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Jack Forest's life was rich and full to overflowing with the things of this world which are generally considered to make for happiness and culture. Into the measure of his life, the comparatively short span of thirty-five years, had been crowded a wealth of incident and experience that seldom falls to the lot of the most fortunate men in this commercialized era whose tendency is to pull nations like individuals down to a common level of mediocrity, and seems bent upon extinguishing even their few remaining national traits and characteristics.

Born in Washington and a graduate of Harvard, he had traveled to the four corners of the earth, and hunted big game from the arctic circle to the equator. During a winter's sojourn in Egypt he made the acquaintance of Lord X——, then Consul-General of Egypt, upon whose advice he entered the diplomatic service of his country. Five years were subsequently spent as first Secretary of the American legations in London and St. Petersburg. The enthusiasm with which he threw himself into the work and the natural executive ability which he displayed soon marked him as a coming man in diplomatic circles. But the speculations of his friends concerning his future career were destined to be rudely shattered by one of those inexplicable tricks of fate which, in the twinkling of an eye, so often change the lives of individuals.

The spirit of adventure which had lain dormant within him ever since his decision to adopt diplomacy as a profession was suddenly awakened by the outbreak of hostilities between Spain and the United States. Through the influence of his father, General Forest, a Civil War veteran, and that of his uncle, Colonel Van Ashton, retired, he received the appointment of Second Lieutenant of Volunteers and shipped with his regiment for Cuba. He was wounded at the battle of Santiago, though not seriously. At the close of the campaign in the West Indies his regiment was ordered to the Philippines, where, at the end of a year, he was promoted to a captaincy in the regular army. At this juncture in his career the sudden death of his father necessitated his return to America on leave of absence.

The estate to which he and his mother fell heirs was an unusually large one, the administration of which demanded his immediate and entire attention if they wished to keep their holdings intact. But as this was clearly incompatible to the life of a soldier, he was forced to resign from the army. He took this step without great reluctance, for brief though his career as a soldier had been, it was a brilliant and satisfactory one. It was not for the glory of the profession that he had entered the army, but purely in the spirit of the patriot; and he had fought his battles and returned with newly won laurels and a fund of interesting experiences. Besides, campaigning in the Philippines had convinced him that diplomacy, though perhaps not always so exciting, was preferable to a life whose daily routine was enlivened only by target practice, dress-parades and the occasional diversion of chasing naked men about in the bush.

As soon as the estate was settled it was his intention to reënter the diplomatic service for which he knew himself to be better fitted than before his two years experience in the army.

The bulk of the fortune consisted of mines in Mexico, whither he was called to superintend his interests. At the end of a year, however, he received word from his uncle informing him that the Ministry to Greece would be open to him if he chose to accept it. Jubilant over the prospect of reëntering the world of Diplomacy so soon, he immediately telegraphed his acceptance, and the following day addressed a letter to the girl he had known from his youth, Blanch Lennox, whose character, personal charm and ambition marked her as the one to share the future with him. There was as little doubt in his mind that she would accept him, as there was in hers that he would make the proposal; and when a week later, he received a telegram confirming his conjecture, the answer came as a matter of course.

The business at the mines was settled, but Mexico and her people were a new experience. Its vast expanse of plains, virgin forests and wild sierras lured him on; and in the company of a friend whose acquaintance he had made at the mines, he passed the remaining time left at his disposal traveling in the interior of the country, gathering data and visiting the wild tribes who, though of the same blood, were in characteristics a distinct people from the slavish peon classes. A people that have never actually submitted to the rule of the White man, and have held tenaciously to the ancient beliefs and customs of their forefathers.

He was impressed by the fact that, although living entirely independent of the outside world, they were nevertheless self-supporting and in certain instances had developed marked degrees of civilization.

He saw how they tended their flocks and fields, made their own clothes and articles of use, and wrought gold and silver ornaments embellished with native stones, and used the bow and arrow in the chase. They knew nothing of modern civilization. Their daily lives were sufficient unto them, and they were therefore happy. God seemed infinite and dwelt in their midst, and spoke to them from the dust as well as from the stars. But why was this? Why was life for them, in the natural course of events, so easy and simple, and so difficult and complicated for the civilized man?

