Moon-Face and Other Stories | Page 6

I guess she's a widow
now. Oh! Ho! ho! E! he! he! Ho!" he whooped after me, and I turned
and fled swiftly over the hill.
The week passed by, and on Saturday evening I said to him, "You go
away Monday, don't you?"
He nodded his head and grinned.
"Then you won't have another chance to get a mess of those trout you
just 'dote' on."

But he did not notice the sneer. "Oh, I don't know," he chuckled. "I'm
going up to-morrow to try pretty hard."
Thus was assurance made doubly sure, and I went back to my house
hugging myself with rapture.
Early next morning I saw him go by with a dip-net and gunnysack, and
Bellona trotting at his heels. I knew where he was bound, and cut out
by the back pasture and climbed through the underbrush to the top of
the mountain. Keeping carefully out of sight, I followed the crest along
for a couple of miles to a natural amphitheatre in the hills, where the
little river raced down out of a gorge and stopped for breath in a large
and placid rock-bound pool. That was the spot! I sat down on the croup
of the mountain, where I could see all that occurred, and lighted my
pipe.
Ere many minutes had passed, John Claverhouse came plodding up the
bed of the stream. Bellona was ambling about him, and they were in
high feather, her short, snappy barks mingling with his deeper
chest-notes. Arrived at the pool, he threw down the dip-net and sack,
and drew from his hip-pocket what looked like a large, fat candle. But I
knew it to be a stick of "giant"; for such was his method of catching
trout. He dynamited them. He attached the fuse by wrapping the "giant"
tightly in a piece of cotton. Then he ignited the fuse and tossed the
explosive into the pool.
Like a flash, Bellona was into the pool after it. I could have shrieked
aloud for joy. Claverhouse yelled at her, but without avail. He pelted
her with clods and rocks, but she swam steadily on till she got the stick
of "giant" in her mouth, when she whirled about and headed for shore.
Then, for the first time, he realized his danger, and started to run. As
foreseen and planned by me, she made the bank and took out after him.
Oh, I tell you, it was great! As I have said, the pool lay in a sort of
amphitheatre. Above and below, the stream could be crossed on
stepping-stones. And around and around, up and down and across the
stones, raced Claverhouse and Bellona. I could never have believed that
such an ungainly man could run so fast. But run he did, Bellona
hot-footed after him, and gaining. And then, just as she caught up, he in

full stride, and she leaping with nose at his knee, there was a sudden
flash, a burst of smoke, a terrific detonation, and where man and dog
had been the instant before there was naught to be seen but a big hole in
the ground.
"Death from accident while engaged in illegal fishing." That was the
verdict of the coroner's jury; and that is why I pride myself on the neat
and artistic way in which I finished off John Claverhouse. There was no
bungling, no brutality; nothing of which to be ashamed in the whole
transaction, as I am sure you will agree. No more does his infernal
laugh go echoing among the hills, and no more does his fat moon-face
rise up to vex me. My days are peaceful now, and my night's sleep
deep.

THE LEOPARD MAN'S STORY
He had a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes, and his sad, insistent voice,
gentle-spoken as a maid's, seemed the placid embodiment of some
deep-seated melancholy. He was the Leopard Man, but he did not look
it. His business in life, whereby he lived, was to appear in a cage of
performing leopards before vast audiences, and to thrill those audiences
by certain exhibitions of nerve for which his employers rewarded him
on a scale commensurate with the thrills he produced.
As I say, he did not look it. He was narrow-hipped, narrow-shouldered,
and anaemic, while he seemed not so much oppressed by gloom as by a
sweet and gentle sadness, the weight of which was as sweetly and
gently borne. For an hour I had been trying to get a story out of him,
but he appeared to lack imagination. To him there was no romance in
his gorgeous career, no deeds of daring, no thrills--nothing but a gray
sameness and infinite boredom.
Lions? Oh, yes! he had fought with them. It was nothing. All you had
to do was