ES SEA SUR nA 7 or r n cai fn f E Boys, whatever you may do, Play the game. Though your triumpks may be few, Rather lose than not be true: Though the rules may worry you, Play the game. Boys, wherever you mav go, Play the game. Let your friends and comrades know That to cheat is base and low; Scorn to strike a coward blow— Play the game. If you win or if you lose, Play the game. Never mind a scratch or bruise | Or a tumble, but refuse Sneaking trick or paltry ruse— t Play the game. Football, cricket, bat or ball— Play the game. | Though you stand or though you fall, | Life has one emphatic call, ! One great rule surpasses all— Play the game. Soin years of toil and care | | : : Let your deeds be true and fair, Honest, fearless, straight and square, Never mind a loss, but dare Play the game. Jeary lig passed. Man thousands of birds, and insects stincts. It was a seduction planned by an exquisite, yet ironic, fate. It chanced one morning as he sat alone in his camp, his two native helpers being at a distance—it chanced that a rustling in the brakes attracted his attention. He ran toward the thickets and there saw a huge boa-constrictor swallowing a small srison bird. Dr. Lestarte lar flew to modern repeating-pistol, but the snake, | having §ngorged the bird, merely stretch- ed itself fixed its bleak and feline | eyes upon him. ificent lay its length | of brownish green, with sharp ge- ometrical designs, brilliant lozenges and triangles. The glossy, tapering body was bent into the curve of a perfect ogee. It was one of the rarest of the species of the boa; it was the verysame prophet- ic serpent once worshipped by the ancient peoples of Central America, the inspired snake that whispered awful mysteries to the priests. Dr. Lessart had never seen a live Boa divinologuax, but he knew its markings well. Ere he had left German an offer had been made him by a rich vate collector of Berlin for just such a —five hundred marks for every metre of the snake's length if brought to Ger- many alive. Lessart’s hand fell from his pistol. He turned and ran for his three-looped lariat which he had learned to throw with won- derful skill. As he again a ached the Spot where he had seen the Pr the rep- le begun to creep away. He saw its tap- ering, glistening body writhing in long and sinuous curves through the under- brush of the forest. The scientist plunged after it, flanking it on one side, then on the other, whenever an opening offered in the brakes and ferns. He hoped the snake would coil about a tree or make for some open spot where he might rope it. Now he tracked it by the eye, now by the ear. Once the snake halted amidst a mass of colossal ferns and lifted its pointed head starred with its baleful sparkling eyes. The two glowered at each other for a moment, then the boa went winding on. The zest of the chase, the price at stake and the enthusiasm of the scientist drove Lessart on. The path of the snake lay almost in a straight line, as though he were making for some goal. Thus for two hours e man pursued the fleeing n t last the forest thinned into a clear- of low shrubs and Toward Is the serpent glided swiftly. Here,” said the man to himself—"here I must master divinologuax—or else good- by to him!” Lessart heard a peculiar call as he rush- ed forth between the trees of the jungle. In the centre of the clearing there stood a tall young native woman, her black smouldering eyes bent in his direction, a look of alarmed defiance upen her face, her attitude aggressive and alert. The gigantic snake was winding itself about her shapely body lik ine | the pely body like some thick vine like some forest goddess, a theme for po- they about a slender tree. It rested its oblong head upon her bare brown shoulder. The woman stroked it softly and murmured to it. The look she levelled at the doctor as he advanced was cold and haughty; she frowned at the lariat he carried in his hand. The eyes of the snake glittered like frosty crystals, beaming with a pallid fire, waxing and waning. It was as if a myriad needles of light from those small eyes. Dr. Lessart had mastered the native tongue. In these words he ke the superb and native Diana before him: “I greet you, maiden. I followed the snake, for I thought it wild. How could } lyioy you were its mistress? It is a beautiful snake and I would buy it for what you may ask.” This young native woman was comely a greceful Her shadowy features were lar and fine. A simple stateliness was in her upright ca her expres- sion was grave, her voice low and meas- ured—modulated to the note and hush of the forest. The tall and stalwart doctor with his brown curls, tawny beard and clear blue eyes she thus, as he Seed before her in his garments of white “"Ovada has known Xingu since he was very young. My father was