The Wonder Stick

By Stanton A. Coblentz

Illustrated by S. Glanckoff

Cosmopolitan Book Corporation
New York
MCMXXIX

COPYRIGHT, 1929, BY
STANTON A. COBLENTZ

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THAT
OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN. PRINTED
IN THE U.S.A. BY J.J. LITTLE & IVES CO.,
NEW YORK

Grumgra confronts Ru.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE WONDER STICK

CHAPTER I

Grumgra the Growling Wolf

A hundred thousand years have passed since a certain memorable twilight in the forest of Umbaddu. Beyond a long ragged ridge of spruce, the sun went down in forlorn crimson precisely like the suns of a later day; across the winding valley, with its shaggy woods and age-battered buttes and cliffs, an enchanted calm had settled, as though time had ended and there were no other days to come. Only the Harr-Sizz or Long-Snake River, foaming in tumultuous serpentine along its deep rocky cañon, persistently broke the silence of the great wilderness; though now and again the call of some belated bird, or howling of hyena, or long-drawn, mournful plaint of some lonely wolf, would sound weirdly and from far away like a voice from another world.

Yet birds, wolves, and hyenas were not the only inhabitants of those houseless solitudes. Down by the brink of the river, where the waters had widened for a space to a smooth-flowing glossy expanse, a curious creature was threshing its way among the dense reeds and bushes. At the first glance one might have mistaken it for some monstrous beast, a cousin of the orang-utan or the gorilla; but a second glimpse would have shown one that it belonged to a more advanced race.

Walking with a pronounced stoop on two massive legs, it reached a height only slightly below that of a modern man. At its side was slung a rabbit-skin pouch filled with pebbles, and in its huge right hand it carried a rough-hewn club the size of a table leg; while its great barrel-like chest, its short pugilistically thick neck, and enormously developed arms gave proof of a strength that few moderns could equal. For clothes it wore only a rudely cut strip of deerskin, which hung loosely from the broad, curving shoulders not quite to the knees; and over all the exposed parts of arms, legs, and breast there spread an unbroken mat of dense black hair.

But most remarkable of all was the creature's face. In features more beastlike than human, the savagery of the jungle seemed to be warring with something that was not quite of the jungle, and in spite of the heavy jowls and apelike jaws there was just a hint of a miracle to come. The head was large and powerful, the forehead broad but low and receding, the eyebrows perched on prominent bony ridges that went far toward giving a brutish aspect. The nose was flat, and the nostrils broadly dilated, the ears round, protruding and movable, the chin weak and almost non-existent; the mouth was wide and the teeth ground down almost to the jaw, while the cheeks, like the rest of the body, were covered with a wilderness of black hair. And as for the eyes—they were small and black, and yet keen and brilliantly lighted; and they burned and sparkled with alert intelligence as their possessor pushed his way warily through the thicket.

Arriving at the edge of the dense brush, he was confronted by a wall of rock that shot precipitously upward for hundreds of feet. Even a mountain-goat might have hesitated before attempting the seemingly impossible ascent; but the hairy-limbed one did not so much as pause, though handicapped by the weight of his pouch of pebbles and of his club. With an air of absolute assurance, he turned a few paces to the left, then began to scramble up an almost imperceptible little path that twisted in and about among a jumbled pile of boulders. It was a sort of natural stairway, though frequently there was a gap of five or six feet between steps and the man had to lift himself from rock to rock with much straining and pulling of his huge arms. Sometimes he stood on ledges so narrow that one misstep would have plunged him to destruction; sometimes it was not his feet but a powerful clinging hand that preserved his balance, and one would have expected to see his fingers slip and his huge form reel and stagger into the abyss. Yet all the time he betrayed no fear, and continued on his way with the apparent carelessness of a tight-rope walker.

The last gray of twilight was merging into the blackness of night when at last the climber paused on a little shelf of rock two-thirds of the way to the top. Out of a long irregular fissure in the cliff a dim light was shining, a strange flickering light that might have brought visions of goblins or ghosts. But the climber was neither surprised nor alarmed; and after halting for a moment to give his panting heart time to subside, he uttered a loud, thick-voiced grunt. Instantly, from some unseen recess in the wall, dozens of responsive voices were raised in a hoarse, excited chorus; then, after a second or two, the fissure began to widen, and by the pale, eery illumination the watcher could distinguish three or four grinning, apelike faces, and six or eight curving hairy arms that tugged and tugged at a huge, slowly moving boulder.

Meanwhile the shouts continued, louder and louder, growing and growing in volume and excitement, until it seemed that hundreds of wildly agitated voices were clamoring all at once. At the same time, the tumult grew stranger and stranger, with hollow reverberations as of men calling from some subterranean grotto; nor did the uproar diminish before the straining arms had opened a cleft the size of a man's body. Then suddenly, with a swift contortion of his limbs, the new arrival slipped through the aperture; and once again the tugging arms were to be seen, pulling, pulling the boulder back against its fellow rocks.

Soon, on that deserted terrace of the cliff, only the weird, wavering light was visible through an opening as narrow as when the climber had arrived. But, from within, a multitude of voices could be heard, clamoring not quite so tumultuously as before, but chattering steadily and excitedly, like enthusiastic children who have no end of things to say.

And just beyond the replaced boulder, in the cavern whence the grinning faces had appeared, a grotesque spectacle was in progress. To the modern eye, it would have looked more like a scene from another planet than of this world—and more striking, perhaps, than the scene itself would have been the stage on which it was erected. Imagine a long, curving, irregular gallery, roofed and paved and walled with smoke-stained rock, in places so low that a man would have to stoop to pass beneath it, in places arching to an ample vault from which slow waters eternally drip and drip; imagine the dusky walls adorned with strange-colored pictures, pictures of animals long extinct, of cave wolves and cave bears, of mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses; imagine curious trophies hung side by side with the paintings, and above them, the skulls and antlers of huge stags, the horns of aurochs, the hides of wild boars and of mountain-sheep, the teeth of bears and the fangs of serpents slung into great hideous chains; while at one end a tall heap of bones, hundreds of which have been split and splintered for the marrow, bears evidence of many a greedy repast. And picture the whole scene illuminated from a single source, a great blazing pile of logs near the mouth of the cavern, so that for a few yards the cave stands forth clearly revealed, while for its greater length it is obscured in a vague smoky twilight that gradually gives place to the blackness of utter night.

Within the cave, all was tumult and confusion. Every shadow seemed to be populated; and out of every dark recess crawled some hairy form, with excited voice raised to greet the new arrival. That he was one of them would have been apparent at a glance; they too were mantled in furs and skins, whether of the deer, the wild horse, or the bison; they too were stooping and brawny and covered with hair, with the same retreating forehead, the same thick neck and powerful jaws, the same bony eye-ridges and glittering black eyes.

As the newcomer entered, half a dozen long stout arms were flung about his neck and shoulders, and half a dozen sinewy hands seized him in a fierce grip of friendship. Then so closely did the swarm press about him, so furiously did they squeeze and struggle to be near, that one might have expected him to be crushed or suffocated.

"Welcome back!" they chorused, in a tongue crude as that of a mid-African savage. "Welcome back, Mumlo the Trail-Finder!"

And in the confusion of voices that ensued, one might have distinguished little more than a series of guttural clucks and grunts—"Gru ghra, gru ghra, gru ghra!"—like the murmurings of a bewildered mob.

Yet that throaty tumult was in reality a pandemonium of joy. "Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!" rang out the voices—which is as near as the primitive words can be given a modern equivalent. And mingled with the greetings, there came a storm of questions: "Where have you been so long? What have you done? What have you seen? Why are you alone? Where is Grop the Tree-Climber? and Wamwa the Snake-Eyed?"

So insistent were these inquiries, and so determined was each questioner to be answered, that the newcomer could only turn in bewilderment from one to another, mumbling a monosyllable here and a monosyllable there, but apparently saying nothing to satisfy anyone, since for some time the confused jabbering continued unabated.

Then with lightning suddenness the tumult ceased. One of the mob uttered a single frightened monosyllable—and all tongues stopped short in mid-sentence. A look half of awe, half of actual fear, came across the grimacing faces; the sharp glittering eyes were all fastened upon the farther recesses of the cave, from whose midnight fastnesses a huge shambling form was emerging into the nearer twilight.

"Grumgra the Growling Wolf!" muttered one or two under their breath; and all drew back as if by instinct as the newcomer sullenly approached.

His great form, in the wavering shadows, seemed truly monstrous and redoubtable, perhaps more monstrous than the clear radiance of day would have shown it to be. As compared with his fellows, he was of enormous build—not less than six feet in height, with gorilla-like chest, thick-set sinewy limbs, and the solid stocky aspect of one whose excess weight runs to muscles. His head was large, even in proportion to his immense frame, and his broad forehead was not quite so low as those of his kinsmen, although the glowering, ferocious aspect of his long hairy face, with the exceptionally prominent jaws and high, tapering cheek-bones, made him even more savage-looking than the majority. Armed with an oaken club almost as tall as himself, clad in the hide of a black wolf and adorned with a crown of wolf's teeth, he was truly a figure to strike terror to the hearts of the timid.

Majestically he stalked toward the firelight, while at his coming his tribesmen retreated as far as the walls would permit. Within a dozen paces of the flames, he paused; then, lifting his club ceremoniously above his head, he uttered a single deep-voiced sound, more like the bellowing of a bull than the speech of a man. And, at this command, the cowering mob began hesitatingly to approach him, though all were careful to keep beyond range of the club. But one of their number—he who had that evening scaled the cliff and been received so tumultuously—made bold to step almost within arm's length of the scowling one, and, without waiting to be bidden, launched into speech.

"O Grumgra, O great chief," he said, "I have done as you have ordered. I have been many days' travel toward the land of the noonday sun, and have seen wonderful things and met with queer adventures. And I have entered a strange bright country, fairer than this country, a strange and glorious place for our tribe to live. But evil spirits dwell there and have done wicked things to my companions, for Wamwa the Snake-Eyed was caught by the deep waters, and Grop the Tree-Climber was caught by a wild beast—and none of us shall ever see them again!"

At these words a low moan issued from a far corner of the cavern. But, disregarding the interruption, Grumgra burst out sonorously, in tones more thunderous than those of his fellows: "Let us thank the gods of the wood that brought Mumlo back, although he bears us sad news. But what does the fate of a few men matter? Mumlo has saved us from the bad spirits that try to destroy us. For a longer time than any man can remember, our fathers have lived in this cave; but now, my people, the day comes when we must leave. You know how the winters have been growing longer and colder; how the sharp winds blow, and the snow piles thick for many moons, while the great sheets of ice, in the direction of the storm-wind, creep nearer and nearer every year. And our game gets scarcer and scarcer, for the mammoth is huge and terrible and hard to hunt, and the reindeer is wary and fleet, and the woolly rhinoceros and the wolves and bears are ferocious and kill many of our people. Yet there are stories in our tribe of a time when great warmth-loving beasts bathed in our rivers, and when mammoths without hair roamed in the woods. If we are wise, we may follow these creatures to warmer lands. And that, as you know, is why we have sent Mumlo the Trail-Finder to learn what sort of country lies under the noonday sun."

