I

Now for two years had the remnants of the tribe been settled in the Valley of Fire. They had prospered exceedingly. The caves were swarming with strong children; for at the Chief’s orders every warrior had taken to himself either two or three wives, so that none of the widows had been left unmated. GrÔm alone remained with but one wife, although his position in the tribe, second only to that of Bawr himself, would have entitled him to as many as he might choose.

Singularly happy with the girl A-ya, GrÔm had been unwilling to receive other women into their little grotto, which branched off from the high arched entrance of the main cave. He might, however, have yielded, from policy and for the sake of the tribe, to pressure from the Chief, but for a look of startled anguish which he had seen leap into A-ya’s eyes when he mentioned the matter to her. This had surprised him at the moment, but it had also thrilled him curiously. And as the girl made no objection to a step so absolutely in accordance with the tribal customs, GrÔm thought about it a good deal. A few days later he excused himself to the Chief, saying that other women in his cave would be a 124 nuisance, and would interfere with those studies of the Shining One which had proved so beneficial to the tribe. Bawr had accepted the excuse, though somewhat perplexed by it, and had accommodatingly taken the extra wives himself––a solution which had seemed to meet with the unqualified approval of A-ya.

The first winter in the Valley of Fire had been a wonderful one to the tribe, thanks to the fierce but beneficent element ever shining, dancing and whispering in its mysterious tongue before the cave doors. Bleak winds and driving, icy rains out of the north had no longer any power to distress them.

But when the storm was violent, with drenching and persistent rain, then it was found necessary to feed the fires before the cave-mouths lavishly with dry fuel from the stores which GrÔm’s forethought had caused to be accumulated under shelter. These contests between fire and rain were sagaciously represented by Bawr (who had by now to his authority as Chief added the subtle sanctions of High Priest) as the fight of the Shining One in protection of the tribe, his children.

On more than one occasion of torrential downpour the struggle had almost seemed to hang for a while in doubt. But the Shining One lost no prestige, thereby, for always, down there across the valley-mouth, kept leaping and dancing those unquenchable flames of scarlet, amber and violet, fed by the volcanic gases from within the crevice, and utterly regardless of whatever floods the sky might loose upon them. This was evidence conclusive that the Shining One was master 125 of the storm, no less than of the monsters which fled so terror-stricken before him.

In the early spring, the girl A-ya bore a child to GrÔm; a big-limbed, vigorous boy, with shapely head and spacious brow. In this event, and in the mother’s happiness about it (a happiness that seemed to the rest of the women to savor of foolish extravagance), GrÔm felt a gladness which dignity forbade him to betray.

But pondering over the little one with bent brows, and with deep eyes full of visions, he conceived such an ambition as had perhaps never before entered into the heart of man. It was that this child might grow up to achieve some wonderful thing, as he himself had done, for the advancement of his people. Of this baby, child of the woman toward whom he felt emotions so new and so profound, he had a premonition that new and incalculable things would come.

One day GrÔm was following the trail of a deer some distance up the valley. Skilled hunter that he was, he could read in the trail that his quarry was not far ahead, and also that it had not yet taken alarm. He followed cautiously, up the wind, noiseless as a leopard, his sagacious eyes taking note of every detail about him.

Presently he came to a spot where the trail was broken. There was a twenty-foot gap to the next hoofprints, and these went off at right angles to the direction which the quarry had hitherto been pursuing. GrÔm halted abruptly, slipped behind a tree, crouched, 126 and peered about him with the tense vigilance of a startled fox. He knew that something had frightened the deer, and frightened it badly. It behooved him to find out what that something was.

For some minutes he stood motionless as the trunk against which he leant, searching every bush and thicket with his keen gaze, and sniffing the air with expert nostrils. There was nothing perceptible to explain that sudden fright of the deer. He was on the point of slipping around the trunk to investigate from another angle. But stop! There on a patch of soil where some bear had been grubbing for tubers he detected a strange footprint. Instantly, he sank to the ground, and wormed his way over, silently as a snake, to examine it.

It was a human footprint, but much larger than his own, or those of his tribe; and GrÔm’s beard, and the stiff hairs on the nape of his corded neck, bristled with hostility at the sight of it.

The toes of this portentous print were immensely long and muscular, the heel protruded grotesquely far behind the arch of the foot, which was low and flat. The pressure was very marked along all the outer edge, as if the author of the print had walked on the outer sides of his feet. To GrÔm, who was an adept in the signs of the trail, it needed no second look to be informed that one of the Bow-legs had been here. And the trail was not five minutes old.