His thoughts continually traveled back to the Eskimo of the frozen North, and to Africa and her sun-parched deserts and star-strewn skies with the roaming Bedouin in the background who regarded the earth as a footstool to be used only as a means to an end and houses as habitations fit only for slaves.

The picture he saw was not the ideal one—the emancipated man of whom men of all times have dreamed and to whose advent some men are still looking forward. But the care-free life of the primitive man set him thinking—opened his eyes to certain truths which, until now, he had failed to observe. Longings for the unattainable began to stir within him and take hold of him in a manner entirely new. Hazy, fragmentary glimpses of hitherto undreamed possibilities began to shape themselves in his mind. The immensity and profundity of the universe and the mysterious growth of its hidden life held and enthralled him.

The last word, he felt, had not yet been spoken. There was something lacking in the so-called civilized man's economy—a lack which his philosophy failed to account for, but which was not observable among animals and primitive men. There, the economy of the infinite cosmic mechanism which binds and holds all manifestations of life in one harmonious whole was too apparent to even suggest the detachment of a single form of life from this whole, but with the civilized man it was different. He alone seemed to have detached himself from this harmonious whole—his life stood out as a thing separate and apart from it. There seemed to be no permanent place for him in the economy of nature.

But how had this estrangement taken place? Why was he, the intellectually developed man, incapable of living in harmony with the universal law of life when it was so easy for the primitive man to do so? It was evident that he had lost his way somewhere along the path of normal development. Everything pointed to this—its signs were apparent to all who wished to see. Nature voiced it on every hand, in the forests and plains and on the mountain tops, and during the silence of night as he lay on the ground gazing at the stars overhead.

The wind that sighed among the ruined temples of the ancient races and the mountains that looked down upon them seemed to speak to him in the ever recurring refrain: "Behold the works and glories of men—we are enduring! The same wind that sighs among them this day, sang to them when their walls and pillars stood erect. The same mountains that shadowed them in the past, will still stand guard over the valleys in the days to come when the works of the present and future generations of men have passed away forever!"

He knew that these questions had been asked during countless generations, and that men were still asking them to-day. He knew also that man's situation in the universe was taking on a new aspect, and yet it was strange that such thoughts should absorb him, a man of the world, of the fighting type, whose wide experience with men and things had hitherto convinced him that the world, though not perfect, was good—that present progress made for good, and the best western civilization had thus far attained was probably about all men of the future could look forward to so far as happiness was concerned. These views, however, were no longer tenable if our arts, philosophies and scientific attainments fail to civilize and refine us. Clearly, modern man's conception of ethical progress was as deficient in certain respects as that of the great historic civilizations. The secret of right living had not yet been discovered. History proved this, and unless the trend of modern materialistic tendencies was supplanted by something higher, the same fate that overtook the Ancients must inevitably overtake us.

But the date of their wedding had been set, and the time for their departure for Athens was drawing nearer. Santa Fé lay a day's ride from the railroad. Instead of performing the journey in a single ride, he decided to pass the night at the hacienda of a friend, Don Felix de Tovar, some twelve miles distant from the old Spanish town. Thither he would ride during the cool of the evening, completing the remainder of the journey the following day. Between Santa Fé and Don Felix's hacienda lay the Indian pueblo, La Jara, situated some distance off the main road. By following the trail that led past this village, José explained, they would reduce the distance to Don Felix's rancho by at least two or three miles.

The country through which they traveled was broken and rugged. Twilight had descended upon the land, and as the two, following the trail that skirted the foothills, rode to the crest of the mesa upon which the village was situated, they came suddenly upon a woman riding at full gallop. The soft, sandy formation of the soil was such that neither heard the approach of the other, and all three reined in their horses with a jerk; the woman throwing hers well back upon its haunches; a high-strung, black, wiry animal whose foam-flecked mouth and breast told that she had been riding hard.

