Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1912)

BEFORE A BOOK WAS WRITTEN 27 wild cry, and both lowered their bows, as tho the voice of God had called them. They looked each into the other's white face, each one more frightened than you would be to see the moon fall in the sky. "Is that a wolf?" whispered Dagban. "N-no, it is a woman!" Eric answered, breathing deeply. They stood still, even as the bear stumbled into a thicket and out of sight. "0 o-o-o ! oo-o-o !" came the cry again. Unmistakably it was the soft cry of a woman. A woman! Quick as a flash they turned and sped away in its direction. There was a time when it was something to hear a woman 's voice. The novelty now is not to hear one. Eric was the first there, and fell upon his bare knees in the snow beside her. Delicately and tenderly he put his arm under her shoulders and lifted up her head. Her beauty smote upon his heart; he tried to speak to her, but only stuttered. The impulse to crush her against his breast was all but overpowering him, when he heard the voice of Dagban growling, and saw his glittering eyes fixed fiercely upon the girl's form. "Is she alive?" panted Dagban. Eric answered, "Yes." With one mighty sweep of his powerful arm, Dagban brushed his brother aside. "Let me have her!" he cried, "and you — you see to the man!" pointing to the precipice. "The girl is mine!" he screamed. Eric, dazed, obeyed. He walked over and looked down, and returned, his face full of horror. "He lies at the bottom — dead ! ' ' cried Eric. But Dagban did not so much as look up. He was smoothing the warm skin of the girl 's rosy arms, pinching her cheeks, and calling upon her to open her eyes. He pressed her to his body. But she was limp. He felt her heart beating with his huge hand, then rubbed snow into her face. Eric, his fine lips trembling, his knees knocking together, turned away, sick to the marrow. He went on down the side of the precipice, to the place where Aleric's white face smiled up at the sky. A long time Eric looked upon him, then covered the body with snow. His face turned upward and spoke a word to the God behind the gray cloud that spread out over the earth. Turning, he climbed back. Dagban had carried the girl away. Eric saw him running with her in his arms, and followed after. Dagban ran straight home with her. Inside the cave, he dropped Chloe upon a skin rug, and told his mother her story. Startling as it all was, Else saw, with the eyes of her heart, another story more startling — the story then beginning, and even now a strange hate nibbled at the confines of her soul — a hate of Chloe that had no reason in it. As Dagban told the story, Eric kneeled beside the girl and gazed upon her face. Her eyes opened in that moment and looked straight into his troubled heart. Instantly he smiled, and so did Chloe. "Poor girl!" whispered Eric, taking her into his arms. Dagban saw it. He reached down and pulled her to her feet by his side, one arm about her waist. He ground his teeth at Eric. "Keep your hands cff this woman ! " he growled, savagely. "She is mine, I say! I love her!" He clutched at the faltering Eric, but Else, her own face ablaze, caught his arm. Eric faced all three. "Very well, good brother," he said, softly. "I love her, too — but I will not make you angry. Let her choose between us. This is only fair — is it not, mother?" Chloe, crying, crying for two strange reasons, strange because they both urged her heart in the same moment— that her father was dead, and that she heard Eric say he loved her — dropped her head upon her breast. Dagban 's grip upon her arm hurt, the meaning in his eye frightened her. Under her wet lashes she looked appeal to Eric, to Else. Had Eric in that moment reached his hand to Chloe, Dagban must have struck him dead, so furious was his rage, so jealous his heart.