"Let Mumlo tell us what he has seen!" came the voice of one of the men. "Let Mumlo tell us—"

But instantly the rash one regretted his words. An angry flash came into the black eyes of the chieftain; with a resounding thud, his great club smashed against a projecting spur of the cavern wall.

And while the splinters flew in a hundred directions, Grumgra bellowed, "Mumlo will speak only when I bid him to!" And perversely he added, "I do not bid him to speak now!"

For a second he paused, as if uncertain of his own intention; then followed with the growling admonition: "Let him now be fed and given sleep and rest after his long journey! And let none question him more! Tomorrow, when the sun is awake again, we shall all gather here and listen to his story—and then I shall tell you whether we shall leave the cave or stay!"

And, having issued his ultimatum, he made a sedate about-face; and, swinging his club commandingly, slouched away into the shadows.

CHAPTER II

Ru the Sparrow-Hearted

The first gray of dawn had barely begun to widen above the eastern ridges when the people of Umbaddu were once more astir. Great brawny hands applied themselves again to the boulder at the cavern entrance; and, through an aperture barely large enough to admit a man, the inhabitants emerged one by one, each armed with a club, yet each making his way with apparent ease down the perilous slopes to the river. Reaching the bank, they flung themselves down at full-length and sucked in long draughts after the manner of thirsting beasts; following this they fumbled about among the brush for roots and berries, and at length, having satisfied their appetites, pulled themselves once more up the precipitous stairway of the cliff.

Meanwhile, within the cavern, all was activity and life. Several of the younger men were strenuously hauling in great dead logs through a rear entrance, which gave directly upon the forest; several half-grown lads were disposing of the refuse of yesterday's meals by the simple process of casting it outside the cave door; and scores of the women—who were clad precisely like the men, and were most easily distinguishable by their smaller stature and relatively hairless faces—were absorbed in what might be termed the household pursuits of the time. A few sat sprawled about nursing hairy infants in full view of all the tribe; a few were undertaking the vigorous chastisement of unclad urchins of five or six, who seemed too energetic in flinging flint chips about the cavern; one or two were casting fagots upon the great roaring fire, which had to be kept alive both night and day; while a majority were engaged in culinary duties. One, holding the flayed body of a rabbit above the flames on a long sharpened stick, was cooking according to the conventional method; another, busily grinding up nuts between two flat unpolished pieces of stone, was preparing a sort of gruel which, when seasoned with crushed grasshoppers and grubs, was regarded as delicious; still others, equipped with rude mallets, cleavers, scrapers, and knives of flint, were ripping off the skins of slaughtered deer, or pounding various edible herbs into a pulp, or smashing and softening a certain small beanlike seed until it came within the range of a hardy digestion.

For more than an hour these activities continued without interruption save for the snorts and snarls which marked the not infrequent disagreements between tribesmen. Then suddenly, as on the preceding evening, a portentous hush, almost a paralysis, came over the people; and out of some hidden recess stalked the great glowering figure of Grumgra, his club swinging menacingly, his shrewd little eyes glittering and sparkling like an evil threat.

"Let all our people come here!" he roared, in tones that rang and echoed angrily in those narrow corridors. "Let them stop whatever they are doing, and come! Go, call those that are outside! And if anyone wants to stay away, let him do so—if he dares!"

Here Grumgra twirled the club above his head as if to acquire practice in swinging it; and his people, needing no second warning, hastily abandoned their various tasks, and scurried in all directions in loud-voiced haste. It was not fifteen minutes before the stragglers had all been called back from the river bank and the entire tribe had gathered in a semi-circle about the fire.

A weird assemblage they made, those two hundred men, women, and children, with their heavy-featured, bestial faces, their sinewy, hide-mantled bodies, and alert, staring black eyes; while the firelight cast fantastic wavering shadows about them, and in their midst, dominating them as a cock dominates a flock of hens, a great apelike figure stood with battered club uplifted in command.

With the abruptness of a thunderclap, the deep bellowing voice burst forth: "Listen with careful ears to what I say, my people! Many days ago—more days than the fingers on the hands of three men—I sent Mumlo the Trail-Finder to the country of the noonday sun. I told him, and also Grop the Tree-Climber and Wamwa the Snake-Eyed, to look for a better cave for our tribe. Now he has come back, and we will hear what he has to tell us."

While the voice of the chieftain still roared and echoed through the cave, several stout hands seized the unwilling Mumlo and thrust him toward the firelight.

Standing in front of all his tribesmen, his face illuminated fitfully by the flames, while two hundred pairs of eyes regarded him solemnly, he had no choice but to obey Grumgra's command, "Speak, Mumlo! Speak!"

"What would you have me speak of?" he pleaded, gazing with fascinated interest at the chieftain's club. "There is too much to tell! Wamwa and Grop and I traveled for days and days through dark forest, and along green river cañons and over rocky hills. Sometimes we came out upon wide meadows, and sometimes the land was covered with brush and stones and was very hard to pass. But we kept on and on, and lived mostly on roots and berries and the bark of trees, though now and then we feasted on some small creature we slew with stones or clubs. At night we lit a fire with our flints to keep the wolves away, and in the day we watched and watched for wild things, since great and terrible animals filled the forest, and often we had to climb the trees in a great hurry. And it was a huge animal that took Grop away from us, for once we came upon a herd of buffaloes in an open field, and before we could get back to the woods a mad bull had rushed upon him, and—"

Horrified exclamations interrupted the speaker; but Grumgra, apparently unaffected, brought his club down warningly upon the floor.

"We are not here to learn what happened to Grop!" he grumbled, with a foreboding scowl. "We are here to learn about the country you found. Tell us that, and nothing more!"

"The country that we found," resumed the Trail-Finder, taking care to put a few additional inches between himself and Grumgra's club, "was all overgrown with grass and deep forests. It was much warmer than our own land, and even on the tops of the mountains there was no snow. But deer and bison and wild boars and horses and cattle browsed there in large herds; and there were many berries and fruits and nut-bearing trees. And up among the cliffs above a great river I thought I saw the entrance to a cave like ours. In crossing this river, Wamwa slipped and was taken by the bad spirits—"

Again the great club was lifted in a silent threat; and the angry eyes of Grumgra warned the speaker to keep to his story.

"It would be a very good land for us to live in, O great chief," Mumlo hastened to add. "When the cold days came, we would not find it so hard to kill game enough to keep us strong. We would not have to shiver all the long winter moons, not having fires or furs to make us warm. Our babes would not die, and our women would not moan and cry for meat we could not give them; but it would be summer always, and there would always be warmth and plenty for us all."

And into the eyes of Mumlo for an instant came a contemplative glow, a half-dreamy light that seemed to belie the heavy jowls and brutish features, and to foretell the visionary who—a hundred thousand years later—would still be conjuring up Utopia.

But almost instantly that light died out; the thick lips were curled into a snarl, and a hoarse growl rumbled from the speaker's throat. Across from him, in the further rim of the firelight, a bull-like shaggy form had sprung up with menacing fists upraised, and there came the muttered challenge: "You lie! You lie! There can be no such land!"

"Quiet, Woonoo!" yelled the chieftain, with an oath. And the club swung in such deadly earnest that only the extreme agility of Woonoo saved him from being mangled. As it was, the crash with which the club struck the cavern floor served as a warning to the overdaring; and the attempted chastisement was followed by an appalled silence, broken only by the murmurs of the more audacious: "Just what Woonoo deserved! Woonoo the Hot-Blooded always is getting into trouble!"

Meanwhile the offender had slunk away into the shadows to the rear, and, having once tempted destiny, was apparently resolved to take no further chance.

"Tell us more, Mumlo," encouraged Grumgra, in milder tones than before. "Tell us more. You think—you think we should all go to the land of the noonday sun?"

"O great chief, I think we should all go," pleaded the Trail-Finder. "We hear nothing now but the cries of the hungry, and the groans of those whom the demons of sickness have taken. You know how our people are growing fewer and fewer each year. Our old men can tell of a time when we were many as the days from one spring season till the next; but for every two that walked in our cave then, there is only one that walks in it now. And you know, O chief, where the rest are—how many are sleeping with their women and babes in the burial grotto at the cavern's end—and how many have left their bones to the cave-bear and the hyena. You know, O chief, so why should I try to tell you? A few more ice-cold winters, and the wolves will be crunching the ribs of the last of our tribe!"

The speaker stopped short, and a horrified silence—broken only by the crackling logs in the great fire—settled over the entire assemblage.

It was Grumgra's voice that next made itself heard. "Mumlo speaks well," the leader acknowledged, leaning meditatively upon his club, as though he had forgotten its aggressive purposes. "Mumlo speaks well—it is true that we are getting fewer and fewer, for the great frosts are more than our people can stand, and when the winter comes the wild beasts seize us, or else some evil spirit creeps near, and we sicken and die. We do not wish to leave this cave, where our fathers and their fathers and their fathers before them have lived—but is it not better to go from our home than to perish?"

Having reached a bellowing climax, Grumgra paused as if to allow his words time to penetrate. There followed a frightened silence, broken now by a whispered exclamation of dread, now by a muttered oath of horror; and this awed speechlessness continued even after Grumgra had shouted his last words, "What do you say, my people? Tell me, what do you say?"

For a moment no one said anything at all. And, after a few seconds' silence, Grumgra lifted his club in a fresh gesture of command.

But at this point, interruption came from an unexpected quarter. Out of the shadows to the rear a slender form drew forward; and one of the younger tribesmen—scarcely more than a boy, he seemed—raised his voice in a manner that compelled attention.

"Let me speak, O chief," he cried, in deep tones almost musical beside those of his fellows. "Let me speak a very little!"

A scowl came over the dark face of the leader. His right arm drew back as if to wield the club and crush the intruder.

"What? You speak, Ru?" he roared, derisively. "You, Ru the Sparrow-Hearted?" And into the jet-like eyes came a hard light as of disdain tinged with anger and hatred.

"Yes, O chief, I ask to speak," affirmed Ru, coming forward with a boldness that seemed to belie his name. And placing himself directly before the chieftain, well within range of the club, he stood like a deliberate challenge between Grumgra and the people.

A greater contrast than the two men presented could hardly have been imagined—at least, not in those primeval days. Physically Ru was slight as his opponent was gigantic; he stood scarcely over five feet in height; and his frame, while well knit and evidently equipped with strong and flexible muscles, had none of Grumgra's gorilla-like amplitude, but was slender as a sapling and had apparently been designed for grace rather than for power. At a single stroke, Grumgra might have crushed and mangled him like a fly—yet the difference between the two men was not wholly physical. For there was something about Ru's face which seemed to atone for that which his body lacked. Like Grumgra, he had the characteristic hairy features, the characteristic eyebrow ridge, tapering cheek-bones and massive jaws of his tribe; but, unlike Grumgra, he seemed to possess some indefinable quality that tempered his inherent brutishness. His forehead did not recede like those of his tribesmen, but was straight and high as that of a modern; his face was long and sagacious-looking, and his head unusually capacious; while his eyes—queer anomaly among that dark-pigmented race!—were not black like those of all the other Umbaddu, but gleamed shrewdly with a steel-gray glint!