How free and wild she looked! She was either a Spaniard or an Indian, and rode astride. A bunch of red berries adorned her heavy black hair which fell in masses about her shoulders, accentuating the curve of her throat and well-formed, clear-cut features just discernible in the waning light as she sat motionless and erect on her horse, gazing at him in silence and evidently as much surprised as he was by their sudden encounter. Then with a smile and a nod of the head by way of acknowledgment, she lifted her reins and spurred past him; disappearing in the gathering darkness on the trail below them. Her unexpected appearance and grace and type of beauty, so different from that of the woman who occupied his thoughts, thrilled him for the moment as he listened to the soft, muffled hoof-beats of her horse which grew fainter and fainter until all was silence, save for the sighing of the wind among the mesquit and manzanita bushes that grew about them. All trace of her was gone. She had vanished into the night as swiftly as she had come.

Then a strange thing happened. Something suddenly gripped his heart; that indefinable something after which he had been groping and which had been knocking so persistently at the portals of his inmost being, but which until now had eluded him. The sight of that strange woman had shown him that, to be beautiful is to be free and natural. That the world he knew and revered was purely an artificial world of man's invention, transitory and a thing apart from the universal life in the midst of which he had been placed and apart from which it was impossible for him to develop naturally. That nature is more perfect than all the artificialities of civilization and a more efficient environment for the normal development of man. That man's happiness and true relationship to the universe were attainable only through direct contact and communion with this life whose creations are the only great and lasting realities. Thus only was it possible for him to quicken and vitalize his powers to their fullest. That when creation finished its task, peace and harmony reigned in the midst of the terrestrial garden, rendering man's pursuit of happiness through diverse acts and infinite forms of diversion quite unnecessary.

He had discovered the wild man's secret—why the stars still sing to him as of yore—why the winds and the waters, the animals and the rocks and the trees still speak to him in harmonies long since forgotten by civilized man. A great and secret joy, such as he had never before experienced, filled his soul; uplifting, consuming and mastering him. … But what would Blanch Lennox say? She with whose inner life he felt in perfect accord? She who was his ideal, the inspiration of his eager youth and well-spring of his ambitions of later years? The woman who always met his problems with quick sympathy and comprehending interest? Could she understand him now, sympathize with his new views of life? He knew a battle royal would ensue between them, but felt confident of his power to convince her. He found, however, upon his return to Newport where she awaited him, that he had reckoned without his host. She attributed his enthusiasm and changed convictions to his ardent love of nature and the roving spirit that animated him, but could not be convinced that the world of society in which she moved and shone and for whose adulation she lived, was the lesser world. She refused to relinquish their present life so full of the things of this world, the only realities which she knew or recognized, for some vague uncertainty. Surely the wanderlust, the love of the primitive, had gotten into his blood!

At first she laughed scornfully, then hysterically.

"Was he mad to suggest such folly—imagine that she could even dream of participating in such a life? He might give up the ambition of a lifetime, fling aside a brilliant career to follow the path of his mad fancy if he chose, but she would not be a partner to his folly!"

Again he noted her set lips and the pallor that succeeded the flush on her cheeks after her first furious outburst. Again he saw her as she rose, pale and trembling, her eyes blazing.

"And you dare come to me with this after all the years I have waited for you? Go back to your deserts—your wild woman and her land of savages!" she had cried in a voice of suppressed indignation and contempt. After all he could not blame her, knowing as he did the world in which she had been reared. She was right. And yet, as he sat there in the desert with his back to the cliff and smoked in silence, living over again the poignant memories of the past, the bitterness he experienced at the moment was even keener than on that memorable night when they had parted.

Could he ever forget her? The memory of that night clung to him in spite of every effort to banish it from his mind.

Above them shone the stars, golden as the apples of Hesperides. He heard again the rhythmic sound of the sea and the plashing of the fountain near at hand, and noted the rose petals which the breeze had shaken from the bushes to the path where they stood; filling the soft night air with their fragrance, and she, with the white moonlight in her face and the pink rose in the golden wreath of her hair, fair as the woman of Eden.

The vision passed before him in kaleidoscopic review, warm and living and tempting and haunting, and then faded from his sight.

