Picture-Play Weekly (Apr-Oct 1915)

20 PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY The leopard had been the only living creature near the spot, and it had goneFar from desiring any longer to carry out his intention of following the animal to take another shot at it, Higgens threw down the rifle with a shudder at the thought of doing so. He passed a shaking hand over his brow, and it came away wet with a cold perspiration. "I'll keep my mouth shut — that's all I've got to do !" he whispered to himself. "We're going away to-morrow, and if I don't say anything, nobody'll know I had anything to do with it." Turning, he leaped back over the hedge and walked on along the trail toward the camp. Kirke Warren had already returned clared, in keen disappointment. "Some one of the thieving Zulus, I suppose, crept into the camp while we were both away from it and stole it. I wouldn't have lost that rifle for its weight in gold — it was more precious than that to me, as the last gift my father ever made me. I wish I knew where it was right now" -At that moment, the rifle was in the hands of Mrs. Birch. Two of the Kroo boys who worked on the farm had come upon their master as they were passing through the jungle. Making a rude litter, they had brought him in to the farm, taking the rifle which they had found on the ground beside him along with them. 'So I've got you back again!" murmured Kirke, aloud, revealing to Elsa that the rifle was his. to it, he found, upon his arrixal. The painter looked up from the easel he was dismounting and packing away, to inquire where he had been. Higgens made the noncommittal reply that he had gone for a walk. Fifteen minutes later, his master appeared in the door of his tent. "Where's my rifle, Higgens, do you know ?" he asked. The servant could feel his mouth go dry. "Isn't it in the tent, sir?" he suggested. "No, it isn't!'' answered Kirke, with mounting impatience. "I've been hunting for it, high and low. You haven't touched it, have you ? I warned you never to do so " "I haven't seen it, sir," Higgens lied. "Then it's gone !" the young man de Elsa Birch read the initials on the name plate: "K. W.'' She did not know to whom they belonged ; but then and there she vowed that she would one day find out. Whoever owned the rifle, she believed, had murdered her husband, who had never had a single enemy. And she swore to be revenged upon the person, if it took the remainder of her life. The next day, wholly in ignorance of the calamity that had befallen the Birch household, Kirke Warren and his servant left Africa — never expecting to return to it. -A 3ear had gone by, and half of another. .\nd once more Kirke W^arren was back in Africa. Something — he did not dare admit what it was, even to himself — had drawn him there. The truth of the matter was. he had fallen in love with his friend Birch's wife the moment he had first set eyes on her. He had been far too honorable to seek to win her away from the man to whom she was happily married, even had he believed that such a thing would have been possible, which she had given him no cause to suppose from her manner toward himself was the case. He had never betrayed, by so much as a word or a look, what his secret feelings toward her were, during all the time he had known the Birches on the occasion of his first visit to Africa. But, since his return to America, he had been made increasingly restless by a feeling that he was deferring his life's happiness ever\' moment he passed away irom that distant spot. If he went back — it was odd, the feeling he had that he would learn of something to his immense interest. There was no way he could explain the presentiment. It had persistently haunted him, that was all. Abruptly, one day, he had ordered Higgens to secure passage for thenboth, and a fortnight later he hac pitched their camp in the exact spot irl the jungle which he had pre\'iously occupied. I And then he went to pay a call at thtl Birches' farm. From Elsa's own lips he heard for th( first time that she was now a widow He came away from his visit with her treading on air. There was no longe: anj barrier to prevent his telling her o the love he bore her. The feeling hi had had, in America, that there was ; piece of most important news waitin; for him here, had not been a false one This was it — she was free to listen t< him, when he chose to speak his heart It rested with him whether he could wii her or not. He believed that he couk At all events, he meant to leave n' stone unturned in an effort to do so. From that time on, he spent ever moment he could in her society. Sh would have had to be blind not to gues his feelings toward her now. He wa her avowed suitor ; at her beck and cal every hour of the day. And she? Wei if her heart had not already succumbe to the fervor of his wooing, it was dan gerously near to doing so. It was one day while some guests wer at the farm that a lion hunt was pre