Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1916 — THE LION HUNTER [ARTICLE]

THE LION HUNTER

By LOUISE OLIVER.

"Dear Hermione: The minute you are free you must come to us. We have all sorts of wonderful things planned for the summer; besides, Dick’s cousin is coming for a month or so —you know, the one I’ve told you about —the traveler who has been everything from a Japanese consul to a Peruvian treasure hunter, to say nothing of big game everywhere you Mn think of. Naturally he has money, so here’s your chance, my poor, big, dependent sister. Get your little rich charges off for the seashore, if you must, but don’t lose another second. And mind you don’t call me names when you read this, for both Dick and I are concerned about your future and are determined to see you, comfortably settled. We know what is better for you than you do yourself. “Your loving sister, ANNE.” Hermione smiled indulgently. “Dear little Anne! As though her big sister wasn’t perfectly well able to look after herself! I can’t see why people insist upon pitying me Just because I happen to be the only surviving member of the family and earn my own living, and because, too, I have resisted matrimony until I’m the only one .pf the old set that’s left. All right, little sister! I’ll hurry to your little cottage by the sea just because I love it and you, but not to bait any lion hunter and ‘settle’ myself in life, as you put it.” The phone ran£. “Hello! Is that you, Peter? - Doing? Reading a letter from my little sister in Sedgwick. She says she has something for me and she wants me td hurry and get it. You’d never guess what it is!” "A dog!” Peter ventured. “No!” “Jewelry?” “Wrong!” “Some good advice! Sisters are usually long on that.” "No —yes! Anyway, it’s advice of a kind. She’s found me a husband.”

“I’ll .kill him!” jealously. An amused ripple was his answer. “How funny from you, Peter! I never knew the quiet, mysterious pool was a geyser, or, rather, to be in keeping with your name, I never suspected that the great, solid, dependable rock was a volcano. Don’t be so bloodthirsty, Peter! I have just been thinking that a nice, rich, famous, jewel-conferrtag husband might be quite a comfort,” teasingly. “I tell you I’ll shoot him!” savagely. "Peter!” Then, “You are coming tonight, aren’t you? I have everything done.” “Yes, I wouldn’t miss going for a thousand worlds. So I’ll reserve my threats till then. Good-by, dear girl!’ ? Hermione turned away with a troubled look. It had been one of the foundation stones of their friendship—in fact, the very ground itself —that everything between them be frank, homely and purely platonic. No sentiment of any kind allowed. It was so comfortable to have Peter to depend upon. He took her to concerts, lectures, anywhere she wanted to go, kept her up on the evolution of Yuan Shih-kai and the Chinese empire, and discussed both sides of the possible embargo on war supplies. He read her “The Gods pf the Mountain” or something of the kind while she darned his socks and sewed on missing buttons. She had insisted in this. “Peter,” she had said, “don’t throw Away your socks if they show a hole or two. Let me mend them. I must do something for you.” She hadn’t dared to tell him the real reason—that the best diet she knew for antisentimentalism was plenty of darning. The tone Just now had worried her.

Peter arrived at eight with a box of candy and a tom shirt wrapped in a paper, with a suspiciously riteat-look-ing hole between the shoulders. Hermione seized it with delight. “Peter, whatever will become of you if you keep on wearing out your clothes? I don’t see how you wear a hole away* up there. It looks almost like a cut!” ‘Tve been wondering what would become of me if it were not for you, Hermione. I’d be a regular Rip Van Winkle for rags.” She flushed appreciatively. Then a serious look came into her eyes, and when Peter had spread out a new magazine and she had slipped on her thimble, she ventured. “I’m going to ask you something tonight—something serious, yet I don’t want you to take it seriously.”

He looked amused. He was accustomed to her odd prefaces, however. But he was petrified for an instant beyond reply when she went oh hurriedly: “I want to be engaged to you for awhile. Don’t think I am taking advantage of leap year, kind friend- — no doubt you’ve had a dozen proposals by this time; at least if you haven’t you should have had. But if you aren’t promised i wish you would take me. It will only last over the summer until I come back from Sedgwick. Don’t you see how It is? If I’m engaged to anyone, they’ll let me alone about Dick’s lion-taming cousin!”

“Yes,'he hunted lions pr something in Peru—l mean Africa —and did something else in Japan, and he's very rich, and Anne writes that he’ll be there when ! am and they will keep him collared and chained so I can get him for my very own so I’ll be fixed for life. He’s the husband I told you over the telephone. If I just ‘announce that I’m engaged to somebody else they’ll let me alone, and the

lion tamer won’t think I’m throwing myself at his head either. It will make everything so comfortable, and I’ll probably have a good rest and a decent time. Otherwise —well, I Just won’t go, that’s all. So you’d better let me be engaged to you, Peter. Think it over.” Hermione stopped for breath. Peter did not reply immediately. He seemed to be undecided about something, but Hermione, bent over her sewing, did not see the struggle in his face. "Sure!" he said finally, much, as he would have granted a request for a match. “Sure thing, if it will help any. May I ask what may be In the charter of this new corporation?”

”What do you mean?” “What happens if either party breaks his contract and gets engaged to someone else?” “Speak only for yourself, Peter. HI be true to my bargain.” “But you may fall in love with this man from Japan.” "Never!” ‘Well, if you do, go ahead and take him, Hermione. That’s my advice. I’ll never take it to court,” emphatically. She looked up quickly. “After all, Peter, you are letting go easily. I believe you’d rather like to Join in this conspiracy and marry me off to that other man.” “To be candid,” returned Peter frankly, “nothing would suit me better.” “Here Peter,” she said rising. “The shirt’s done and I don’t think we’d better read tonight. I —l’ve a headache and I think I’ll go to bed.” She held out her hand. “Good night.” “Good night,” he answered gravely, looking searchingly into the brown eyes. “Being engaged doesn’t entitle me to a —’’

“No, it doesn’t,” declared Hermione, drawing back a step indignantly. Peter’s anxiety to marry her off was still stinging. Hermione arrived at Sedgwick in another week and luxuriated in the comfortable cottage on the sea bluff. Dick’s cousin had not come to her relief, but every day brought nearer the time of his arrival. Finally the night came that was to be the end of her peace of mind* The others had motored to the station.to meet their guest, but Hermione preferred to walk on the sand and watch the moon come up. A mile up the beach and a mile back took most of an hour. Coming back she met a man. The moon shone full on his face. “Peter!” she exclaimed, joyfully reaching out both hands. But Peter’s image only lifted his hat courteously. “I beg pardon, but you mistake my identity. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dick’s cousin, the lion hunter, the Peruvian wonder, the man from Japan. Behold!” Hermione laughed. “Don’t make fun of me, Peter!” “I’m not. It’s gospel truth.” “And you’re the one they all want me to— to —” “Marry! And I want it, too, dear, And may I remind you that we are engaged—at least for the summer—and, being engaged, I think I’m entitled to—” But that is quite another story. (Copyright, 1916, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)