chief of our tribe; my father gave him to me. I have fed him with my own hands. Therefore he is my comrade and my brother and dwells with me.” tis well," said the German, siiling Yery pleasantly. “He is a very beau I long to own him. I will not harm him, but him alive. He shall he Well ended 2 3c. I will make : ment, n aught you may have gold at my camp and the richest 1 i ‘LE ; i h a2 : | f ; cloth, weapons too, and many-colored 5 § ; i o i i i5- ik 1:3 ii sifu ir He f i : § RE FR H if ¢f ; gs 5af% E fee 3 g58 8 ot cB tail g ing vanished a circle Thence in a moments she bearing a gourd that brim- med with the clearest water. The snake was no longer with her. The naturalist drained the cup and thanked her. Then i 5 : “May peace be with you, Ovada, daugh- ter of a chief.” : He entered the jungle again and bent i the camp. But he had coming, for | his eyes had been bent upon the thin trail of the great serpent. He shaped his di- | rection by the sun, which was soon to set. At times he caught a of his crim- son face between the Panging drap- | eries and snarled of forest. . Many barriers of tion arose in here stretches | of water and lagoons forced him to finda around them. Soon it dusky a 2h Jight of the ungle dark- of the twi- he stood his whole | a helpless bewilder- | : Se was lost Yet he was disturbed but li scarcely shaken out of his pensiveness. The face of the hand-' SUime tative woah was still before him, the corruscal eyes Strange | consort, Xingu. Lessart stood still in ; darkness, thinking less of his pight than ' 0 m. ! The broken plots of sky between the | i rats fronds grew dark and brought between the deeper and lesser . | between tree-trunks, intertwined ten- and thorny brush, he At length he stood once space in which he had met with that after- noon. | He gazed about him in silence for a] moment, then called her name. He called | it in a voice that surprised himself. Even so he had been wont to call another wom- an’s name in a quaint Old World garden in which there pof the heathen priest Laocoon and sons in the toils of the avenging serpents. This copy of the great classic masterpiece was covered with fallen leaves and moss; it stood before an ancient stone house in a sleepy, idyllic, arch-ducal town of Ger- many. Now appeared. She came to meet him; some strange haste in his heart forced him to hurry toward her. “I am lost, Ovada,” said he. “I have | wandered in a ring. May i find food and shelter here for the night?” . She smiled and replied, “Ovada is glad to serve." She led the way toward her hut, half- hidden in its enclosure of trees. She lit a splint of dry wood at the embers of a fire which lay curbed within stones. She spread a mat upon the ground and bade him be seated. Then she brought a fish, covered it with a paste of ered meal and baked it in thecoals. This made his supper, this, with fruits, cocoa and the milk of cocoanuts. Silently she sat be- side him and seemed pleased to watch him still his hunger. Out of the shades beyond the fire two sharp and shifting eyes peered upon them from the crotch of a small dead tree. They were the eyes of Xingu. His great length festooned it- | self upon the white and sapless branches rubbed smooth with the passage of his coils. When Dr. Lessart had done with eating, and the fire began to fail, Ovada arose and went into her hut of cane and interwoven thatch. She emerged with a | large flat basket of dried grass. Then she Jronped at the base of the dead tree, and, lo! the snake descended and coiled itself | i round upon round within his bed. “Ovada and Xingu will sleep in the open Sonigh t,” said she, “and you shall have 's couch." He refused it straightly, saying he would sleep under the stars by the fire. But this seemed to displease her, so he ave way and went into the hut to lie gon a low settle covered with a soft aromatic grass. Beyond the saved curtain of thelow guirance the fire still spread a glow of sinking about him the teeming and endless night life of the forest—bird, beast and insect— made itself heard as if from another world. Fitfully, rising and falling, now dark and now alight, like fireflies in the woods, his thoughts flew about the beau- tiful brown woman and the ominous green serpent. Wonder and mystery twain. She was like some wild Lilith, he said to himself, or like some maiden Eve dwelling in her secluded with great primal enemy. She was also etry and ro who him and led his feet to err in the mazes of the jungle. So ran his stirred and col- ored fancy. He gave no thought to his own camp upon the banks of Guru- puy, nor to the two Brazilians who would find him missing. His scholarly mind, his disciplined soul, became peopled with strange and goblin thoughts, mingled monstrously with what was human and what was bestial. The earth-ball