IV
ABOUT two o'clock that afternoon Sayre rushed into camp with his scantyhair on end.
Langdon, who had been attempting to boil a blank-book for dinner, gazedat him in consternation.
"What is it? Bears, William?" he asked fearfully. "D-d-don't bef-f-frightened; I'll stand by you."
"It isn't bears, you simp! I've just unearthed the most colossalconspiracy of the century! Curtis, things are happening in these woodsthat are incredible, abominable, horrible----"
"_What_ is happening?" faltered Langdon, turning paler. "Murder?"
"Worse! They've got Willett and the others! She admitted it to me----"
"Hey?"
"Willett and Carrick and the others!" shouted Sayre, gesticulating."They've caught 'em all! She said so! I----"
"They? She? Who's caught what? Who's 'they'? What it is? Who's 'she'?What are you talking about, anyway?"
"Amourette told me----"
"Amourette? Who the deuce is Amourette?"
"I don't know. Shut up! My head's spinning like a gyroscope. All I knowis that I want to marry her and she won't let me--and I believe she wouldif I had a reliable hair-restorer and wasn't near-sighted--but she ranaway and got inside the fence and locked the gate."
"Are you drunk?" demanded Langdon, "or merely frolicsome?"
"_I_ don't know. I guess I am. I'm about everything else. What do I knowabout anything anyway? Nothing!"
He began to run around in circles; Langdon, having seen similar symptomsin demented cats, regarded him with growing alarm.
"I tell you it's an outrageous social condition which tolerates suchdoings!" shouted Sayre. "It's a perfectly monstrous state of things! Ninehandsome men out of ten are fatheads! I told her so! I tried to point outto her--but she wouldn't listen--she wouldn't listen!"
Langdon stared at him, jaw agape. Then:
"Quit that ghost-dancing and talk sense," he ventured.
"Do you think that men are going to stand for it?" yelled Sayre, wavinghis hands, "ordinary, decent, God-fearing, everyday young men like youand me? If this cataclysmic cult gains ground among American women--ifthese exasperating suffragettes really intend to carry out any suchprogramme, everybody on earth will resemble everybody else--like thosewax figures marked 'neat,' 'imported,' and 'nobby'! And I told Amourettethat, too; but she wouldn't listen--she wouldn't lis--My God! _Why_ am Ibald?"
He swung his arms like a pair of flails and advanced distractedly uponLangdon, who immediately retreated.
"Come back here," he said. "I want to picture to you the horrors that aregoing on in your native land! You ought to know. You've got to know!"
"Certainly, old man," quavered Langdon, keeping a tree between them. "Butdon't come any closer or I'll scream."
"Do you think I'm nutty?"
"Oh, not at all--not _at_ all," said Langdon soothingly. "Probably thewafers disagreed with you."
"Curtis, wouldn't it rock any man's equilibrium to fall head over heelsin love with a girl inside of ten minutes? I merely ask you, man to man."
"It sure would, dear friend----"
"And then to see that divine girl almost ready to love you in return--seeit perfectly, plainly? And have her tell you that she could learn to carefor you if your hair wasn't so thin and you didn't wear eye-glasses? ByJinks! That was _too_ much! I'll leave it to you--_wasn't_ it?"
Langdon swallowed hard and watched his friend fixedly.
"And then," continued Sayre, grinding his teeth, "_then_ she told meabout Willett!"
"Hey?"
"Oh, the whole thing is knocked in the head from a newspaper standpoint.They've all written home. They're married--or on the point of it----"
"What!"
"But that isn't what bothers me. What do I care about this job, or anyother job, since I've seen the only girl on earth that I could ever stayhome nights for! And to think that she ran away from me and I'm never tosee her again because I'm near-sighted and partly bald!"
He waved his arms distractedly.
"But, by the gods and demons!" he cried, "I'm not going to stand for hergoing hunting with that man-net! If she catches any insufferable pup init I'll go insane!"
Langdon's eyes rolled and he breathed heavily.
"Old man," he ventured, kindly, "don't you think you'd better lie downand try to take a nice little nap----"
Sayre instantly chased him around the tree and caught him.
"Curt," he said savagely, "get over the idea that there's anything thematter with me mentally except love and righteous indignation. I _am_ inlove; and it hurts. I'm indignant, because those people are treating mysex with an outrageous and high-handed effrontery that would bring theblush of impotent rage to any masculine cheek!"
"What people?" said the other warily. "You needn't answer till you getyour wits back."
"They're back, Curt; that twelve-foot fence of heavy elephant-proof wirewhich we noticed in the forest day before yesterday isn't the fencing toa game park. It encloses a thousand acres belonging to the New RaceUniversity. Did you know that?"
"What's The New Race University?" asked Langdon, astonished.
"You won't believe it--but, Curtis, it's a reservation for the--thep-p-propagation of a new and s-s-symmetrically p-p-proportioned race ofg-g-god-like human beings! It's a deliberate attempt at cold-bloodedscientific selection--an insult to every bald-headed, near-sighted,thin-shanked young man in the United States!"
"William," said the other, coaxingly, "you had better lie down and let memake some wafer soup for you."
"You listen to me. I'm getting calmer now. I want to tell you about theseNew Race women and their University and Amourette and Reginald Willettand the whole devilish business."
"Is there--is there really such a thing, William? You would not tell me abind like that just to make a goat of me, would you?"
"No, I wouldn't. There _is_ such a thing."
"Did you see it?"
"No, I----"
"How do you know?"
"Amourette told me--shamelessly, defiantly, adorably! It was organised insecret out of the most advanced and determined as well as the mosthealthy, vigorous, and physically beautiful of all the suffragettes inNorth America. One of their number happened to own a thousand acres herebefore the State took the rest for its park. And here they have come,dozens and dozens of them--to attend the first summer session of the NewRace University."