GrÔm slipped under the nearest bushes, and writhed forward with amazing speed in the direction indicated 127 by the strange footprint, pausing every other second to look, sniff the air, and listen. The trail was as clear as daylight to him. Suddenly he heard voices, several of them, guttural and squealing, and stopped again as if turned to stone. Then another voice, at which he started in amazement. It was Mawg’s, speaking quietly and confidentially. Mawg, then, had gone over to the Bow-legs! GrÔm’s forehead wrinkled. A-ya had been right. He ought to have killed the traitor. He writhed himself into a dense covert, and presently, over the broken brink of a vine-draped ledge, was able to command a view of the speakers.

They were five in number, and grouped almost immediately below him. Four were of the Bow-legs, squat, huge in the shoulder, long-armed, flat-skulled, of a yellowish clay color, with protruding jaws, and gaping, pit-like, upturned nostrils to their wide, bridgeless noses. GrÔm’s own nose wrinkled in disgust as the sour taint of them breathed up to him.

They were all armed with spears and stone-headed clubs, such as their people had been unacquainted with up to the time of their attack upon the Tribe of the Little Hills. It was apparent to GrÔm that the renegade Mawg, who towered among them arrogantly, had been teaching them what he knew of effective weapons.

Having no remotest comprehension of the language of the Bow-legs––which Mawg was speaking with them––GrÔm could get little clue to the drift of their 128 talk. They gesticulated frequently toward the east, and then again toward the caves at the valley-mouth, so GrÔm guessed readily enough that they were planning something against his people.

It was clear, also, that this was but a little scouting party which the renegade had led in to spy upon the weakness of the tribe. This was as far as he could premise with any certainty. The obvious conclusion was that these spies would return to their own country, to lead back such an invasion as should blot the Children of the Shining One out of existence.

GrÔm was quick to realize that to listen any longer was to waste invaluable time. All that it was possible for him to learn, he had learned. Writhing softly back till he had gained what he considered a safe distance from the spies, he rose to his feet and ran, at first noiselessly, and crouching as he went, then at the top of that speed for which he was famous in the tribe. Reaching the Caves, he laid the matter hurriedly before the Chief, and within five minutes they were leading a dozen warriors up the trail.

Besides their customary weapons, both GrÔm and the Chief carried fire-sticks, tubes of thick, green bark, tied round with a raw hide, filled with smouldering punk, and perforated with a number of holes toward the upper end. This was one of GrÔm’s inventions, of proved efficacy against saber-tooth and bear. By cramming a handful of dry fiber and twigs into the mouth of the tube, and then whirling it around his head, he was able to obtain a sudden and most unexpected 129 burst of flame which no beast ever dared to face, and which never failed to compel the awe and wonder of his followers.

Like shadows the little band went gliding in single file through the thickets and under the drooping branches, their passage marked only by the occasional upspringing of a startled bird or the frightened crashing flight of some timorous beast surprised by their swift and noiseless approach. Arriving near the hollow under the ledge, they sank flat and wormed their way forward like weasels till they had gained the post of observation behind the vine-clad rock.

But the strangers had vanished. An examination of their footprints showed that they had fled in haste; and to GrÔm’s chagrin it looked as if he had himself given them the alarm. The problem was solved in a few minutes by the discovery that Mawg––easily detected by his finer footprints––had scaled the ledge and come upon the place where GrÔm had lain hidden to watch them. Seeing that they were discovered, and that their discoverer had evidently gone to arouse the tribe, they had realized that, the Bow-legs being slow runners, their only hope lay in instant flight. From the direction which they had taken it was evident that they were fleeing back to their own country.

The Chief ordered instant pursuit. To this GrÔm demurred, not only because the fugitives had obtained such a start––as was shown by the state of the trail––but because he dreaded to leave the Caves so long unguarded. He foresaw the possibility of another band 130 of invaders surprising the Caves during the absence of this most efficient fighting force. But the Chief overruled him.

For several hours was the pursuit kept up; and from the trail it appeared, not only that Mawg was leading his followers cleverly, but also that the Bow-legs were making no mean speed. The pursuers were come by now to near the head of the valley, a region with which they were little familiar. It was a broken country and well fitted for ambuscade, where a lesser force, well posted and driven to bay, might well secure a deadly advantage. The tribe was too weak to risk its few fighting men in any uncertain contest; and the Chief, yielding slowly to GrÔm’s arguments, was on the point of giving the order to turn back, when a harsh scream of terror from just ahead, beyond a shoulder of rock, brought the line to a halt.

Waving their followers into concealment on either side of the trail, the Chief and GrÔm stole forward and peered cautiously around the turn.

Straight before them fell away a steep and rugged slope. Midway of the descent, with his back to a rock, crouched one of the Bow-legs, battling frantically with his club to keep off the attack of a pair of leopards. The man was kneeling upon one knee, with the other leg trailed awkwardly behind him. It seemed an altogether difficult and disadvantageous position in which to do battle.