And with a courage unique among the Umbaddu, those gray eyes firmly met the black ones of the chieftain. Perhaps it was the very audaciousness of their gaze that restrained Grumgra, for his club, though half uplifted, did not descend upon the daring one; but in tones of irritation and contempt he muttered: "Then tell us, Ru! Tell us what you have to say! But tell us very quickly!"

And while Ru turned to address the multitude, derisive hisses sounded from dozens of voices; and in tones half of laughter, half of mockery, some of the more garrulous murmured: "Ru is going to speak! The Sparrow-Hearted is going to speak! Listen to the Sparrow-Hearted give advice!"

But above the cackling of the audience rose the clear voice of Ru:

"It is true, my people, that we must leave this cave, where our tribe has lived since the beginning of things. But it is not true that we must leave without knowing where we are going. Mumlo the Trail-Finder has been to a land which he says is fairer than this—but that does not show us that our whole tribe can follow. Two of our companions have already been lost, and many more may go the same way unless we are careful. For we are not very strong after all, my people. Remember the huge mammoths and the bears that roam the land; the storms that beat about us with cruel clubs; the torrents that race down upon us and bear us away; the great cold of winter, and the famine that is worse than the cold. If we are to live at all, we must be wiser than our foes. We must—"

At this point a low undercurrent of hissing, gradually becoming louder, compelled the speaker to pause. And a score of hostile, curling lips snarled the question: "What are we to do? Tell us, Ru, what are we to do? Shall we stay here and starve?"

Simultaneously, a half-suppressed, contemptuous laughter broke from some unseen spectator. And it was with difficulty that Ru could lift his voice above that of the gibbering, chuckling mob, and continue:

"It may be that Mumlo has not seen all the land he has visited, or that he would not know how to find his way back there again. Or it may be that there is some other land much fairer—some land where we could all grow strong and happy. And why should we not do everything we can to find out?"

Then, turning to Grumgra, who loomed before him with a hostile frown, Ru pleaded: "Let us not act like foolish children, O chief. Send out some other men—as many as the fingers of one of my hands. Let them look at the country Mumlo saw, or try to find some better place. I myself will go gladly, if only you will say yes."

"No!" thundered the chieftain. "I say no!" And the great club came down with an echoing thud, and sent the dust of the cave floor flying.

Hastily Ru withdrew, lest a second blow wreak greater havoc. And as he pressed back into the shadows, derisive murmurs filled the air; and many a pair of black eyes, glistening in malice and scorn, followed him with proud, superior gaze.

"The Sparrow-Hearted has had his say!" came the amused roar of Grumgra. "Now let me have my say. We will not let the bad spirits take any more lives on foolish journeys. And we will not waste any more time—the gods of the spring season have been here a whole moon already. After the sun has come up and gone down and then come up once more, we will all set forth into the land of the noonday sun. What do you say, my people?"

Since there was none that dared to say a word, but all merely gaped and gaped in stupid bewilderment, the most momentous question in the history of the Umbaddu had apparently been decided.

CHAPTER III

A Daughter of the Cave

Ru the Sparrow-Hearted did not remain to hear Grumgra's final words. Hurt in a manner that he himself could hardly understand, he shambled away into the farther darkness, picking his course along winding, coal-black passages with a certainty that only perfect familiarity could have made possible.

At length, out of the dusky distance, there shone a feeble light, flickering uncannily as a phantom. Gradually it brightened, until by the dim radiance Ru could distinguish the curving low-roofed outlines of the cavern, whose walls were irregular and misshapen as though carved by some egregious blunder of nature. But he kept on without paying any heed to those well-known formations; and finally, after rounding a sudden turn, he found himself face to face with a log fire—a much smaller fire than that at the farther end of the cavern, and yet large enough to shed a comfortable light and warmth.

With a thankful sigh, Ru flung himself down into a little hollow in the rock across from the fire. And there, curled up like a cat basking in the sunlight, he lay motionless for many minutes, staring with wide, contemplative eyes into the writhing flames.

Strange thoughts kept trailing through his mind—thoughts that stung and tortured and would leave him no peace. Why must he always call forth his people's raillery and jests? Was it only because his limbs were small and his eyes were gray? Had he not done that which none of them could do? Had he not, as the reward of many days of labor, hewed out this hollow in the cavern wall, where he might lie in comfort while his tribesmen lay on the rocky floor? And had he not built his own fire, and even made a chimney in the rock above, that he might have warmth and light while his fellows had only the dark and cold? And had he not made a club more powerful than any other of its size, by tipping it with flint while they used only wood? And had he not shaped and sharpened his flint knives and cleavers till they worked twice as easily as those his tribesmen used? And was he not even now planning that which no man had planned before—a weapon that would strike like lightning, and slay at a great distance?

As the thought of the new weapon came into his mind, Ru reached meditatively for a long, slender shaft of wood that lay concealed in a crevice between two rocks. It was little more than the thin, wiry trunk of a young tree, denuded of branches and leaves; but a crude perforation at each extremity showed the clear mark of human workmanship; and the dried tendrils of a fibrous plant, stretched loosely between the two ends of the shaft, gave evidence of what the young artizan was attempting.

Forgetting his resentment at the injustice of his tribe, Ru began to apply himself to his invention. First he stood with one end of the shaft pressed against the cavern floor, and strained and pushed with his right hand until the wood was bent outward in a wide curve; then he strained and pulled with his left to draw the tendril of the plant tightly from end to end of the shaft.

He had almost succeeded, when the tendril snapped and the wood shot out and straightened with a force that sent him reeling against the cavern wall.

Less bruised than angered, he was picking himself up, when a low merry giggling rang out of the darkness behind him. And even without turning he recognized the voice of Yonyo the Smiling-Eyed.

"So the Sparrow-Hearted is still playing his pranks?" laughed the newcomer, in tones that betrayed as much of malice as of good-natured gaiety.

And there stood before him, in the smoky firelight, she who of all women in the world was for him the most beautiful, the most tantalizing, and the most wrath-provoking. To the eye of a later age, she might not have proved seductive—but to the untrained eye of Ru she represented the acme of all things desirable and unattainable. Clad in a glossy robe of horsehide, with her full, well-rounded breasts and her muscular legs exposed, she bore on every feature the impress of her tribe—the massive head, the low, wide forehead and bony eyebrow ridges, the large, flexible ears, the powerful jaws and huge flat nose. But in her wily black eyes—somewhat larger than those of her kinsmen—there gleamed and glittered a strange, alluring light that set her off from all the other women of the tribe. When she smiled, Ru felt that a wonderful fire shone over her whole face, so that he would forget that she was a mere human like himself, but would think of wild flowers unfolding in the spring fields, and blue lakes twinkling beneath blue skies, and rainbows and stars and the song of birds.

Ru did not know why he had such thoughts on seeing Yonyo, for he had never heard any of his brothers speak of like feelings. Nor did he know why the very sight of Yonyo made him tremble as the sight of no other woman could do, so that he was often sad when she was away, and was filled with strange, disturbing longings when she was near. All this Ru did not understand, but he did understand very well that Yonyo would never be his woman—for did she ever seem glad when he spoke gentle words to her? And did she ever smile upon him except to mock? Besides, was she not coveted by Woonoo the Hot-Blooded and Kuff the Bear-Hunter?—And could he swing a club so well as these great rivals of his, and win his bride in an open fight?

With the anger of the baffled, he turned upon Yonyo; and there was no gentleness in his voice as he met her taunting question: "Yes, Yonyo, I am still playing my pranks. And there will come a day when the tribe will beg to play them with me! You, too!—even you, the tormenting and the Smiling-Eyed!"

A low burst of scornful laughter came as her reply. And pointing toward the shaft of wood, which he still held in his hand, she demanded contemptuously: "Is it with that stick that you will make us play your pranks? Tell me, Ru, is it a wonder stick?"

"Yes, it is a wonder stick!" flung back Ru, choking down an impulse to seize his bright-eyed tantalizer and force her to her knees before him, until she cried for mercy and the tears came.

For a moment he stood confronting her in a glaring silence, while the sparks danced about her and the flames fitfully illuminated her tanned hairless face.

And then, seized with a longing to make her understand, to make her share his own enthusiasm, Ru reiterated: "It is a wonder stick, Yonyo! Listen, and I will tell you about it!"

"Yes, tell me," she murmured, somewhat subdued by his earnestness, although ridicule still shone in her eyes.

"Have you never gone roaming among the bushes and shrubs, Yonyo?" he demanded, speaking with a fury born partly of the bright appeal in her face, and partly of the breathless interest of a great discovery. "Have you never noticed how one may twist and bend the small shoots, so that they will swish back with terrible force? I was wondering, Smiling-Eyed, if I could stretch a stout fiber between the ends of one of those shoots. Then I could bend and hold it so that it would swish back whenever I wanted. And it might throw a sharp stick through the air like a rock, and make a weapon that would strike from far away—"

"And strike those foolish thoughts from your head!" derided Yonyo, bursting again into laughter.

Ru, cut short at the climax of his discourse, felt a renewed impulse to seize and throttle her.

But perhaps she divined his intention, for with a scornful, "The Sparrow-Hearted has need of new weapons!" she went darting down the shadowy passageway, and in a moment had disappeared around a bend, her mocking laughter ringing merrily behind her.

Within Ru's breast a choking anger arose; and her flight was like a challenge to follow. With furious eyes and fast-heaving heart he set off in pursuit, filled by a blind desire to seize the elusive one and crush her madly to him.

But she was swift of foot, and in those dark corridors he could not even see her flying form. Only her laughter, echoing merrily through the gloom, told him that she was not far beyond; and such was his frenzy that he had little thought of possible danger, but dashed ahead despite the risk of stumbling over some unseen rock or depression in the cavern floor.

Yet not until he had approached the great fire at the cave entrance did he see her again. Then, still with a smile upon her taunting face, she stood gleefully awaiting his arrival. But she was not alone—just ahead of her, overshadowing her like a protective tower, stood Woonoo the Hot-Blooded!

And from the ugly thick lips of the giant there issued a menacing snarl; and the bull-like form advanced with powerful arms outspread to seize and strangle his adversary.

Knowing better than to risk a conflict, Ru merely answered his opponent's challenge growl for growl, while backing away at no inconsiderable speed. Then, when suddenly the Hot-Blooded tired of delay and started toward him with a swift ferocious lunge, Ru turned and raced furiously back into the shadows.

And merry was the tittering of Yonyo, as she witnessed the rout of the weakling. And merry was the laughter of the tribespeople as they watched Ru's hasty retreat, and murmured: "See the Sparrow-Hearted run! How well the Sparrow-Hearted runs!" But dark indeed was the gloom within the heart of Ru when at length he had outdistanced his rival and slouched sulkily back to his lonely fire in the loneliest, farthest corner of the cave.

CHAPTER IV

The Hunt and the Fire

On the day preceding the tribe's departure for the land of the noonday sun, two important preparations were made.

First of all, a mighty hunt was arranged. All the able-bodied men—and they numbered nearly a hundred—set out together for their favorite hunting-ground, where they stationed themselves at intervals in a rude circle about a strip of field and forest two or three square miles in extent. Then, at the signal of the chieftain's shout relayed from man to man, the hunters started at a trot toward the center of the circle, meanwhile yelling and clamoring at the top of their lusty voices and raising a hullabaloo that might have awakened the dead.