The shadows of evening began to lengthen. Close at hand a lizard that had been sunning itself all day against the cliff raised its head for an instant, then slipped noiselessly away with the shadows into a crevice in the rock. The Indian camp-fires flickered in the valley below, their slender, ghostlike columns of smoke, rising heavenward straight as the flight of a flock of cranes, floated away in a pale, blue white cloud on the evening. The soft, plaintive notes of the night-hawk and prairie-owl mingled with the prolonged cry of the wolf in the distant foothills. The night breeze sprang up, fanning the parched desert with its cool breath. The stars came forth and the silver rim of the moon emerged above the dark towering mass of the Sierra Madres, outlining their crests in broken silvery lines as its full white disk swept into view; flooding the valley and plains with strange ethereal light.

José's sleep seemed troubled. He moved uneasily and muttered incoherently.

Where was she now—what was she doing? The woman he still loved in spite of himself? And whither was he drifting—what was the real end in view? What subtle, irresistible influence was it that impelled him to take the step, sacrifice all that men prize and hold dear? During such moments he questioned the seemingly blind destiny by which he felt himself impelled. A thousand miles he had ridden in search of the realization of his dreams, but had not found it. That which at first had lured him on, now seemed to mock him. The vision that beckoned to him still maintained a sphinx-like attitude toward his questioning.

Where was the new life he had promised himself? Was it only a vision he had conjured up in his mind? Either he had overlooked something in his calculations, or his logic was at fault.

Was this all? Had the human race attained its zenith—was there nothing beyond, nothing to look forward to, and he merely the latest dreamer and enthusiast who was pursuing the same will-o'-the-wisp that others had sought through the ages? If so, then what fatality was it that encompassed him and continually urged him on? Doubt counseled him to return, but pride and confidence in self still cried forward. Come what would, he either must go on to the end or accept the humiliation that awaits him who turns back. But why was the realization withheld from one so willing—from one who had dared face the world alone?

For the first time the loneliness and isolation of his life was borne in upon him as he reviewed the past, step by step, and thought of the woman he had chosen to share the future with him and whom it was impossible to disassociate from his plans.

Fortune seemed to have deserted him. A sudden revulsion and sickening sense of failure swept over him, crushing and overwhelming him. Would the voices never break silence? Must he forever ride alone with the sun in his face? Save for a cricket that chirped dreamily in a cleft of the rock close at hand, and the distant, subdued sounds of voices and barking of dogs in the Indian camps below him, there was no response to his query.

Strange that he, Jack Forest, the possessor of twenty millions, the associate of the great people of this world, and who was never referred to by his family and friends as other than the Magnificent, the man who did things, should find himself in the heart of the Mexican deserts apparently as far from his goal as when he started. It was incredible, but true, nevertheless. For was he not there in the midst of the wilderness with the scent of the sage in his nostrils and the alkali dust on his boots?

He closed his eyes and let his head sink forward on his breast, wearied by the oft-repeated endeavor to solve that which was fast becoming a riddle, a chimera to him, and he probably would have fallen asleep had he not been startled suddenly into a consciousness of his surroundings by a low whinny; soft and plaintive as a child's voice. Looking up, he saw Starlight standing before him with ears erect and pointed forward, gazing inquiringly into his face.

Again the Chestnut whinnied, and lowering his head, caressed his shoulder affectionately with his nose. Then raising his head, he began to paw the ground impatiently, indicating as plainly as words that it was time to resume their journey.

The night wind sighed across the desert and there was a chill in the air as the moon mounted higher in the heavens; an ideal night for travel. José awoke with a start and sitting bolt upright on the ground, gazed about him with a dazed, bewildered air, trying to collect his scattered senses.

"Capitan!" he cried, regarding him intently. "I have just dreamt that the shadow of a man came between you and a woman! I can't see their faces, but they are there!"

"Bah!" returned the Captain, rising to his feet and stretching wide his arms, preparatory to saddling his horse. "'Tis only the aguardiente, José!"

"Ah! do not jest, Capitan! Three times have I dreamed this dream—the shadow comes ever nearer!"