The Adventures of Kathlyn
By Harold MacGrath
Under a canopied platform stood a young girl modelling in clay. The glare of the California sunshine, filtering through the canvas, became mellowed, warm, and golden. Above the girl’s head—yellow like the stalk of wheat—there hovered a kind of aureola as if there had risen above it a haze of impalpable gold dust.
A poet I know might have cried out that here ended his quest for the Golden Girl. Straight she stood at this moment, lovely of face, rounded of form, with an indescribable suggestion of latent physical power or magnetism. On her temples, there were little daubs of clay, caused doubtless by impatient fingers sweeping back occasional wind-blown locks of hair. There was even a daub on the side of her handsome sensitive nose.
Her hand, still filled with clay, dropped to her side, and a tableau endured for a minute or two, suggesting a remote period, a Persian idyl, mayhap. With a smile on her lips, she stared at the living model. The chatoyant eyes of the leopard stared back, a flicker of restlessness in their brilliant yellow deeps. The tip of the tail twitched.
“You beautiful thing!” she said.
She began kneading the clay again, and with deft fingers added bits here and there to the creature that had grown up under her strong supple fingers.
“Kathlyn! Oh, Kit!”
The sculptress paused, the pucker left her brow, and she turned, her face beaming, for her sister Winnie was the apple of her eye, and she brooded over her as the mother would have done had the mother lived. For Winnie, dark as Kathlyn was light, was as careless and aimless as thistledown in the wind.
A collie leaped upon the platform and began pawing Kathlyn, and shortly after the younger sister followed. Neither of the girls noted the stiffening mustaches of the leopard. The animal rose, and his nostrils palpitated. He hated the dog with a hatred not unmixed with fear. Treachery is in the marrow of all cats. To breed them in captivity does not matter. Sooner or later they will strike. Never before had the leopard been so close to his enemy, free of the leash.
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Harold MacGrath
Harold MacGrath (September 4, 1871 – October 30, 1932) was a bestselling and prolific American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. He sometimes completed more than one novel per year for the mass market, covering romance, spies, mystery, and adventure.
He was the first nationally known writer to be commissioned to write original screenplays for the new film industry. In addition, he had eighteen novels and three short stories adapted as films, in some cases more than once. Three of these novels were also adapted as plays that were produced on Broadway in New York City. MacGrath traveled extensively but was always based in Syracuse, New York, where he was born and raised.
Biography
Born Harold McGrath in Syracuse, New York, he was the son of Thomas H. and Lillian Jane McGrath. As a young man, he worked as a reporter and columnist for the Syracuse Herald newspaper until the late 1890s, when he published his first novel, a romance titled Arms and the Woman. According to the New York Times, his next book, The Puppet Crown, was the No.7 bestselling book in the United States for all of 1901.
MacGrath (as he spelled his name then) continued to write novels for the mass market about love, adventure, mystery, spies, and the like at an average rate of more than one a year. He had three more books that were among the top ten bestselling books of the year. At the same time, he published several short stories in such major American magazines as The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal, and Red Book magazine. Several of MacGrath’s novels were also serialized in these magazines. He continued to have short stories published in such venues until he died in 1932.
Writing for films
In 1912, Harold MacGrath became one of the first nationally known authors to write directly for movies when he was hired by the American Film Company to create an original screenplay for a short film in the Western genre, titled The Vengeance That Failed.
MacGrath’s work was so popular that eighteen of his forty novels and three of his short stories were adapted as films. Some of the novels received more than one film adaptation. He also wrote the original screenplays for another four movies. His serial film The Adventures of Kathlyn (1903) featured Kathlyn Williams. While writing the screenplays for the thirteen episodes of the serial, he also wrote the related novel. It was published immediately after the December 29, 1913, premiere of the first episode of the serial. The book was available for sale in bookstores during the screening of the entire thirteen episodes, capitalizing on the publicity.
Three of his books adapted for film were also adapted as Broadway plays.
Harold MacGrath
