took his part. He had stopped in front of a large settlement and tried to make friends with the people. They made no answer, but sprang to their weapons and advanced to attack him. Among the foremost suddenly appeared a girl named Pemba, the daughter of the most powerful chief in all that region. With a few words and a wave of her hand she stilled the angry tumult. She had never seen white men before, but she called to them to wait. She ordered some ivory and native grass cloth to be put into a boat, and, perfectly fearless, she went out to the strangers, had a good talk with them through the interpreter, received beads, brass wire, and cotton cloth for her commodities, and when the paddle-wheels began to revolve the boat was loaded with food bought of the natives, who at first had only arrows for the visitors. Through the influence of this girl, the explorer escaped an attack from the most powerful tribe along the river.

For a long distance the hostile tribes were found to speak practically the same language, and Dr. Wolf's interpreter was the most important person on the boat. The natives thought the strangers could not understand them, and so they freely talked of their plans for attacking them. One day, when Dr. Wolf stopped to repair the _En Avant_, natives armed with bows and arrows speedily surrounded the steamer. They were not a bit afraid, and drew right up alongside. Their chief, Tongolata, told his warriors that these strangers were entirely at his mercy. Why, he couldn't see a single weapon among them! He looked at a gun with great curiosity. "Whatever the thing is," he finally declared, "it is not a weapon." He told his people it would be easy enough to kill these folks and seize all the strange and beautiful things they were showing. Things were beginning to look squally. More canoes were coming every minute. Dr. Wolf was a man of peace, and would not take a human life unless it was necessary to save his own men. But he must do something to over-awe these savages. He showed the chief a revolver, and told him it carried lightning that killed men. Then he held the weapon so that its discharge would hurt no one, but the barrel was close to the King's ear. He pulled the trigger, and the chief fell to the bottom of his boat, stunned by the terrible noise. All the natives were stupefied with astonishment and fear. The chief held on to both his ears until he decided that he was not hurt, and then he declared that he was the white man's good brother, and honored his new friend with a present of two chickens. Some explorers--very few, it is hoped--would have fired into the crowd under such circumstances. But men who are fit to be trusted among barbarous peoples have very often been able to insure safety when danger threatened by some such expedient as that which Dr. Wolf adopted.

The actions of some of these tribes when they first caught sight of the wonderful "fire-canoe" were very curious. The Bena-Jehka, for instance, threw themselves on the ground--not in fear, however, for they greeted the coming vessel with a hearty clapping of hands. The friendly natives were greatly tickled to find that this puffing boat was no match in a race with their canoes. They could travel all around her; and no wonder, for some of their dugouts were nearly ninety feet long--twice the length of the _En Avant_--and eighty paddlers standing erect in the larger boats made them fairly skim through the water. Sometimes fifty of these canoes were darting here and there, playing tag with the slow steamer, and dodging her every time. It was great sport for the friendly natives of the south bank, and the hostiles across the river did not know how much fun they were missing. None of these people had ever heard of a gun.

The African telephone was busy, as the steamer advanced, carrying the news up the river. The deep notes of the big drum, or tomtom, are the signal of great events in those parts, and crowds flocked to the banks long before the vessel puffed into view, straining their eyes for the first glimpse of anything wonderful or menacing. These signals, however, do not compare with the ingenious system perfected by a few small tribes in the Cameroons, West Africa, where the sounds on the drum represent syllables and words, and so grow into sentences, like the ticks of a telegraph instrument. Only about two hundred natives have been instructed in the art, and the secret is so carefully guarded that no white man is yet able to interpret these drum-beats, which carry verbal messages from one drummer to another as fast as sound travels.

Far up the river Dr. Wolf discovered some remarkable houses built in the branches of trees. Many African tribes, like the people of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, in the Pacific, build platforms high up in the trees, so that their lookouts may quickly discover the approach of an enemy, or their women and children take refuge among the branches in time of danger. An invention of the white men is destroying this custom of building tree refuges, and you can easily guess what it is. Traders have introduced many guns among the natives, and the women find that their rude perches in the air are no protection against bullets. But the tree houses Dr. Wolf saw serve a different purpose. The natives live in them to keep out of the wet when the land is flooded. A platform is firmly lodged in the widest fork of a tree, and a roof is built on the top of uprights that rest on the platform. The boys and girls are a happy lot when the floods subside and they can press the ground again with their bare feet.