revolved about him. He saw the face of Europe in the moonlight, in particular a weedy garden with the mouldy statue of Lao- coon, then into the circle of his vision swam the shadowy jumgle-bower with this Indian nymph and her terrible com- rade the sacred Boa divinologuax. Long- forgotten incidents dressed themselves again as memories, ancient ghosts floated through his brain,.and desires and fears he thought long awoke in every nerve and fibre like the tiny and rapacious life of the forest at night. Never had he felt so close to the majestic and terrifying inwardness of Nature. She seemed to incarnated in i mystic world, mal pair. Little he slept that night. ing Orvada led him 'in that invested this | other” mance, some had woven her black spells about | Hand spoke the while her fingers stroked the head of the sl Xingu, his solid and | scaly spirals close in his basket of the itive chiefs and go dwell once more with your people.” “No," was her reply; “though I do not always live here, yet I shall always live alone—with Xingu—until I die." “It is in truth very pleasant here, Ova- da,” said Lessart, looking about him, “but | he bade her farewell, saying with a gra- it is very lonely and also full of danger. cious smile. {1 am a man and have two men with me, and yet there is a great loneliness in my t I have Xingu," said Ovada. Then suddenly her eyes fell, the while a flush arose in the ta cheeks, driven there by something in bright blue orbs of this white, noble-featured stranger. After a while she said, “White man, you likewise must be of the blood of chiefs in your own land.” He bent toward her, Smiling, and said, “Why do you say that, Ovada ?" She made no answer, but the red stain in her cheeks deepened, and when she raised her eyes they were filled with a wistful shyness. Again he leaned forward and touched her hand and asked her the question. She answered at last that it was because he had abeautiful beard like the kings of his race. The id snake now roused himself, and his long flat head was reared a full yard above his firm, com coils. the German, shaking off his per- ilous and insidious emotion, rose and to depart. Ovada walked by side for a long way to show him the proper path back to his camp. She nted out odd trees or misshapen ches, large stones and other stones “whereby he might know this way again.” Finally she halted; they bade each other farewell once again; he kissed her hand with great ceremony. Then he set his face to the north, she hers to the south. At a certain distance he turned and saw her watching him from between the trees. For a moment he paused, then went on, slowly pondering, ng at every step some invisible chain that tugged at his feet like the prickly vines that lay upon the ground. When less than a mile from his camp, he suddenly felt in his pocket | { and burst into an exclamation. He had left his wallet in Ovada’s hut. In this wal- | tl let there were things that were very pre- cious. These were letters written by one who dwelt in the crusting stone house half buried in the negl garden with the ruinous marble of the Laocoon group, one who had waited very long for him, | like the pale princess sleeping in the en- chanted wood. He turned at once toward the south and hurried back to the place where Ovada made her home. The thought of her loneliness came over him in, of her loveliness likewise, and her wild, yet regal, womanhood. It was very pleasant in her little bower, with its air of sylvan peace and Edenic domes- ticity. Fair was Ovada, and young; she ‘was savage, but nobly sauvage; her cook- ing and her ministrations were grateful unto him. There was yet a whole year for him to in this reeking wilder- ness ere he served the full time of his commission. Then, too, might she not be of great service to him with her knowl- e of the region and her woodcraft ? Hidden and lurking instincts sent these thoughts to his brain; here they caught form and fire; theysank again as tempta- tions into his heart. Was he following her; was the old witchery at work, draw- ing, driving him on? ell, no; he was merely going for his pocket-book! He laughed to think of his falling in love with a brown savage girl, he whose milk- white, blue-veined patrician dame with long tresses of palest amber awaited him in that hoary German schloss. He recalled how they had plighted their vows—very romantically, in y moonlight un- der the marble group of the tortured Lao- coon. Quite as romantically he had said t and passionate moment, “If ever | forget you, Amalia, may I the fate of Laocoon!” . cry came to his ears. He saw bounding to him thro! the sun and s of the jungle. She held aloft the red leather wallet 1 re tH LE §o°F ii hl : . : ; i 1 i i 1H 2 iz id HH 7 Vv: fr ig § ie gg g g gigs 1s i ft g fi i 5g 52 88 i ji = I : 2, B28 ik 1 fe fi 1 E71 He H i g fat] ge F g 2 | Hit Evie i i kh 1 f body like a whip that scourged itself. He is jealous of my lord, laughed his mistress, who seemed to find a strange, feline delight in the animal's "but have no fear, for I shall not let Xin- gu harm you.” So the year crept toward its close. At intervals Dr. Lessart sent his men to transport small crates and boxes to the coast. There, once a month, a tiny freight- steamer on signal near the mouth of the Gurupuy and took them to the nearest port, whence they were laden for Hamburg. A change came over Ovada, a sweet- ness richer, more complex and benign, a mild. majestic grace touched with a pa- thos quite divine—Nature's gift to woman in maternity. Then a child was born, a man-child, golden of skin and in feature perfect as its parents. Ovada was trans- ported with joy, but the tall Lessart stroked his beard grave'y and felt a new and oppressive sense or his relation to the universe. All day long Ovada fondled her little son. Now her maddest caresses were his, although she still hung ardently upon her lord. But Xingu was utterly neglected. No longer the smooth hand of his mistress stroked his graceful arching neck, no longer she permitted him to em- brace her in his bright. magnificent coils. When he came creeping to her as she sat nursing the babe, and nudged her with his hard, cold head, she drove him off. The glittering eyes, the wide jaws, and long snout frightened the child when Xin- gu silently near and peered into the baby's face as if to do it homage. When Ovada chased the languishing reptile away, Xingu would drag herself slowly off, moving lamely. Then he wound him- self into motionless coils that glistened in the sun like polished figured bronze of brownish green. But his dilating eyes were like livid flames, shifting with a Bagger) glare. Now he had two rivals in the love of Ovada—which once he had held alone. The reptile brooded, and Lessart was aware that even under the wrinkled lids the round green eyes blazed with a quench- less hate of him. His commission for the director of the Royal Zoological Institute at Hamburg was almost fulfilled. Soon, if he chose, the period of his exile would be over. But now it was no lo exile. Lessart felt the shackles upon his heart: he resolved to remain, he could not know for how long a time—perhaps another year. The jungle had made his soul one with its own; the long hair and loving { arms of Ovada, the tiny hands of his lit- e son, were mighty and compelling bonds. One day his two servants, return- ing from the coast, brought him letters. One was written in a beautiful hand he knew well; the envelope bore a crest which was also sculptured in the morsel- led stone at the entrance of an old, old garden in which he had often sat. The | letter was a summons; there was to be | no answer to it save his presence. An- | other letter was from the Director of the | Zoological Institute, offering him an im- | portant post. Ludwig Lessart's heart was torn within him; it was like a combat between the two halves of him, between opposed hem- ispheres, between passion and compas- sion, between two long-sundered frag- ments of his life. But part of his train- ing had been military; the older duty and the older memories swayed him; he prepared to go. In three days he could reach the coast where the little steamer sent its boat ashore to gather up his goods and trophies. Then he held anoth- er sharp and drastic debate with himself, but resolved at last that he must go in secret. It was wiser that Ovada should not know. Carefully he packed the re- maining specimens which his two Brazil- his eyes fell upon the lethargic spirals of the slumbering Xingu and he yielded to his old desire and temptation. hat mat- tered Xingu to Ovada, now that Ovada had a babe? The e was even a con- stant menace to that babe. That night while Ovada lay asleep, he caught the snake in a stout basket, lashed it with ropes, upon the back of a little donkey they had t with them. The fellows were share | frightened, but Lessart added a gold’ y, and so they took with | ing mass in the straining | Harper's Weekly. piece to their t. The next night he himself was ready to follow. Ovada and the couch and embraced his mate, pressing his lips upon hers. .iforal time, then kissed it and gave it back to When Ovada : i E : 8% a 58 5 B y § . the shadow of the storehouse. In sheer, ians were to carry to the coast. Then! and gave it to his men to pack! child were asleep | behind | in the hut. His lantern stood without. | Fully dressed and equipped with hand- | catchi Then he bent again and took the awak- | ened child in his arms, holding it close a man ballads of his youth, drinking-songs of his Srule days; he Cel sword- songs of t belungen wory- pale gentlewoman