The Scarlet Plague

rested across it in a green wave of trees and bushes. The trail was as narrow as a man's body, and was no more than a wild-animal runway. Occasionally, a piece of rusty iron, showing throu

filled with gravel and rotten leaves, so that now the crumbling, rotten timber thrust itself up

ge of stained and dirty-white hair. A visor, ingeniously made from a large leaf, shielded his eyes, and from under this he peered at the way of his feet on the trail. His beard, which should have been snow-white but which showed the same weather-wear and camp-stain as his hair, fel

ged-edged piece of bear-skin, with a hole in the middle through which he had thrust his head. He could not have been more than twelve y

to bore into aft about him in a way that was habitual. As he went along he smelled things, as well, his distended, quivering nostrils carrying to his brain an endless series of messages from the outside world. Also, his hearing was acute, and had been so trained that it operated automatically. Without conscious effort, he heard all the s

top of the embankment, arose a crackling sound, and the boy's gaze was fixed on the tops of the agitated bushes. Then a large bear, a grizzly, crashed into view, and likewise stopped abruptly, at

tability, the boy, with a movement of his head, indicated that the old man must step aside from the trail and go down the embankment. The boy followed, going backward, still holding th

Granser," h

an shook

aid of his life on the way to the Cliff House. When I was a boy, Edwin, men and women and little babies used to come out here from San Francisco b

money,

hand into a pouch under his bear-skin and pulled forth a battered and tarnished

"You look and see if you c

oy la

delightedly, "always making believe

med chagrin as he brought the coi

ited States by the Board of Magnates. It must have been one of the last coins minted, for the Scarlet Death came in 2013. Lord! L

tolerant curiousness one accords to the pratt

herdin' goats down near San José last spring. Hoo-

tighter grip and urged along the t

s, mighty good eating when you've no more teeth and you've got grandsons that love

ily through the creeping vines which overran it. Beyond, crouching by a bush, a rabbit looked across at him in trembling hesitancy. Fully fifty feet was the distance, but the arrow flashed true; and the transfixed rabbit, crying out in sudden fright and hurt, struggled painfully away into the brush. The boy himself was a flash of brown s

uavered, "but when it comes to a toothsome

no sense?" Edwin impatiently interrupte

ural and explosive and economical of qualifying phrases. His speech showed distant kinship with that of the

call crab 'toothsome delicacy'? Crab is crab, ain't

by a wolfish-looking dog that was only faintly reminiscent of a collie, was watching them. Mingled with the roar of the surf was a continuous, deep-throated barking or bellowing, which came from a cluster of jagged rocks a hundred yards out from shore. Here h

his pace, sniffing eager

d ain't that a crab, Hoo-Hoo? Ain't that a crab?

arently of the same

t, Granser.

e heat had forced its shells apart, and the meat, salmon-colored, was thoroughly cooked. Between thumb and forefinger, in trembling haste, he caught the morsel and carri

t was excruciatingly funny, and they burst into loud laughter. Hoo-Hoo danced up and down, whi

of his grief, making no attempt to wipe away the tears that still flowed fro

shells and exuding their moisture. They were large shellfish, running from three to six inches in

id not laugh at our eld

king loud mouth-noises and lip-smackings. The third boy, who was called Hare-Lip, slyly deposited a pinch of sand on a mussel the ancient was carrying to his mouth; and when the grit of it bit into the old fellow's muco

o?" Edwin demanded. "Granse

ll with legs and all complete, but the meat had long since departed. With shaky fingers and

-Hoo?" he waile

r. They ain't no crab

s. Then, unnoticed, Hoo-Hoo replaced the empty shell with a fresh-cooked crab. Already dismembered, from the cracked legs th

customed spectacle. Nor did they notice his occasional exclamations and utterances of phrases which meant nothing to them, as, for instance, when he smacked his lips and champed his gums while mutt

s hands on his naked legs, and gazed out over the sea.

old. And out there on the sea were ships and ships always to be seen, going in for the Golden Gate or coming out. And airships in the air-dirigibles and flying machines. They could travel two hundred miles an hour. The mail contracts with the New York and San Francisco Limited demanded that for the minimum. There was a chap, a Frenchman, I forget his name, w

e greater portion of the words he used. It was noticeable that in these rambling soliloquies his English seemed to recrudesce into bett

great delicacies. The open season was only a month long, too. And now crabs are accessible the whole year ar

ir human protectors. A half dozen forms, lean and gray, glided about on the sand hillocks and faced the bristling dogs. Edwin arched an arrow that fell short. But Hare-Lip, with a sling such as David carried int

ghed ponderously. He had eaten too much, and, with hands clasped

wild vegetation. And then he passed, and the flood of primordial life rolled back again, sweeping his handiwork away-the weeds and the forest inundated his fields, the beasts of prey swept over his flocks, and now there are wolves on the Cliff House beach." He was

had caught H

hat," he said to Edwi

shake me like the cry of bugle

w it because you come from the Chauffeur Tribe. They never

umbled. "Then what's the good of ge

t nobody knows?" he asked. "Scarlet ain't anythi

y turned scarlet in an hour's time. Don't I know? Didn't I see enough of it? And I am telli

bstinately. "My dad calls red red, and he ought

uffeurs? Your grandsire was a chauffeur, a servant, and without education. He worked for other persons. But your grandmother was

ucation?" E

t from his dad afore he croaked, that your wife was a Santa Rosan, an' that she was sure no account. He said s

his head in to

daughter. Women were very scarce in the days after the Plague. She was the only wife I could find, even if

wife of the first C

ady?" Hoo-H

r squaw," was the qui

Worden. He was President of the Board of Industrial Magnates, and was one of the dozen men who ruled America. He was worth one billion, eight hundred millions of dollars-coins lik

small hole he had dug. The other two boys joined him, excavating the sand rapidly with their hands till there lay three skeletons ex

last days. This must have been a family, running away from the contagion a

using the back of his hunting knife, began to knoc

ing 'em," was

d quite a knocking and hammering arose

doomed to sink back farther and farther into the primitive night ere again it begins its bloody climb upward to civilization. When we increase and feel the lack of room, we will proceed to kill one another. An

-Lip remarked, when, the teeth all extract

s and short jerky sentences that was more a gibberish than a language. And yet, through it ran hints of grammatical construction, and appeared vestiges of the conjugation of some super

d itself into pure English. The sentences grew longer and were enunciat

" Hare-Lip demanded, when the teeth af

Death," Edw

went on. "Talk sensible, Granser, like a Santa Rosan o