Needless to say, any animals roaming within the chosen area would take alarm. Some, wild with fear, would endeavor to dash past the huntsmen, and not a few of these would offer a target for clubs and stones; a majority, driven toward the center of the enclosure, would find themselves hemmed in by an ever-tightening ring of their foes. If they could not save themselves by a desperate flight through the encompassing lines—as many did, in fact, save themselves—they would be forced irresistibly toward the four or five pits in the center of the closing circle. And since these had been dug with careful forethought and shrewdly covered with concealing branches and grass, the victims would topple headlong into the ten-foot depths; and there, bellowing with fear or howling with pain, a mass of convulsive, twisting forms and broken limbs, they would present an easy mark for the clubs of their persecutors.

On this particular day, the Umbaddu hunters were unusually successful. Two wild boars, a wild horse, four wild cattle, half a dozen rabbits, a score of squirrels, a doe and a fawn of the giant deer, a half-grown moose and a young rhinoceros—these constituted their trophies of the chase. Now they would have meat in plenty for days and days to come! And the penalty for this gigantic haul had been exceptionally small—not a man had been killed, though the shoulder of Kuff the Bear-Hunter had been ripped open by an infuriated wildcat, and Ru had earned the mirth of his fellows by taking to the trees and saving himself by the bare fraction of an inch before the charge of a maddened aurochs.

The victims, once dispatched, were skinned and cut up on the spot; and this was a long and laborious process, for the flint knives and scrapers worked slowly and clumsily and with a vast amount of wasted effort. Much of the booty, indeed, had to be left where it lay as an offering to the wolves and vultures; yet when the hunters at last set off homeward, each was weighed down to capacity with the flesh, hides, and marrowbones of the slaughtered.

And with what a tumult they were received when, having scaled the cliff walls, they stood once more at the cave entrance! One would have thought they were warriors returning from the conquest—the women greeted them with screams of delight; they shouted with childish glee at sight of the fresh stores of food; their great broad faces grinned with apelike grimaces, and their heavy lips smacked with anticipatory joy. And every returning huntsman was welcomed by some particular woman, who smiled admiration at him from her beady black eyes—every huntsman, that is, with two exceptions.

The first exception was Grumgra, who was greeted by a circle of three or four congratulatory females. And the second was Ru, whose return seemed not to be noticed at all, but who stood by sullenly and alone, while his boisterous fellows shouted loud stories of their exploits, and the Smiling-Eyed pressed healing herbs to the wounded shoulder of Kuff the Bear-Hunter.

After the tumult had begun to die away, the women busied themselves in holding great sizzling joints above the fire and in laying out smaller joints to smoke. And now the tribe began its second preparation for the departure.

This event was signalized by the arrival of Zunzun the Marvel-Worker. While the returned huntsmen sprawled in ungainly attitudes about the fire or crouched upon their haunches with heads bent motionless above their knees, a flutter of excitement stirred the farther recesses of the cavern, and a squat, sinewy form slowly emerged. At first sight there was nothing to distinguish the newcomer from his kinsmen, except that his stoop was extreme even among this race of stooping men—he bent forward like an anthropoid ape, with long arms dangling before him from sloping shoulders. But as he shambled into the firelight, one might have observed another point of distinction; for while his massive face and gorilla-like features were not less bestial than those of his fellows, his black shaggy mane was interspersed and mellowed by hairs of gray. For Zunzun was quite old—he had more years, some said, than the month had days—and it was rumored that his memory reached back to the time when the eldest among his living tribesmen was a babe suckling its mother's breast.

As he approached, the onlookers automatically ceased their chattering; and in unconscious unison they all sat up, with eyes fastened upon him.

When within a few paces of the fire, Zunzun paused, flung his hands upward, and launched forth upon a prayer to the fire-god. In deep, bellowing tones, which resounded uncannily through those dim rocky corridors, he begged the spirit of the flames to take care of his people and protect them from wild beasts and the storm-wind. And the blazes, which flashed and crackled gustily, seemed to be signaling an encouraging reply; the flickering sparks gaily spoke a bright message; and the glowing faces of the people, obscurely seen in that smoky gloom, were overspread with a light and a fervor like that of worshipers in a temple.

On and on Zunzun rambled, on and on in tones constantly more charged with emotion; and he told the fire-god of all that his people had suffered, and how they languished and grew thin in the long months of winter, and how they craved a warmth and plenty they had never found, and how they always begged the god of the sunshine to beam upon them with more light and heat—but how the god of the sunshine had never heard.

Before Zunzun had finished, his gleaming black eyes had grown soft and moist, and his plea was no longer a solitary one, but rather was spoken in chorus. At first singly, and then in groups, his hearers joined him, all shouting their appeal to the fire-god, and all taking care to shout their loudest, so that the god must pause and listen. For a while—so intense was the fervor of the people—one could have heard nothing but a din of discordant screams and yells, in which no single word was distinguishable. But after a time, sobered by something domineering in the tones of Zunzun, the straining voices were modulated and blended together, so that they clamored in a sort of rude rhythm, almost a chant of entreaty; and, following the lead of the Marvel-Worker, they chorused: "Hear us, O fire-god, hear us! Light us the way to warmer lands! Fill our days with feasts and make them comfortable! Let your great heat singe and kill our foes, the wolf, the bear, and the wind from the snow-land! Help us, O fire-god, for we are in need of you!"

And after the voices had stormed and pleaded for many minutes, at times wailing in anguish and at times rising to a sobbing crescendo, Zunzun finally snapped into silence—and the tumultuous mob followed his lead, though now many eyes were tear-stained, and many eyes shone with an unwonted brightness.

But grave were the tones of Zunzun as he eloquently beckoned toward the flames, and murmured: "Now surely, my people, the fire-god has heard us. So let us ask him if he is of a mind to do as we wish."

In contrast to the pandemonium of a moment before, an absolute stillness had come over the assemblage. A hundred pairs of black eyes were staring questioningly at Zunzun; a hundred mouths were agape with wonder, but uttered no word. Even Grumgra the Growling Wolf stood as if transfixed, and had nothing to say; even Woonoo the Hot-Blooded and Bru the Scowling-Faced watched meekly as babes and ventured not a grunt, while the awe in their gaze was equal to that in the gaze of a child.

Meanwhile the Marvel-Worker was performing a curious ceremony. Bending down to the ground, he scooped a half-burnt oaken limb out of the flames; then, having beaten out the last trace of fire, he began to examine it with slow and painstaking scrutiny. Just what there was to observe was more than any onlooker could have said, but Zunzun apparently saw plenty to inspect, for he regarded that charred bit of wood with the furrowed brow and intent expression of one who reads some puzzling but important document. And at length—while his fellows still stood gazing at him in silence—he nodded his head as if satisfied, rose slowly to a stooping position, and opened his mouth to speak.

"The fire-god says he is here with us," he declared, reassuringly. "He has heard our plea, and will go with us to help us on our long journey."

At this a thankful tumult burst forth; and many were the murmurs of gratitude and relief. Some of the hearers, in their joy, threw congratulatory arms about their neighbors' necks; others literally howled with delight; one or two attempted a sort of rude, sidling dance; and more than one voice was uplifted to praise the name of Zunzun the Marvel-Worker.

But amid that happy demonstration, there came a single dissenting note. "How do you know? How do you know, Zunzun?" rang forth a clear voice—the voice of Ru. "Just what did the fire-god say? And how did you find out?"

But his words were drowned amid a chorus of hisses and jeers; and the Marvel-Worker, casting a disdainful glance in the direction of his challenger, did not deem it necessary to reply.

Instead, turning to address the people, he directed: "Let us show our thanks to the fire-god. Let us all make him an offering."

And every man, woman and child snatched up dried fagots and twigs and flung them into the flames, with fervid cries of "Thank you, fire-god! May the fire-god burn forever!"

And the fire, as if in gratitude, flared and crackled more vigorously than ever; and all the assembled people joined hands in a mighty circle about the flames, and began to swing back and forth, back and forth, and leap and caper like children, while shouting with religious zeal, "Thank you, fire-god! We will always serve you and bear you offerings! May the fire-god burn forever!"

CHAPTER V

The Migration Begins

The day of the migration had dawned. The last rites had been performed; the Umbaddu people were leaving their ancestral dwelling-place. Some among the tribesmen had paused to look with sadness at those dark and picture-littered walls that they should never see again; some had gone to place flint weapons and chunks of meat in the burial grotto at the cavern's end, where lay the bones of loved ones; some had cast the horns of bison, the teeth of bears and patches of bearskin about the cavern floor, as an offering to the cave-gods whom they were deserting; some—and these were all members of the milder sex—had made themselves objects of ridicule by indulging in orgies of tears; while a majority—particularly of the younger tribesmen—shouted in sheer exultation, since before them lay the open world, the unknown, and adventure.

It was a curious procession that made its way down from the cliff-dwelling and out along the wilderness trail. Women with babes in arms and tenacious two-year-olds clinging to their shoulders; men laden with trailing limbs of deer and cattle, and with pouches bulging with roots, herbs, and berries; scrawny children that released themselves like acrobats from rock to rock, and from time to time screamed and howled as they slipped upon the boulders—such were the leading members of that little army of migrants. Owing to the mass of provisions, of weapons and flint implements that had to be transported, many of the men and women had to ascend and descend the cliff three or four times; and so many were the delays, the minor mishaps and altercations, that the morning was half done before the tribe was actually on its way.

Led by Grumgra, who wielded his club imperiously, the people straggled in single file on a little trail made long before by huntsmen along the cañon of the Harr-Sizz River. Like their leader, all the men carried clubs, though Grumgra's was by far the largest; and not a few of the women likewise bore clubs, and moreover swung them in a manner that indicated some proficiency in the art of self-defense. But the women, for the most part, were impeded by the weight of the heavy tools and provisions, which the men had thrust upon them following the descent of the precipice; and these were slung in great masses about their shoulders, exaggerating their natural stoop and making their gait slow and laborious. Only a few of the younger women—such as Yonyo the Smiling-Eyed and Lum the Twittering Bird—were exempted from such duties; and this was because, not being subject as yet to any man, they were not compelled to share any man's exertions.

But in spite of the burdens that weighed them down, most of the people were in a merry mood. Some, in voices deep-toned and rude and yet with the trace of a pleasing rhythm, improvised snatches of song, which their comrades caught up in a riotous chorus; others would go meandering carelessly away from the trail to examine any curious insect, rock, or weed; and a few of the younger tribesmen engaged in uproarious games of hide-and-seek, and even in good-natured but quite energetic scuffles and wrestling bouts.

Meanwhile several men designated by Grumgra went scouting ahead of the party, to both sides of it, and behind it, to discover if there was any sign of dangerous beasts. With a keenness of eyesight rivaled only by the savages of a later day, they would scan the river bank and the underbrush for the footprints of wolf and bear; and with a keenness of scent that their successors might have marveled at and admired, they would occasionally put their nostrils close to earth and sniff appraisingly. Only once—when the alert senses of Mumlo the Trail-Finder told of the recent passage of the woolly rhinoceros—was a word of alarm flashed to the tribe; but the beasts had evidently gone their way in peace, and before many minutes the people had entirely forgotten the danger.