dwelt in the half- ruined house that stood in the ancient garden, must share this mood! He tore a leaf from his note-book and filled it with a message to her, rapt and wonderful lines that were almost poetry. Then weariness overcame him, and the growing heat as the storehouse lost its shadow. Naked as Adam he walked up the slope of the white beach to the fringe of trees that bordered it and lay down again in their shade. He fell asleep at once, heavily, with the weight of his three days’ travel upon him. The solitude and silence were as of eternity, the sky was void of a single flock, the sea as unmar- red as the sky. In front of the sleeper the endless silver stretches of the beach lay unrolled; behind him stood the sullen forest. Near the base of a tall, slim man- grove Lessart lay extended like some sculptured masterpieces of manly strength and beauty—marble of body and bronze of face and hands. In the leaves above h‘m a light breeze began to stir. But there was also some- thing else that stirred the leaves. Soon the whole tree began to quiver and trem- Me he from the jowase brans hes em a ape, g a glistening, with a pointed head, in which gleamed two radiant, greenish eyes Slowly, si- lently, in a beautiful spiral the giant ser- pent crept downward on the trunk and coiled itself close beside the sleeping man. It was Xingu. He stretched forth his own arms as if to embrace some one, and slightly raised his body from the ground. ngu, with his depressed head ambushed in his coils, had followed e breath of the sleepin man. His metallic eyes lightened darkened like unsteady lamps. As the man raised his arms, suddenly the snake dashed at him. An arrow—lightning might have lagged behind the invisible rush of that head. In a flash one tense and heavy coil lay whipped about the neck of Lessart, another about his breast, lettering his left arm Io bis Sie, 0a cry escaped him ere ngu Se an and forced down the expansion of thechest. Tearing with his one free and powerful hand at the pitiless, crushing wreathings of the rep- tile, the doctor led to his feet. Swifter than thought the boa lashed an- other loop about his thighs, straining till bone and sinew cracked. The man, foam bubbling from his lips, his face turned purple and his eyes already swimming in | darkness, stood for a moment, lashed in the convulsions of the snake, then sway- ed upon his heipless feet and fell to the ground. Xingu did not release him until the last flutter of life had passed. Then slowly and majestically he unwound his splendid rings, rolling the dead man up- on his face. Gliding a little to one side, | he made himself a cushion of his coils and went to sleep. A smile pa over Lessart's face. He was dreaming. He stood beneath the moss-covered statue of Laocoon in the weedy, neglected garden of an ancient German baronial house. The white arms ' of his lady reached forth to enfold him, tightly, never to let him go again into the wild, adventurous ily arms eager as the marble coils of the serpents about the body of the Greek priest and his sons. When Ovada reached the beach it was almost evening, This was the place where she hoped to find her lord. And here, verily, she found him, lying upon his face, his body crushed and discolored as with the binding of thick-girthed ropes. She threw herself upon him and wailed, and the ancient, infinite silence of sea and shore and sky was broken by an ancient and infinite grief. So she re- mained until the babe upon her back be- gan to scream. Raising her eyes that lay like cold and lustrous stones under her streaming hair, she saw Xingu ad- vancing upon her. He came fawningly; every wave-like motion was like a caress; his eyes held a light that spoke of joy and triumph, his head danced in an amor- ous rhythm on his lustrous, erected neck. Ne hove before Ber og valle on e awaiti e old, unforgotten er of her iy Then Ovado cried out again, this time not in grief, but in awful and unutterable rage. Ovada drew the hatchet from her belt and with one blow sundered the head of Xingu from his body.—] Herman Scheffauer, in Our Fishermen. every i United States is engaged in the task of enough fish to satisfy the appe- tite of remaining 399. In other words, there are nearly a quarter of a million men who catch fish not because they like EE Ee TL or it. ey catch a - 000,000 pounds of fish a year, and this is worth, all told, upward of $50,000,000, or, say, two-thirds of the total tal invest- ed in the industry. A of the capital, over $20,000,000, is Je rm in vessels, of which a recent enumeration land has by far the | ber of fessional fishermen: Its figures or E ah 7 Se inf 38% : g z : —*Yes; my daughter eloped.” | Suppose you will forgive the young The Homes of Wild Creatures. There is a pecular charm and interest in the