The Committee of Award wish once again to thank the authors, editors, and publishers whose cooperation makes possible this annual volume and the O. Henry Memorial Prizes. Blanche Colton Williams. New York City January 10, 1922 _O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES of 1921_ THE HEART OF LITTLE SHIKARA By EDISON MARSHALL From _Everybody's_ I If it hadn't been for a purple moon that came peering up above the dark jungle just at nightfall, it would have been impossible to tell that Little Shikara was at his watch. He was really just the colour of the shadows--a rather pleasant brown--he was very little indeed, and besides, he was standing very, very still. If he was trembling at all, from anticipation and excitement, it was no more than Nahar the tiger trembles as he crouches in ambush. But the moon did show him--peering down through the leaf-clusters of the heavy vines--and shone very softly in his wide-open dark eyes. And it was a purple moon--no other colour that man could name. It looked almost unreal, like a paper moon painted very badly by a clumsy stage-hand. The jungle-moon quite often has that peculiar purplish tint, most travellers know, but few of them indeed ever try to tell what causes it. This particular moon probed down here and there between the tall bamboos, transformed the jungle--just now waking--into a mystery and a fairyland, glinted on a hard-packed elephant trail that wound away into the thickets, and always came back to shine on the coal-black Oriental eyes of the little boy beside the village gate. It showed him standing very straight and just as tall as his small stature would permit, and looked oddly silvery and strange on his long, dark hair. Little Shikara, son of Khoda Dunnoo, was waiting for the return of a certain idol and demigod who was even now riding home in his _howdah_ from the tiger hunt. Other of the villagers would be down to meet Warwick Sahib as soon as they heard the shouts of his beaters--but Little Shikara had been waiting almost an hour. Likely, if they had known about it, they would have commented on his badness, because he was notoriously bad, if indeed--as the villagers told each other--he was not actually cursed with evil spirits.