The migration

Mile on mile they plodded, on and on with scarcely a stop, in and out and in and out along the bank of the deviously winding Harr-Sizz River. In places the cliffs shot perpendicularly above them to an unscalable height; in places the hills rolled toward them in a long graceful grade, dark-green with an impenetrable growth of pine or spruce; in places they lost sight of the river and the river bluffs in forcing their way through thorny thickets of the wild rose, or in hewing a path through an enveloping wilderness of creepers and vines. Now and then, through some cleft in the hills, they would catch glimpses of far-flung and majestic panoramas, with chiseled snow-peaks jutting in the distance; and once, when an entire mountain stood unbared at the far end of a long, deep-cloven ravine, they could see that the ranges were more than half cloaked in glittering bands of white.

Yet such spectacles had small effect on the minds of the migrants. All their lives they had known these scenes—and they thought no more about them than about the blue of the skies or the white of foaming waters. Only one of their number—Ru the Sparrow-Hearted—peered at those snowy summits with contemplative eyes; and into the mind of Ru came strange and perplexing thoughts. He wondered whether the spirits worshiped by his tribe were big enough to rule this world of wind and cloud and crag; somehow, in those gigantic slopes and forest-draped solitudes, he felt vaguely the workings of forces vaster than he, and recognized hazily the presence of a Mystery he could never explain, a Glory of which he was part and which enveloped him.

For many minutes he had been walking soberly by himself, not taking notice of his tribesmen that trailed ahead of him and behind, not taking notice even of his own club that dragged in the dust, nor of the gap in his rabbit-skin pouch, through which from time to time some implement would drop noiselessly to the soft grass and be lost. He had forgotten for the time about the migration, forgotten that he was following a perilous trail; into his mind had come faint glimmerings of enigmas that would still be vexing his kind a hundred thousand years to come....

A sharp prodding in the neck aroused him abruptly to an awareness of himself. And, wheeling about in anger as fierce as it was sudden, he was confronted by the sparkling, roguish glance of Yonyo.

Then, while he stood glaring at her in speechless rage, she waved a pointed twig derisively in his face, and exclaimed: "The Sparrow-Hearted has need of something to wake him up! What was the Sparrow-Hearted dreaming about?"

For a moment he did not reply. His impulse was to strike back as one strikes back when dealt a brutal blow—to seize her in furious arms, and crush her till she begged for mercy. And no doubt it was thus that Kuff the Bear-Hunter or Woonoo the Hot-Blooded would have disposed of her; but Ru, alas! was not Kuff or Woonoo, and could do no more than glower ineffectively at her.

"What was the Sparrow-Hearted dreaming about?" she repeated, growing impatient at his silence.

"About things you could never understand!" he declared, fiercely.

"What is there I could not understand?" demanded the incredulous Yonyo. And seeing those large black eyes bent upon him half laughingly and half inquiringly, he felt his wrath slipping from him and an old strange emotion returning.

As his anger died away, it occurred to him to try to make her share that which he felt.

"Shall I tell you, Yonyo?" he asked, while side by side they began to jog along the forest path, their feet noiselessly pressing the carpet of dead leaves. "Shall I tell you?"

Receiving a mumbled affirmative in reply, he launched straightway into his explanation.

"I was wondering," he continued, slowly, while reflecting how marvelous was the light in the gaze of the Smiling-Eyed, "whether, after all, the wise men of our tribe can know all things. I was wondering whether the world was really made by the magic of a fire-god that lived in a cave as big as a whole mountain, as the old stories tell us; and whether there may not be other gods than the fire-god and the sun-god and the gods of the caves and woods and winds. Why were we born, Yonyo, and why do we live, and why—"

"And why ask foolish questions?" broke in the puzzled Yonyo. "What are you thinking about, Ru? Why worry about such things?—Let the wise men settle them for us!"

Then, seeing that Ru remained sullen and silent, she bent down and plucked a weed from the wayside, and began to prick him prankishly upon the cheek. And when, annoyed, he tried to snatch the weed from her, she eluded his grasp and darted away with eyes that flashed a challenge to follow.

Without knowing why, except that she drew him on irresistibly, Ru let his club slip to the ground and dashed after her.

Strangely enough, she was not hard to overtake. In a very few seconds, he had come up to her, and had flung his arms about her in a crushing grip.

"Yonyo! Yonyo!" he murmured, with a boldness that surprised himself not less than her. "I want you! I want you! Oh, will you not be my woman, and share my fire with me, and—"

But, with the agility of a young leopard, she had struggled free of his embrace.

"I?—be your woman?" she demanded, standing proudly before him, her nostrils distended with anger. "Who are you—Ru the Sparrow-Hearted? Who are you? The man whose woman I am must be a real man! He must be a hunter of wolves!—not of earthworms! He must have slain his bears, his wild boars, his aurochs! And he must not be a dreamer of silly dreams!"

And, with a scornful laugh, Yonyo started away again.

Stung to fury, Ru raced after her once more—but he had gone scarcely ten paces when there came a warning rustling through the bushes ahead, and a massive hairy figure burst menacingly upon him.

It was Kuff the Bear-Hunter, who, even with his wounded shoulder, made a formidable antagonist. His little black eyes gleamed with evil wrath; his enormous thick lips were curled into a snarl that displayed the white glistening teeth; his great arms were outspread as if to mangle and destroy.

With a hasty glance at his onrushing foe, Ru turned and fled. And, as he scurried into the shelter of a thicket of reeds, the laughter of Yonyo was flung after him like a blow.

For the rest of that day, Ru kept to himself. He did not seek to join the chattering, frolicsome groups of young folk; he did not trudge side by side with any of his elder tribesmen in amiable fellowship; he plodded in morose silence along those gaily echoing forest lanes. Only now and then, when some small boy or girl would approach and coax him to some playful tussle, would his intense gravity relax; but it would relax only partially, and after a minute he would again succumb to gloomy reveries. Why had he been made so small of stature, so frail of limb? he asked himself over and over again, as he had asked time on time before. Why could he not stand face to face with his rivals, and fight them as any but himself would have done? Must he always be like the slinking hyena, which keeps at a distance and disdains equal combat? Must he be powerless to control even his own will? and, having decided to face his persecutors, must he find himself racing away ratlike at the first hostile scowl?

Such thoughts were still filling Ru's mind when at length the day's march ended. The sun was just beginning to dip its head beyond a dark, distant ridge of forest when Grumgra, bellowing at the top of his voice, gave the order to halt. At first he did not seem certain what camping-place to choose; and there was manifest indecision in his tiny black eyes as he scanned the broken line of woods that paralleled the stream, the green flowery meadow that stretched between the forest and the river bank, and the jutting cliffs perhaps half a mile down-stream, where forest and meadow gave place to a rocky cañon through which the waters foamed tumultuously.

Then, while scores of his kinsmen stood regarding him speechlessly but with anxious eyes, the chieftain suddenly decided: "We shall camp here in the open fields. And build a ring of fire to keep away the wild beasts."

In silence the people received this command—in silence, with only one exception. For while Woonoo and Kuff and the others heard and prepared to obey, he who was known as the Sparrow-Hearted strode forward, and in loud tones requested, "O chief, may I speak a little?"

For reply, Grumgra merely snarled. His little eyes gleamed with angry fires; he grasped his club with ominous firmness.

Although the distance between them was hazardously narrow, Ru seemed to assume that the Growling Wolf's snarl was consent. In a voice loud enough for all the tribe to hear, he demanded: "Are the fields safe, O chief? Would it not be wiser to camp under the cliffs? Then it would be easier to keep the wild beasts off—"

But he could proceed no further. Howling with rage and swinging the club as if to do instant murder, Grumgra strode toward the impudent one. And once again Ru had to save himself by means of his feet. And once again the tribe laughed loud and merrily.

Now came the most trying of all the day's exertions. While the men went off into the forest in groups of three and four to gather firewood, the women busied themselves with pieces of flint which they hammered laboriously together time after time until at last the eagerly awaited spark kindled a pile of dead leaves. Many minutes were passed in this pursuit, and twilight was settling down, before at last half a dozen fires, fed from the limbs of fallen trees, were blazing with bright and heartening gusto.

Within the line of the fires—which were arranged in a rude circle—were assembled all the men and women of the tribe, who lay sprawled on their robes of bison and deerskin, chattering contentedly and noisily consuming huge chunks of smoked venison or newly roasted morsels of boar's flesh. Now and then one would leave to go down to the river bank for a long draft of water, which he would suck in animal-like; but as the darkness deepened, such departures became less frequent, and at length ended entirely, for all knew better than to venture away from the fire into the perils of the night.

Twilight had not yet fallen when a loud sobbing, from the extreme end of the encampment, aroused the attention of the curious. One of the younger women was weeping as women in those days seldom wept, her whole frame shaking convulsively, her dark eyes a blur of tears. And to those who questioned her she could not give coherent reply. She could only blurt out disconsolately, "My Malgu! My Malgu!" and return at once to her stormy grieving.

But there was little need to explain. It was known that Malgu was her three-year-old son; and as there was no sign of him now, it was assumed that he had been lost on the way to camp. And this could mean but one thing. Considering the wolves, bears, hyenas, and other carnivores that infested the woods, there was little chance that anyone would see Malgu again.

So the people merely shrugged their shoulders, as sensible people do when told of some regrettable incident. And since there was nothing to be gained by lamentations, they turned straightway to more pressing affairs. After a few minutes, only a low, half-stifled moaning told of the bereaved mother's grief; and two hundred voices were prattling as gaily as though Malgu had never been.

As night settled down, a great weariness overcame the people. One by one they wrapped themselves in their furs and hides, placed themselves as near as possible to the fire, curled up snail-like so as to retain all possible warmth, and surrendered themselves to slumber. And it was not long before a series of hearty snores replaced the garrulous voices of the early evening.

But there were some who were not permitted to sleep. Six men, designated by Grumgra to keep the fires alive and at the same time watch for prowling beasts, were to do duty until midnight, when they would be replaced by six of their kindred.

Among the earlier group of sentinels, the first to be named was Ru—who clearly owed his choice to his presumption in questioning Grumgra's wisdom. There had been a howl of derision when, in the presence of the entire tribe, the chieftain had assigned him to the hated duty; and it was the knowledge of his comrades' mockery and chuckling glee, far more than regret at the loss of dearly needed repose, that angered Ru when he took his place beside one of the fires and prepared for the long, lonely watch.

Certainly, his task was not an enviable one, for he had to keep close to his own particular fire, and there could be no communion between him and his fellow sentinels. Through the intervening shadows, he could hardly recognize them as human at all; they looked like ghosts as they watched beside the uncanny yellow fires at distant ends of the encampment; and, like ghosts, they kept elusively away from him.

