A SHORT STORY.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15157, 17 February 1922, Page 7

A SHORT STORY.

THE BEAR-TAMER S DAUGHTER. A TALE OF LOVE AND DARING (By Konrad Bercovici.) When Margarita was fourteen years old it so happened that her father’s catches that spring had been only mortaciunas, dead ones, kittens. It was a pity to waste cowhide on them. The winter had been a very long one alter a. very wet fall and the bears were so weak from prolonged hibernation and hunger that they looked more like sheep than man-eating beasts. Margarita had hoped every day for a “real live one.” But no. Mortaciunas they were, every one of them. While her father was away she stalked, whip in hand, from one bear to the other, teased them hit them, now gave them pieces of raw meat to awaken their taste foi blood, lassoed the playful cubs from their mothers to stir theii savagery, but to no avail. Occassionally some female would shoot out a paw and give a tug at the chain, one end of which was dangling from a ring pierced Through her nose. Margarita’s hopes would rise and she would scream for joy in a dozen endearing names, yet a second application of the- whip would hardly stir the bear from its place. And when the spring came to a close and the wild bears left the gullies and valleys and climbed the tops of the mountains for sheep deer and wild goat, father and daughter had no excitement. The taming done and most of the bears sold, Costa went carousing from inn to inn, from village to village, drinking, . carousing, playing ' cards and fighting with other gypsies, sometimes on the Rumanian side of the mountains and at other times on the Hungarian side, working up some excitement for himself by outwitting the frontier guards posted on either side of the Carpathians. He returned home once in a while to inquire how things went; if any of the bears needed private schooling. But if such a state had come to pass, Margarita had already attended to it and was nothing more to be done.

Margarita' was far from being satisfied. She could have picked quarrels with her brothers, who came occasionally to visit her, or the husbands of her half-sisters, but they were all “old women, well-fed, satisfied traders. Nor was there any fun in quarreling with the tziganes who came to buy tamed bears. She threw insults to theii teeth. “Why don’t you hunt for your own bears 1 You only want tame bears because you are tame men yourselves. You are tame men yourselves." They did not answer her. They told her she had pretty eyes and beautiful teeth, that her arms were round and brown. Some playfully inquired how she would like it if they would buy her from her father. But that was all.

“Sell me to you ? Sell me to you ? Sell a, tiger to a lamb? I would tear you to pieces. 2SI o, I would not. I would ju&t spit, at you. Like that, na, ptui” . “Well,, no, J would riot buy you. I would not take you for a gift,” she was answered. “Of course you would not. .You are afraid. I dai’e you. You buy tame bears. This one here, I tamed him. You could eat from one plate with him now. Or better buy this one here. He was born tame. As you were. His father was a lamb as yours was. That’s the kind you want.. You buy them tamed. Even your women you buy tamed. Why don’t you hunt for them ? You are afraid. You buy them at the end of a l’ope. Tied, cowed.” She teased, she dared. In vain. Men looked at her from the corner of their eye but avoided her, and no one seriously inquired of her father whether she was for sale or not.

One early morning, the time of the year when leaves were fluttering in the brumal air, when frost, the shadow of winter, sits on the fox grapes and plums, Petrackio, the son of TTrsu, the bear tamer, entered the gully where lived Costa and his daughter. TJurs, the bear-tamer, was an old competitor of Costa's. Hi? establishment was twenty miles from there. The two bear-tamers wci’e deadly enemies, and it was known that if the two should ever meet alone in the mountains but one should return. That Ursu’s son, Petrackio, should venture to Costa's gully was the height of audacity. What brought him there was the fact that his father had been away for more than two weeks and no one had seen him. Sure that Costa, had killed him, the boy came to avenge his father. Petrackio and Margarita had never seen each other. The young gypsy

while without perceiving anyone, it was Sunday. Suddenly Margarita came out ot the tent, ana yawned as she stretched her arms high over her head.

“Hey, you!” he called to her. “Is your father dead or is he hibernating already V’ “JNo/ she answered; “he is milking the goat for babies who have lost themselves in the mountains.' As she spoke she came nearer to the young gypsy and looked him straight in the eye. His was a new face. The boy stood straight, with feet well apart, neck bent forward, and lips drawn away from the teeth. Margarita was thrilled. IT was a “live one,” one that should fight the whole summer. She had longed for a bear who would not tame easily and she almost ran for her whip after one good look at the boy. She had never before seen a face that promised more fight, more sport, than that now before her.

“A;nd who are you ?” he asked the girl as he returned her tierce glances. “1 am Costa’s daughter,” she answered, without moving an inch. “And who are you? Have you come to buy a tame bear ?” she mocked, “one who dances as soon as you say 'nmrtino,' like this, like that?” “I want none of your puppets. When I want a bear I go and get him in his lair with my bare hands” the youth answered. Then after a while he continued narrowing his eyes as he spoke: "So you are Margarita, Costa’s daughter! So you are Margarita! So—so! The daughter of that Cherkez woman. SSo so ! Well, I am Petrackio, Ursu’s son. And I have come for revenge. Where is your father?” Margarita knew well what the trouble was. She also knew that her father had been away to the Dorbrudja more than a month and had returned only the night before.' She could have said so and assured Petrackio. 1 Instead of that she laughed loudly, tossing her head this way and that, then hissing between her teeth, with neck stretching out toward the boy: “Why don’t you wait another twenty years when my father will be lame and blind, and fight him! Why, Ursu’s son, that was between old men. If you want to fight, why not fight me ?” “You, a girl!” It drew fire. In a flash Margarita was in her tent and back. She held her whip in one hand when she returned. Her body was as taut as a steel spring. “So that’s what you think of me? Not good enough to fight with? 1 will show you who i am.” Chained to a stout tree, not far rfom where they were, a huge brown she-bear was standing on its haunches and grunting. Before Petrackio had known what had happened, Margarita, with one tug at the chain, had torn the ring from the nose of the bear. Bellowing from the depths of its lungs, the bleeding animal chai’ged ahead, kicking, pawing, shaking its head viciously back and forth as it charged the girl whose only weapon was the cowhide whip in her hand. When the bear was near enough she let the whip fall upon its head again and again. Her arm worked like a piston rod. The bear repeated its charge, yet the girl gave no ( ground but kept whipping the beast over the head until it reeled and retreated to seek shelter behind its tree.

“Will you fight me now V’ Margarita asked, turning savagely on the boy who had not moved from his place. “No,” he said. “I won’t fight a woman.” “It is because you are afraid. You want to fight an old man.” “Afraid, I'? Have you ever heard of Petrackio! I will fight a dozen of your brothers. The whole tribe of your men.” “We have no men, only old women ; fight nxe if you dare. Here I begin,” and Margarita brought her whip across the boy’s face.

It was as if a thousand bees had stung him. It was as if a swiftly turning wheed had been set on fire. Before Margarita had time to know what happened her whip had been jerked loose from her hand and she was thrown face downward in the dirt. Betrackio’s knee was between her, shoulders, holding her down as one holds a squirming, wriggling, snake. Margarita felt the cold steel blade as it touched the back of her neck and thought the last breath was near. ' (To be Continued.)