study of the homes of wild crea- tures. Their efforts and the results in building these, even if crude, appeal to our sympathies. We have admired, and, to some extent, have jivuttigated the nests of the more familiar birds; we have seen the squirrel make his home in some dead tree or hol- low limb; we have, perhaps, studied the muskrat_and his peculiar, dome-shaped i JPocple, howler » have had opportunity of giving the matter ex- tended study. Among birds, the home of the bald ea- gle is perhaps the most striking. possibly use of the majesty of the bird itself. It appeals to the imagination. Built of huge sticks loosely interwoven, and situ- ated on some lofty and inaccessible ledge, with the bones of the eagle's victims scattered round about, it gives a p setting to the atern and savage character of its builder. Here the eagle reigns su- e, and here year after year he and is mate rear their young. This is the aerie from which he can scan the whole countryside and, like the robber barons of old, Jovy soll on all who his door. Far in still, white rth, where winter reigns Supete, is the home of the polar bear. the long arctic night approaches the bear retires to some sheltered spot, such as the clift of a rock or the foot of some precipitous bank. In a very short time he is eff cealed by the heavy snowdrifts. Some- times the bear waits until after a heavy fall of snow, and then digs a white cavern of the requisite form size. Such is hie hoe for six months. r common | cottontail, or so- called rabbit, does not live in a burrow as does the English rabbit, but makes a slight depression in the ground, in which she lies so Ratly Pressed to the earth as to be scarcely nguishable fiom the dried herbage in which her abode is sit- ; uated. The rabbit is strongly attached ' to its home wherever it may be and, even if driven to a great distance from it, contrives to regain its little domicile at the earliest opportunity. One of the most gruesome among ani- mal homes is the wolf's den. This is simply a hole dug in the side of a bank or a small natural cave, generally situated ‘on the sunny side of a ridge, and almost hidden by bushes and loose boulders. , Here the wolf lies snug; in and about his doorway lie the remains of past feasts, which, coupled with his own odor, makes the wolf's den a not very inviting place. Nevertheless there is something so dread and mysterious about this soft-footed { marauder that it even lends a fascina- | tion to his home. A “fly-by-night’’ sort of home is that | our rung bob-white, yet it seems | to serve the purpose very well. Under | the broad, low bough of a small pine or cedar tree the flock take their night's repose. Quail, in retiring, always sit in a circle with their heads outward, and so they rest, presenting a barricade of sharp sya and sharper ears against possible anger. The home of the elegant little harvest mouse next claims our attention. It is built upon three or four rank grass stems and is situated a foot cr so from the ground. In form it is globular and about four inches in diameter, Itis composed of thin dry grass, is of nearly uniform substance, and open and airy in construc- tion. It shows great cleverness in this little animal, which is the smallest of mammals. The winter home of the American red deer is very interesting. When the snow begins to fly, the leader of the herd guides them to some sheltered spot where provender is plentiful. Here, as the snow falls, they pack it down, tramping out a considerable space, while about them the snow mounts higher and higher until they cannot get out if they would. From the main opening, or "yard," as it is call- ed, tramped-out paths lead to the nearby trees and shrubbery, which supply them with food. In this way they manage to pass the winter in comparative peace and safety. One could go on enumerating bird and animal homes by the score, and they would all be of interest. The present space, however, will not permit of going further. The writer has, therefore, sim- ply described some of the more curious of the homes, as well as those ting the widest contrast.—St. Ni The Outdoor School. The outdoor school for sickly children is becomi a feature of many cities. New York authorized the opening of twenty such schools, two of which are coming general throughout the coun- try. 's school is on the roof of an a in a park; Providence abandoned school-house; in Rochester, the schoo RISTRed In & tent, is now ia a portable building; schools in Chica- go and Hartford are both held in army tents, one on a roof the other in the gropmis ef an old estate. ‘ Among most interesting of open- a Ie ase ded deen —Visitor-—~Have you men of varied bent here? Jailer—Well, most of "ems crooks. i “Rot until they have located a place to —Subscribe for the WATCHMAN.