"Is--is there actually a University in these woods?"
"There is."
"Buildings?" demanded Langdon, amazed.
"No, burrows. Isn't that the limit? Curt, believe me, they live in caves.It's their idea of being vigorous and simple and primitive. Their cult isthe cave woman. They have classes; they study and recite and exercise andcook and play auction bridge. Their object is to hasten not onlypolitical enfranchisement, but the era of a physical and intellectualequality which will permit them to mate as they choose and people thisrepublic with perfect progeny. Every girl there is pledged to mate onlywith the very pick of physical masculine perfection. Their pledge is tobuild up a new, god-like race on earth, which ultimately will dominate,crush out, survive, and replace all humanity which has becomedegenerate. Nothing mentally or physically or politically imperfect ispermitted inside that wire fence. My eye-glasses bar me out; your shanksexclude you--also your politics, because you're a democrat."
"That's monstrous!" exclaimed Langdon, indignantly.
"More monstrous still, these disciples of the New Race movement aremilitant! Their audacity is unbelievable! Certain ones among them, adeptsin woodcraft, have now begun to range this forest with nets. What do youthink of that! And when they encounter a young fellow who agrees with theremorseless standard of perfection set up by the University, they stalkhim and net him! They've got four so far. And now it's Amourette's turnto go out!"
Langdon's teeth chattered.
"W-w-what are they g-going to do with their captures?"
"Marry them!"
"Willett? And Carrick a
nd----"
"Yes. Isn't it awful, Curt?"
"Was she the girl with the net in the photo? I mean, was that her hand?"
"No; that was a friend of her's who bagged Willett. Amourette started outyesterday for the first time after--well, I suppose you'd call it 'biggame.' She saw me, stalked me, got near enough to see my glasses, and letme go. And to-day, thinking that she might have been mistaken and thatperhaps I only wore sun-glasses, she came back. But I was ass enough totake off my cap to her, and she saw my hair--saw where it wasn't--andthat settled it."
"What a mortifying thing to happen to you, William."
"I should think so. There's nothing unusual the matter with me. Caesar wasbald. It's idiotic to bar a man out because he has fewer hairs than thenext man. And the exasperating part of it is that I believe I could winher if I had half a chance."
"Of course you could. If she's any good as a sport, she'd rather haveyou, hairless myopiac that you are, than a tailor's dummy."
Sayre said: "Isn't it a terrible thing, Curtis, to think of that sweet,lovely young girl pledged to a scientific life like that? P-pledged top-p-propagate p-p-perfection?"
"What a mean-spirited creature that fellow Willett must be," observedLangdon in disgust; "and the other three--Ugh!"
"Why?"
"To tamely submit to being kidnapped and woo'd and wed that way--endurethe degradation of a captivity among all those young girls----"
Sayre said: "Would _you_ call for help if kidnapped?"
Langdon gazed into space: "I wonder," he murmured.
Sayre looked at him searchingly.
"I don't believe you'd make the welkin ring with your yelps. It'sprobably the same with those four men."
"Probably."
"I don't suppose those suffragettes of the New Race University reallyrequire any fence there to keep those men in."
"No; only to keep the rest of us out."
"The chances are that Willett and that poet Carrick and De Lancy Smithand Alphonso W. Green couldn't be chased out of that University."
"Those _are_ the chances. How I hate those four men. It's curious,William, that no man can ever tolerate the idea of any other man evergetting solid with any looker. I always did dislike to see another manwith a pretty girl. . . . William?"
"What?"
"Think of the concentrated beauty in that University! Think of that richround-up of creamy dreams! Consider that mellifluous marmalade! And--wecan't have any--because _you_ are slightly bald and near-sighted and _I_am thin and scholarly!" He ran at the camp-kettle and kicked it.
After a painful silence Sayre said timidly: "Don't laugh, but _is_ thereany known substance which will bring in hair?"
"You mean bring it out?"
"Well, dammit, grow it! Is there?"
"There are too many bald monarchs and millionaires to prove the contrary.Nor is there anything that can make my thin shanks fatter."
"--I'd be willing to go about without glasses," said Sayre humbly. "Itold her so."
"Couldn't you deceive her with a wig? It wouldn't matter afterward. Afteryou're once married let her shriek."
"Amourette _saw_ my head." And he hung it in bitter dejection.
"Come on," said Langdon cheerily. "Let's peek through their fence and seewhat happens. Much has been done with a merry eye in this world ofhaughty ladies."
As they turned away into the woods Sayre clenched his fists.
"I'd like to knock the collective blocks off those four young men insidethat fence. And--to think--to _think_ of Amourette going out againto-morrow, man hunting, with her net! I can't endure it, Curt--I simplycan't."
Langdon looked at his friend in deep commiseration.
"I wish I could help you, William--but I don'tsee--I--don't--exactly--see----" He hesitated. "Of course I _could_ go toUtica and pay a wig-maker and costumer to make me up into the kind ofCharlie-Gussie they're looking for at that University. . . . And whenyour best girl goes out hunting, she'll see me and net me, and you can bein hiding near by, and rush out and net her."
In their excitement they seized each other and danced.
"Why not?" exclaimed Langdon. "Shall I try? Trust me to come back aspecimen of sickening symmetry--the kind of man women write about anddraw pictures of--pink and white and silky-whiskered! Shall I? And I'llbring you a net to catch her in! Is it a go, William?"
Sayre broke down and began to cry.
"Heaven bless you, friend," he sobbed. "And if ever I get that girlinside a net she'll learn something about natural selection that theyp-p-probably forgot to teach in their accursed New Race University!"