As though to make his vigil more difficult, Nature as well as man seemed to be conspiring against him. While the day had been blue and clear, the night turned out to be dark and starless; and a cold wind, which came howling out of the north, had shoved a black mantle of clouds across the sky. Not often had Ru seen so wild and bleak a night. Except for the light of the fires, which quivered and tossed and darted out lean orange lips like distracted things, there appeared to be no illumination in the world; and, except for the dark, slumbering camp and a narrow and fitfully lighted circle of the fields, he seemed to be standing in the midst of a gigantic void. Yet from that void there issued strange and disquieting sounds—not only the moaning and soughing of the gale as it plunged through the limbs of unseen trees, but the voices of night prowlers occasionally lifted in growls and grumblings and long-drawn wails that brought no consolation to the heart of Ru. Once, indeed, the void did seem to be pierced by something other than sound, for out of the distance he could distinguish two close-set phosphorescent orbs staring at him like menacing phantoms—then, in an instant, they were gone, and there was only the darkness again, and the chilly wind whirling and sobbing past.

"Evil spirits are abroad in the world!" thought Ru, as he piled fresh logs upon the fire; and he pictured the streams and the air and the clouds as alive with savage monsters and still more savage men, some of them made in the image of Grumgra, though scowling even more ferociously than he, and with clubs ten times as long; and some of them in the likeness of the wolves and hyenas that might even now be prowling within a stone's throw of the camp.

He was occupied with such gruesome thoughts, and was wondering whether the wicked spirits might not be tempted to leap in a plundering band upon his people and smite them with bearlike teeth and claws, when his attention was distracted by something moist and cool settling upon his palm. It was only a drop, but after a second it was followed by another, and then by another still—and with a sinking of the heart Ru realized that it was raining. This in itself would have been no occasion for alarm, since the people were used to getting wet, and moreover were protected by their thick, hairy manes—but as the downpour began to come faster and faster and the wind began to screech and scream like some triumphant marauder, Ru glanced with growing anxiety at the fires, and piled on the fagots with desperate speed in the hope of reviving the flagging flames.

But the wood was wet, and would burn but poorly; and the shower waxed heavier and heavier until it came down in torrents, and Ru, dripping from head to foot, could make out the lively little streams that rippled everywhere through the camping-place. Then once again he caught a glimpse of phosphorescent eyes through the howling gloom; and amid the roaring of the plunging, falling waters he could distinguish now and then another roaring that was still more sinister.

By this time all the camp was awake. Aroused abruptly from their slumbers, men, women and children came surging in all directions like a rout of distracted shadows; and, literally tripping and plunging over one another in their frenzy, they clamored and yelled as if to match the tumult of the elements. Suddenly, amid the rushing and rioting of that panic-stricken mob, Ru felt himself being pounced upon, shoved aside and trampled; and as, in confusion, he picked up his bruised body and slipped hurriedly away, he saw that the multitude, in its terror, was heaping log after log with insane haste upon all six fires—with the result that all, already sputtering feebly, were stifled utterly by the excess fuel, and after a last weak flutter or two, gave up the struggle and delivered the camp to darkness.

It would be impossible to picture the confusion that now reigned. Women were shrieking, babes screaming, men pleading and praying to the fire-god or bawling terrified, panicky orders that no one heeded. One, in a trembling voice, would beg all to be calm; another, in piercing, blood-curdling tones, would call out that he saw a wolf, a bear, a mammoth; now and then there rang forth a wail as of the most terrible anguish; and once, after a particularly hair-raising cry, there came the grumbling of some predatory beast, followed by a rending and a crunching of bones.

And all the while the whole world remained black, deathly black as though there could be no such thing as light. And all the while the rain came down in drenching sheets, and the wind snarled and blustered, and ominous growling things were sneaking through the gloom. Every man stood with club poised, ready to strike—though who, if need be, could strike fast enough?—and thus the long weary hours of the night dragged by, until at length the rain ceased, and the wind, like a weary beast, subsided, and a faint glow came into the sky and showed the hills and woods in shadowy outline, and then at last, after agonies and agonies of waiting, a pale gray streak above the eastern bluffs gave promise of another dawn.

CHAPTER VI

The Wrath of Grumgra

It was a doleful band of migrants that stood revealed in the first dreary light of morning. Shivering and drenched, with soggy fur-mantles and rain-soaked skins from which the slow water dripped and dripped, they looked like beasts just returned from a perilous plunge; and little trace of their usual energy was apparent as they mournfully wandered across the miry soil, or lugubriously eyed their disheveled fellows. More than one bruised arm or gashed thigh or wrenched shoulder bore witness to the panicky scuffle of the night; several of the people were nursing blackened eyes or feeling sullenly at jaws that displayed new-made gaps; while one of the most woebegone of all was he who exhibited an enormous swelling on the head—due to the terror of a kinsman who, mistaking him for a wild beast in the dark, had struck him with a club.

But these were the least of the casualties. In the soft soil at the edge of the encampment, ill-omened five-clawed footprints were to be seen; and in one or two places a new-made crimson patch caused even the most hardy to tremble. Too well the people read the dread meaning!—but at first they had no idea who the victims were, nor even how many victims there had been. In loud-voiced anxiety, each man and woman began to search and cry out for those nearest to him—so that for a while the pandemonium was as great as during the storm. Half-crazed mothers raced about calling stray children; stray children screamed and bawled for missing mothers; great brawny males went searching with angry eyes for their unseen mates, and frenzied women begged for word of their absent men; friend stared into the turbulent mob for lost friend, and wild-eyed striplings for vanished maids; and now and then there would be a scream of exultation as two who had given up hope were reunited.

As time went by, most of the missing were found, for some had gone unobserved amid the blatant mob, and some had taken to the trees in their terror and one by one had returned. But after two or three hours, there were still several who remained unaccounted for; and these included two men, a woman, and three children.

Although it was not the nature of the Umbaddu to give themselves up to orgies of lamentation, still the loss of six persons—particularly when these included two able-bodied men—was recognized as a matter of importance. It was regarded, indeed, almost as a public misfortune, and, in accordance with a custom handed down from remotest times, had to be investigated before a council of the entire tribe. For it was the belief of the Umbaddu that no full-grown man ever came to his death except through the agency of evil spirits: hence, whenever a man died unaccountably, the evil spirit had to be discovered and his human agent appropriately punished.

No one was surprised, therefore, when, instead of ordering the migration continued, Grumgra began the day by giving instructions for a tribal conference. There was not so much as a thought of protest—and when at length the excitement of the night had died away and all hope had been surrendered for the missing ones, the survivors gathered in a wet and bedraggled and yet eagerly chattering group on the damp grass of the meadow.

Just a trace of apprehension, however, flitted across the frowning faces when the stooping form of Zunzun the Marvel-Worker was observed beside the bearlike hulk of Grumgra. And no pleasure lighted the scores of staring black eyes when, after crushing some grass-stalks between his fingers and scrutinizing them speculatively, Zunzun turned to the chieftain and slowly announced: "O Grumgra, I can see from the green color of the grass that evil spirits are abroad. We must find out who it was that caused the rain to fall, and who it was that put the blood-fury into the claws of the wild beasts—and him we must punish!"

"Yes, him we must punish!" echoed Grumgra, with malevolent relish.

And every man turned to eye his fellows fearfully—for who could say that his closest friend might not have harbored the evil spirits? or who could say that the wise ones might not make a mistake and punish the wrong man?

"Someone has angered the fire-god and made it go out!" roared Grumgra, in the tones of an accusing judge—and all his hearers quailed and instinctively withdrew. "Someone has angered the fire-god! Who can it be?"

For a moment there was silence, while the audience gazed furtively at the trees, at the grass, at the river—at all things but the terrible eyes of Grumgra and the bewitching eyes of Zunzun.

"Then if no one will speak, we will find out!" shouted the chieftain. "Zunzun the Marvel-Worker will ask the spirits of the woods, and they will tell him!"

Whereupon Zunzun began to bob up and down, up and down, as though in prayer to some unseen divinity. First he would touch the grass with his outstretched palms, then he would rise as far as his stooping posture would permit and fling his grizzled arms heavenward; then he would bow down again and repeat the ceremony time after time, all the while mumbling and muttering, "Nunc, nunco, no, nuncu, nunco, no," in a jargon unintelligible even to his hearers.

But the spectators, although they did not understand, were immensely impressed. The scores of ferret eyes were riveted upon the Marvel-Worker; the powerful jaws gaped wide with wonder; now and then a tremor of fear crossed the furry countenances.

At length, apparently feeling that his antics had sufficed to appease the wood-gods, Zunzun sought rest from his strenuous exertions, and, turning to Grumgra, whispered a few words that none of the tribe could catch.

But whatever it was that Zunzun confided, Grumgra was evidently well pleased. A broad smile softened his brutish face; into his gleaming little eyes there came a light as of sly enjoyment.

Not a murmur flitted through the assemblage as Grumgra strode sullenly forward, and lifted his club in token of command.

"Zunzun has found out the evil one's name!" he snapped; then he stopped short to give his announcement time to penetrate.

"The evil one is sitting among us now!" continued Grumgra, in portentous tones; then once more he stopped short, while each man peered at his neighbor suspiciously.

"Shall I tell you who the evil one is?" he proceeded, with the manner of one who anticipates a pleasant announcement. "Shall I tell you?"

"Tell us! Tell us!" came an eager chorus.

"Listen then, and I shall tell!" assented Grumgra. And, after another pause, he thrust his left hand out accusingly. "There is the evil one! There he is! There he is!"

Dozens of eyes, straining to see, observed that the condemning finger was pointed straight at Ru.

"It's a lie!" shouted Ru, springing furiously to his feet. "A lie, a lie—"

But before he could complete his denial, powerful hands had seized him, and he was struggling, kicking, tearing and biting, all to no avail, in an over-mastering grip.

And while the crowd cackled and gibbered in glee, Grumgra scornfully announced: "I have found out all that the Sparrow-Hearted has done. He made wicked magic last night. He does not fight before our eyes like other men—he runs away, and then works his evil like a crawling serpent behind our backs. While we were all asleep, he spoke with the wind-god and the gods of the clouds, and told them to put out the fire-god. Also, he called to the bad spirits of the woods, and told them to catch and eat our people. This the bad spirits did—and for this Ru must suffer!"

Here Grumgra paused again, while breathlessly the people awaited the sentence he was to pronounce, and Ru, heavily panting and more than half exhausted, still strained uselessly in the arms of his persecutors.

"If it were anyone but the Sparrow-Hearted," Grumgra resumed, tapping his club significantly, "I would have him slain—no, I would slay him with my own hands! But who wants to wring the neck of a sparrow? And so I will not kill him this time—"

Murmurs of disappointment were beginning to be heard from several quarters; but Grumgra, with a ferocious frown, hastened to reassure his people.

"I do not mean that we shall not punish him. I shall not hit him with my club, for do we not need all our men to help us in the hunt?—but until he lies down for his last sleep he shall bear the marks of his bad deeds. He has put out the fire-god by making the rain come—and so the fire-god must take vengeance. Go, my people, gather new fagots and light the fires again; then let us scorch black marks upon the Sparrow-Hearted's throat, that all men may see and know of his shame!"

Delighted titters expressed the approval of the audience; and at the same time a growl half of rage and half of agony issued from the throat of Ru. But a huge mud-caked hand, thrust savagely across his mouth, stifled his protest in mid-career; and while he squirmed and struggled ineffectively in the arms of his captors, he could see several of his tribesmen darting about with great zest to gather fagots and flints.