It was a joyous lot of black men whom Dr. Wolf restored to their homes in Angola, after they had served him well for many months while he was adding this river to the maps. But on the way home they had one serious disappointment. One day they saw a group of baobab-trees, the largest plant that grows in Africa. It was many a day since they had seen the familiar sight. "Hurrah!" they cried; "we are near the sea. We are in Angola again." But they were still far from Angola.

These humble negroes helped to prepare the way for the busy white stations that are now planted on the Sankuru's banks. They should have their share of credit for the good work that was done.

GAMES IN THE REAL COUNTRY.

BY JNO. GILMER SPEED.

The boys in the cities, and especially in the suburban towns, have a very much gayer time than their fathers did twenty years ago. When a man of middle age now visits his old college, or, indeed, any athletic field, the fact is impressed upon him with great and ever-increasing force that he was born two score years too soon. In my boyhood, which was not so very long ago, town ball on the commons and baseball on a rough and unprepared field were about the only games of a general nature that we had. Of course there was a brief season for shinney, a little while for marbles, and in the hottest weather of midsummer we languidly indulged in mumble-the-peg. But we had no athletic fields in the sense that they exist to-day for general sports, while the fascinating tennis had not been introduced, and football as it is played to-day was unknown. We were therefore, judging by present-day standards, pretty badly off.

By the real country I mean those sections where the boys live on farms or in villages not influenced by close contact with the people from large cities. In such places, and I am writing in such a place, the boys do not seem to have a very gay time; but as they do not know that their sports so impress an on-looker, they are not unhappy about the matter. Just across the village street from the house in which I write is the village school (Academy it is called in high-sounding phrase), and the play-ground about it is bare in some spots, high grown with weeds in others, while great stones and small lie around in an abundance that menaces the security of every step a fast-running urchin takes. The boys on one side of the yard are playing baseball at this moment, and on the other side the girls, with shrill cries that express all at once delight, apprehension, and downright fear, are playing prisoner's-base. The boys do not have a "diamond" for their game, but the field is laid out in an irregular way that must have been determined partly by chance and somewhat by necessity. The pitcher stands a few feet in front of a maple-tree, and the catcher is so close to a rail fence that every passed ball goes into the ploughed field beyond. The ball is so frequently lost in this field and in the weeds in the school-yard that quite half the time of the game is spent in searching for it. The bats are clumsy things, that seem too heavy for the youngsters to wield with ease and accuracy; but as the pitching is not fast the batters succeed in hitting the ball as often as they miss it. And every time there is a hit there is a mighty scrambling in every part of the field, as the right-fielder appears to think it his duty to cover third base, and the first-base man displays an ambition to capture flies in the left field. The smaller the score, I believe, in both the professional and amateur worlds, the better the game. But in the baseball games in the real country the opposite is held to be true, and if less than twenty runs on a side are made the game is counted to have been a failure.

These games at the Academy are not played continuously, but begin before school in the morning, then at morning recess, then during the dinner hour, and are finished in the afternoon recess. After school, with whoops and cries of divers sorts the youngsters disperse to their homes, some of which are miles away. Several years ago they all walked home, but now the majority of them go to and fro on bicycles. In watching my neighbors of the school and their goings and comings I have discovered where the discarded bicycles that have gone out of fashion in town disappear to. They are taken to the country, and there the lads in the cowhide boots in winter and bare feet in summer pedal them up hill and down, alike ignorant of and indifferent to the fact that their much-cherished wheels are out of style.

The games the real country boys play are few, and would not be exciting to the lads who exercise on the Berkeley Oval; but they are entirely wholesome and harmless, and serve just as good a purpose as they would if they were in what more sophisticated people call good form. Fun is, to a great extent, a matter of education, and the same standard will not serve to measure the amusements of all classes alike. This is a most fortunate fact; and when I consider it I doubt whether in my own youth I may not, after all, have had in my limited range as much genuine sport as the lads I see in my neighbors' lawns, throwing off their gayly striped blazers preparatory to trying their skill in the tennis-court that has just been marked out.

THE DAISIES.

BY JOHN VANCE CHENEY.

Daisies, once, in noonday dream, Heard I gossip by a stream, Secrecies too sweet to name; 'Mong them, daisies, how you came By your shining skyey faces, Where you learned these magic paces. On a night, far, far away, Certain stars that loved to play In the pond across the way, At a signal--so they say-- Put their beams out; what is more, One by one they slipped ashore. When their mates look from the sky. Now we know why every eye, Up and down this fairy ground, Plays go-sleepin' oh, so sound! Eyes and hearts of summer day, Daisies, you have run away.

THE SLAMBANGAREE.

(_In Two Parts._)

BY R. K. MUNKITTRICK.