But it proved to be no easy matter to make a fire—the wood was wet, and would not burn. And while the delay prolonged Ru's torments, it gave him a vague hope and a bitter satisfaction to watch his fellows sweat and toil to no avail, pounding the flints furiously together and kindling spark after spark that invariably vanished in thin air. Hours went by, and no fire was made; by degrees his persecutors wearied of holding him, and their oaths became terrible to hear; while the dismayed people began to murmur that Ru had bewitched the fire-god.

As time wore on, it became apparent that the migration could not be resumed before the following morning—the punishment of Ru had cost an entire day. But Grumgra seemed determined that, regardless of the waste of time, Ru should be punished; and as he strode pugnaciously from group to group, swinging his club and snarling at the unsuccessful fire-makers, it seemed likely that if Ru did not suffer someone else would. Once, indeed, the chieftain went so far as to lunge viciously at the skull of a particularly careless handler of the flints; and, after the intended victim had escaped by the fraction of an inch, his fellow workers applied themselves scrupulously, but none the less with one eye furtively upon Grumgra.

Time was to lend their labors success. The sun had come out somewhat hesitatingly that morning; but though he worked slowly he worked surely; and after a few hours, some of the fagots had become reasonably dry. Thus it happened that, when the afternoon was already old, the people saw the bright flames once more leaping and crackling in the center of their encampment.

And now came the eagerly awaited event. With the excitement of spectators at some rare entertainment, the tribespeople gathered to see the punishment of Ru. All eyes gleamed and glittered in greedy pleasure, and all lips uttered exclamations of joy, when at length the culprit was dragged and shoved toward the flames. Despite his small physique and the strain and exhaustion of the last few hours, Ru was fighting like a wildcat. Some new and almost superhuman strength seemed to have come into him, now that the fires flashed so near; four of his larger kinsmen were needed to hold that furiously writhing, squirming little form; and the blackening eyes of two of the men showed the marks of his outthrust fists and feet, while on the arm of another was a gaping red gash where the captive's teeth had wrought angry vengeance.

But the vehemence of Ru's resistance only whetted the enthusiasm of the mob. Added to the anticipated delight of the burning, there was the unexpected pleasure of a fight—a spirited fight, with all the zest of reality! Hence the people crowded close for a glimpse of the wild-eyed, convulsed form of Ru; hence they jeered and gibed in raucous glee when, in the unequal scuffle, he was hopelessly on the bottom; and they held their breath and gaped when at times he wriggled free of some encompassing arm and appeared about to escape altogether. No hint of pity for him issued from those tense, thick lips, no murmur of encouragement, or of admiration at his desperate struggle; the women looked on as intently and as cold-eyed as the men; and the children—whenever they could squeeze close enough for a glimpse—stared at the condemned one as dispassionately as their elders. Even when crimson patches appeared on his face and his nose spouted blood, there was not a tremor of sympathy or regret; even when, in the frenzy of the combat, his deerskin robe slipped off and he was left with only his hairy natural covering, there was not a murmur of revulsion or horror. But with the sporting aloofness of men who watch two cocks tearing one another to bits, the tribespeople saw Ru gradually beaten and bruised into a bloody submission.

At last, having put forth all the effort of which human flesh is capable, he lay sweating and panting on the ground, while a bulky kinsman sat across his outspread legs, and two others held his hands pinioned. About him, like voices in an evil dream, he could hear the expectant gibbering of the multitude; above him, he could view a blur of faces, evil faces gleaming with a cruel joy; to his left, when he turned his bloodshot eyes aside, he could see Woonoo the Hot-Blooded holding a long pointed stick in the flames.

But he was almost past seeing or caring. His senses were deserting him; he hardly knew who he was or where; the world seemed to be whirling and whirling around, and he was as though floating somewhere far away in a fog that would not lift.

He was aroused to full consciousness by the sight of a glowing something dangled just above his eyes. It was the red-hot stick, which Woonoo had thrust meaningly before him; and just above it shone a multitude of fiery eager faces, disdainful and compassionless as the glaring brand itself.

And as once more there surged across him the frenzied desire to escape, he was stabbed by sight of that which was more cruel even than the searing flames. Two well-known eyes, enticing and distracting eyes, were isolated suddenly amid that confused throng, beaming upon him as if in pleasure, in ridicule, in amused contempt....

Some there were who afterwards claimed to have heard him murmur, in wounded tones, "Yonyo! Yonyo!" But they could not be sure; perhaps it was but the fumings of a crazed mind. At all events, his words were drowned instantly by the hissing of scorched hair and flesh, and by a scream so horrible that even the most bloodthirsty quailed and shuddered.

And while the victim lay moaning on the ground, writhing and twisting like a worm that has been trodden upon, the curious pressed forward and observed a huge black mark upon his neck and chest—a black mark which took the form of a rude cross.

CHAPTER VII

The Fire-God Speaks

That evening Grumgra chose a camping-place at the base of the cliffs several hundred yards down the river—the very cliffs he had roared at Ru for suggesting. Here, in little hollows and recesses of the rocks and under the protection of the beetling precipice, the people had no difficulty in lighting their fires and keeping them burning; and though once again a strong wind and rain came up, the storm did not beat directly down upon them, and they slept undisturbed until morning.

But there was at least one of their number—even excluding the sentinels—who could know but little sleep that night. Exhausted to a point almost past fatigue, Ru lay wide-eyed through the long hours, while all about him sounded the heavy breathing of his fellows, and to both sides the uncanny yellow fires wavered and blinked like the eyes of malignant giants. He was so stiff and sore that he could scarcely move; even to turn upon his bruised side caused him many a half-stifled groan; yet a continual torment of burning in his mutilated neck and breast made him writhe and twist incessantly.

But the anguish of his body was less excruciating than that within his mind. His physical injuries would heal and be forgotten; but deep within him, walled from contemptuous eyes, there was a wound that would not heal and would not be forgotten. That searing brand, so greedily applied by Woonoo, had scorched more than his skin and flesh; it had withered away at a stroke his very feeling of kinship with his people. Previously, when scoffed at or taunted, he had seemed to be cut off from them only for a moment; now it appeared to him that he was an alien—for all time an alien in the midst of his own people. There was no longer anyone in whom to confide, anyone in whom to seek refuge; even she of the dazzling eyes could see his misfortune and laugh; and neither she nor the others would care if he should vanish into the river or down the throats of the wolves.

But as he lay there in the firelight, moaning and moaning in unheeded agony, a furious resolve came into his mind, gripping him with such vehemence that for the moment he forgot his pain. It was a thought that was not new to him, yet in its present fury it seemed wholly new. As his people had mocked and derided him, so they should one day worship and applaud; as they had made him grovel at their feet, so they should one day grovel before him; and where Grumgra stood in club-wielding might, he should walk in power more absolute even than Grumgra's! Strange thoughts for one so beaten down and humiliated, for the outcast and the cull of the tribe! But even in this moment of despair he knew that he was master of that which his fellows could never command, for he could think while they could only act—and his thoughts should win him the world!

Nor were his plans confined merely to vague hopes. With the shrewdness of the practical dreamer, he was scheming for the hour of his triumph even in this hour of his defeat. First of all, there was the weapon which would strike at a distance, and which sometime, surely, he should learn how to make. Then again, there was the might of the fire-god—that very fire-god who had burned and tortured his flesh. If he had been able to master this great spirit, his troubles would have been spared him; if he could still learn to master it, he would have an ally more powerful than any club that was ever brandished. Just how to tame this elusive force he had no idea; but he promised himself that he would wait and watch until sometime, unexpectedly, the secret would open before him.

Several of Ru's fellows, awakening in the early dawn, thought they heard him mutter something that sounded suspiciously like an oath of service to the god of fire. But they only laughed at what they deemed the Sparrow-Hearted's ravings; and they amused themselves by prodding the puny one lightly with the points of sticks in order to see his anger.

That morning, when Grumgra gave the order for the march, Ru was scarcely able to stagger along with the tribe. His aching limbs were matched by his aching head; his body felt strangely hot although a cool wind was blowing; his trembling legs seemed in danger of collapsing. Like one in a nightmare, or like one suddenly grown old, he tottered through the gloomy forest aisles, feeling as if each step were to be his last. How he endured the long miles he never quite knew, nor how he withstood the mocking gaze of his fellows and the inquisitive eyes that constantly explored his throat and breast, as though his scarred flesh were an inviting sight. Only the fact that the tribe was burdened with many children, whose pace was slow and who could not be left behind, enabled Ru to keep within sight of his kinsmen. Even so, he had visions of being forsaken altogether, and of finding himself, in his helplessness, suddenly face to face with one of the fanged prowlers of the woods.

Perhaps eight or ten miles were covered that day—a good day's traveling, indeed! And when, in the late afternoon, Grumgra called a halt and chose a camping-place, Ru was so exhausted that he sank down with a thankful sigh, and began almost instantly to atone for the loss of two nights' sleep.

The following morning he awoke feeling much refreshed; and, having bathed in the stream, he helped himself liberally to chunks of dried buffalo flesh and of the venison that the women were roasting over the fire. This was his first repast in almost two days—and now, although his limbs were still sore and aching, he felt once more in an optimistic mood.

But as the tribe set out again through the woods by the banks of the interminable Harr-Sizz River, he became conscious that something was still lacking. His sense of exile had not left him; since his public humiliation two days before, scarcely a person had spoken to him; he could hear the people murmuring that he was in touch with evil spirits, and that a word from him might bewitch them. Even when the children, drawn to him by the force of old attraction, would approach with the smiling request for another tale of aurochs or bears, their elders would scowlingly order them away. And so Ru was lonely, more lonely than he had ever been before. He was filled with sadness to hear his fellows chattering merrily ahead of him or behind, while he trudged on and on all by himself; he longed vaguely for some companion, some particular companion all his own; and his craving, although he could not understand why, seemed always to settle about Yonyo—even she, the scornful and the heartless one, whom he was trying his best to forget.

But he could not forget her. More than once, when she passed him on the trail, it stung him through and through to see that she went by without even a disdainful glance; and more than once, when he saw her strolling gaily with Kuff the Bear-Hunter or Woonoo the Hot-Blooded, he was filled with an almost uncontrollable fury to rend and destroy. Had he but possessed the strength, he would have sprung pantherlike at these great tribesmen of his, and struck and struck till they lay stiff and lifeless before him.

But the feebleness of his limbs was an effective bar to his murderous impulses. Day after day went by, while Yonyo seemed to have forgotten his existence and Kuff and Woonoo openly vied for her companionship. Meantime he seemed to be still under a cloud, for no one would speak to him, even though, in his loneliness, he made repeated advances to his former companions. At night he was forced to sleep by himself in a solitary corner of the encampment, and by day he had to glide ahead of his tribesmen or behind them through the interminable lengths of the wilderness.

And now his only solace came from watching the bewildering and ever-changing panoramas—the tumbled ragged-white vistas of far-off snow-peaks, the dark, steeply curving slopes of the spruce and pine, the tumultuous blustering river with its bank of reeds or rocks, the tiny blue lakes that dotted the valleys like inverted bits of the sky, the massive cliffs and crags and the boulder-littered plains, with now and then a waterfall that came foaming from the heights with a crashing and roaring as of a god's voice. At times Ru's quick eyes would catch the flash of some moving thing, and he would stop short to watch the queer inhabitants of the wilds: the huge brown mammoth, with its grave high head and long curling tusks; the golden yellow double-horned woolly rhinoceros; the enormous, swiftly gliding red deer; or even the wild horses, bison, and cattle that browsed upon the river grass in peaceful bands. Somehow, although he could not say why, Ru was glad merely at sight of these creatures; and in his interest in them, and in his glimpses of the great hills and rushing waters, he found relief from that anger and despair with which his people had filled him.

After ten days had gone by, and the wounds in his body were almost healed, but the wounds in his heart were festering more painfully than ever, there occurred a series of events which brought a sudden end to his career as outcast.

Those events began with a curious discovery of Ru's. One evening he chanced to observe a woman cast a bit of bison tallow into the fire; and he noticed how the fat sizzled and sputtered with bright yellow flames much more brilliant than the normal wood fires. Like all his people, he had seen such a spectacle time upon time before; but always he, as they, had watched without eyes, and no thought of possible utility had ever occurred to him. But now, in a flash, it came to him that the fire-god loved tallow, fed upon it greedily, and would serve anyone who made him an offering of it. What if, in place of wood, one should try to burn old and dried-out fat? or, rather, wood prepared with a coating of fat?

No sooner was the thought in Ru's mind than he had begun to experiment. Selecting the long straight limb of a fallen tree, he greased it with a heavy layer of tallow he had cut from a recently slain bison. Then, cautiously and not without some fear of the fire-god, he thrust the end of the stick into the flames.

Two or three of his tribesmen, who were squatted idly on a mound of earth some paces away, grinned in apish amusement to watch this new antic of the Sparrow-Hearted. They were preparing to leap up and seize the greased stick from his hand by way of pleasant sport, when they fell back in amazement to see a brilliant deep-yellow flame spring up at the end of the pole. And, the next they knew, Ru was striding toward them waving a flaming brand that seemed like a threat from the fire-god himself.

They did not wait to learn more about that threat. With terrified squeals, they took to their feet, while Ru followed at his leisure with a smile of amusement and triumph.

Wherever he went, he was greeted with frightened screams and cries. The children ran howling from him; the women pressed back with shrieks and yells; the men stood growling and threatening at a distance, but drew hastily away whenever he strode too near; while many a feverishly moving lip framed prayers to the fire-god. From end to end of that camping-place—a wide glade in the heart of the forest—Ru stalked like an avenging demon. It filled him with a wild, exultant joy to see even the great Grumgra hold his distance, even Grumgra, the dreaded and the growling one; and his heart sang with fierce glee when Zunzun the Marvel-Worker—he who professed to be the fire-god's nearest friend—went tottering hurriedly away before the sputtering menace of the torch.

Rapidly and vigorously the brand continued to burn, with an energetic crackling and flaring, until it was less than half its former length, and the molten, scorching grease began to flow along Ru's fingers.

He was just about to throw down the brand and beat out the flames, when he beheld that which filled him with sudden madness. At one corner of the glade, shielded behind a mountainous boulder, sat Woonoo the Hot-Blooded; and in his huge hairy arms lay one whom Ru recognized all too well—Yonyo the Smiling-Eyed!

With a roar of murderous rage, Ru was upon them. His torch gleamed and wavered wrathfully; he forgot for the moment the torments of the melting fat; he was bent only on singeing and branding his rival. And Woonoo, taken off his guard, was aware only of a fire-brandishing fury that came dashing upon him out of the void, waving the yellow flames as if to sear him to cinders.

Without taking time for a second glance, time even to recognize the mad apparition as Ru, Woonoo squealed with terror, cast the startled Yonyo from him, and fled for the woods. Ru, pressing close behind, was forced to be content with flinging the torch after him and scorching the hair of his back.

A few moments later, Ru returned from the chase with a triumphant grin. Yonyo was still standing, as if dazed, beside the boulder from which she had been so rudely thrust; and, as Ru passed, she turned toward him with a smile that was almost friendly. But he seemed not to see; and, without so much as a glance in her direction, he strolled resolutely toward the center of the encampment.

Seeing that he was without the burning brand, the bolder tribesmen now came forward to meet him; and it was not long before even the more timid had ventured near. From their excited way of crowding about him and chattering, one might have thought Ru exceedingly popular. But he was not to be deceived by their effusiveness; resentment still rankled within him. And so he did not respond to their advances; he did not reply to their questions, did not explain his power over the fire-god; he seemed not to hear their friendly jests, their praise, their offers of companionship.

On the following evening, there occurred an event which added still further to Ru's newly won prestige.

It happened that, at the close of the day's migration, one of the men curiously explored the hollow of a tree trunk, and there discovered that rarest of all treats—a bees' nest filled with honey. Regardless of the stings of the infuriated insects—which, after all, were much impeded by the hairy natural covering of the people—some of the doughtiest of the tribe contrived to capture the entire treasury of sweets; and, laden down with their booty, which consisted of a mixture of wax, honey, squirming grubs and dead bees, they hastened away to camp to enjoy the feast.

So eager were all the people not to miss their share of this delicacy, and so greedily did men, women, and children swarm about the possessors of the prize, that all other pursuits were momentarily forgotten. Clamoring and shouting for a portion, smacking their lips hopefully or gustily licking long dripping fingers, the people pressed in a furious rabble about the fast-disappearing dainty, so rabid for a taste that one might have thought them engaged in a riot—and few remembered that no other food was being prepared, that no precaution had been taken against possible danger, that no fires were being kindled for the night.

Yet, while the tribal fires had been neglected, it would not be quite correct to say that no fires at all had been lighted. Screened from the gaze of the multitude behind a slight rise in the land, Ru sat patiently preparing a little fire of his own. And when at length the flames sprang forth with gusto, he began to ignite sticks of various kinds and sizes, all of which had been liberally greased.... But of this his kinsmen knew nothing. Like hungry vultures quarreling over a bit of carrion, they were still squirming and struggling about the honey.

Suddenly, when the pandemonium had reached its loudest, the participants were startled by a growl more savage even than of the dispossessed honey-seekers. In deep-voiced tones, half like the grumbling of an angry dog, half like the bellowing of a bull, there sounded a challenge so terrible that the blood of all ran cold and their paralyzed legs seemed limp and useless beneath them. And out of the forest there trotted a thick-set furry beast as large as a grizzly, with little brown eyes gleaming evilly, gigantic paws and large curving claws outspread, and monstrous glittering mouth gaping wide.

After the first glance, the people's paralysis left them. "A bear! A bear! A cave-bear!" they cried, mad with terror. And where, but a moment before, there had been a maggot-like, convulsive throng, there was suddenly nothing but a mound of honey-drenched earth. In a wild mob the fugitives raced for the trees, shrieking and crying in dread, dashing one another aside in their fury to reach shelter, then literally climbing over one another as they mounted into the protecting branches.

But his Majesty the Bear, having caused all this consternation, took little note of the results. With long greedy tongue he began to lap up the spilled honey; and, as befits a conqueror, he was so absorbed in consuming the spoils of victory that very soon he had quite forgotten the vanquished.

But the vanquished had not forgotten him. From their perches in the tree tops, they watched the marauder feasting; and, while they watched, they chattered angrily, made hideous grimaces, and shouted furious names at the enemy.

In the midst of their tumult of hoots and howls, an astonishing spectacle distracted their attention from the bear. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a short, slender figure flashed into view beneath them, waving a burning brand and striding toward the redoubtable beast!

The spectators gasped. Some muttered in amazement, some in alarm; one cried that Ru was out of his wits; others screamed that he had bewitched the monster, or that the bear would crush him like a rabbit. But all eyes were fastened steadily upon him as, still brandishing his torch, he pressed straight toward destruction.

In a moment he was well out in the open field, too far from the trees to seek safety in flight. And then it was that the beast became aware of him. With a snort of anger, Bruin turned to confront his foe; but his wicked little eyes burned with a light that was not altogether of menace.

Swinging his torch round and round in enormous circles till the flames hissed and sizzled threateningly, Ru strode on and on without a pause. In another moment, he was so near that the bear might have been upon him with a leap.

But the bear did not leap. Instead, he reared upon his great hind legs, looming taller than the tallest man and stouter than five men. Ominous mutterings issued from his cavernous throat; his huge lips curled in a defiant snarl; his gigantic paws were outspread as if to strike and crush.

Then, when Ru could feel the hot, foul breath upon him, he started forward with a shout and a rush, as if to throw himself upon the monster, as if to thrust himself straight into those powerful gaping jaws.

Ru frightens the bear with his torch

But the furry one did not wait for the onslaught. With a howl of terror, he turned and lumbered away into the woods; while Ru, pursuing him with the firebrand, at the same time motioned to his people to come down from the trees.

CHAPTER VIII

A New Misadventure

For three days following the bear-chasing exploit, Ru was as much sought after as he had previously been shunned. It was as if his people now felt him to be the possessor of some unique and supernatural power; as if they believed him to be in league with unseen but mighty spirits, whose friendship was at all costs to be won. And since the obvious way to court such friendship was through courting Ru, he was showered with attentions where of old he had met only neglect. Four or five of his kinsmen were at all times ready to go chattering at his side whether or not he desired their company; and, when he sat down to rest at the end of the day's migration, there was always someone to approach with flattering words and seek either to wheedle out of him the secret of the firebrand, or else to beg some charm that would give protection against the fire-god. Even the young women of the tribe—Mono the Budding Tree, Sizz-O the Serpent-Tongued, and others—cast admiring, half-inviting glances toward him from beneath their high-ridged bushy brows; while more than once Yonyo the Smiling-Eyed approached with jests and laughter that scarcely availed to break down his sullen silence.

For he was still disdainful of his people—as disdainful of them as they had been of him. Brooding upon the wound on his breast, whose cross-shaped ghastly scar was as a mark of shame, he distrusted their vows of friendship; he suspected that at heart they loved him no better than before. And so, although at times in his loneliness he longed to dash down the barriers at a stroke and be one with his people as of old, yet his pride and wounded sensibilities combined to keep open that rift which his own peculiarities and Grumgra's hatred had created.

But after three days, he suffered a fall at once sudden and disconcerting. And the indirect cause of the misfortune was a lack of that caution which, had he been but a little wiser, he would surely have exercised. One evening he was seated in a lonely corner of the encampment, experimenting before his own little fire with some long sticks and a mass of tallow, when suddenly he became conscious of two gleaming black eyes peering at him from amid the shrubbery. At the instant of his discovery, the eyes disappeared, and he could not be sure whose they were nor how long they had been watching; but an hour later the unhappy sequel told him all that he desired to know.

It was late twilight, and he was seated in the midst of the tribe, chewing eagerly at the roasted ribs of a wild horse, when Woonoo the Hot-Blooded came strutting from behind a clump of shrubbery, waving a brilliant yellow torch—almost precisely like the torch of Ru's invention! And behind Woonoo towered Grumgra, wielding a similar but very much larger torch! They both moved without a word to the center of the encampment, while scores of gaping men and women paused between bites to stare at them in awestricken wonder.