“The fool!” said Bawr. “He doesn’t know how to fight a leopard.” 131

“He’s hurt. His leg is broken!” said GrÔm. And straightway, a novel purpose flashing into his far-seeing brain, he ran leaping down the slope to the rescue, waving his fire-stick to a blaze as he went.

The Chief looked puzzled for a moment, wondering why the deliberate GrÔm should trouble to do what it was plain the leopards would do for him most effectually. But he dreaded the chance of an ambuscade. Shouting to the men behind to come on, he waved his own fire-stick to a blaze, and followed GrÔm.

One of the leopards had already succeeded in closing in upon the wounded Bow-leg; but at the sight of GrÔm and the Chief leaping down upon them they sprang back snarling and scurried off among the thickets like frightened cats. The Bow-leg lifted wild eyes to learn the meaning of his deliverance. But when he saw those two tall forms rushing at him with flame and smoke circling about their heads, he gave a groan and fell forward upon his face.

GrÔm stood over him, staring down upon the misshapen and bleeding form with thoughtful eyes; while the Chief looked on, striving to fathom his purpose. The warriors came up, shouting savage delight at having at last got one of their dreaded enemies into their hands alive. They would have fallen upon him at once and torn him to pieces. But GrÔm waved them back sternly. They growled with indignation, and one, sufficiently prominent in the tribal counsels to dare GrÔm’s displeasure, protested hotly against this favor to so venomous a foe. 132

“I demand this fellow, Bawr, as my captive!” said GrÔm.

“It was you who took him,” answered the Chief. “He is yours.” He was about to add, “though I can’t see what you want of him”; but it was a part of his policy never to seem in doubt or ignorance about anything that another might perhaps know. So, instead, he sternly told his followers to obey the law of the tribe and respect GrÔm’s capture. Then GrÔm stepped close beside him and said at his ear: “Many things which we need to know will Bawr learn from this fellow presently, as to the dangers which are like to come upon us.”

At this the Chief, being ready of wit, comprehended GrÔm’s purpose; and, to the amazement of his followers, he looked down upon the hideous prisoner with a smile of satisfaction.

“Well have I called you the Chief’s Right Hand,” he answered. “I shall also have to call you the Chief’s Wisdom, for in saving this fellow’s life you have shown more forethought than I.”

The captive’s wounds having been dressed with astringent herbs, and his broken leg put into splints in accordance with the rude but not ineffective surgery of the time, he was placed on a rough litter of interlaced branches and carried back by the reluctant warriors to the Caves.

None of the warriors were advanced enough to have understood the policy of their leaders, so no effort was made by either the Chief or GrÔm to explain 133 it. The Chief, doubly secure in his dominance by reason of GrÔm’s loyal support, cared little whether his followers were content or not, and he took no heed of their ill-humor so long as they did not allow it to become articulate.

But when, after an hour’s sullen tramping, they suddenly grew merry at their task, and fell to marching with a child-like cheer under their repulsive and groaning burden, he was surprised, and made inquiry as to the reason for this sudden complaisance. It turned out that one of the warriors, accounted more discerning than his fellows, had suggested that the captive was to be nursed back to health in order that he might be made an acceptable sacrifice to the Shining One. As this notion seemed to meet with such hearty approval, the wise Chief did not think it worth while to cast any doubt upon it. In fact, as he thought, such a solution might very well arrive, in the end, in case GrÔm’s design should fail to come up to his expectations.

To the presence of the hideous and repulsive stranger in her dwelling, A-ya, as was natural, raised warm objection. But when GrÔm had explained his purpose to her, and the imminence of the peril that threatened, she yielded readily enough, the dread of Mawg being yet vivid in her imagination. She lent herself cheerfully to the duty of caring for the captive’s wounds and of helping GrÔm to teach him the simple speech of the tribe.

As for the captive, for some days he was possessed 134 by a morose anticipation of being brained at any moment––an anticipation, however, which did not seem to interfere with his appetite. He would clutch eagerly all the food offered him, and crouch, huddled over it, with his face to the rock-wall, while he devoured it with frantic haste and bestial noises. But as he found himself treated with invariable kindness, he began to develop an anxious gratitude and docility. On A-ya’s tall form his little round eyes, shy and fierce at the same time, came to rest with an adoring awe. The smell of him being extremely offensive to all this cleanly tribe, and especially to A-ya and GrÔm, who were more fastidious than their fellows, A-ya had taken advantage of her office as priestess of the Shining One to establish a little fire within the precincts of her own dwelling, and by the judicious use of aromatic barks upon the blaze she was able to scent the place to her taste. And the Bow-leg, seeing her mastery of the mysterious and dreadful scarlet tongues which licked upwards from the hollow on their rocky pedestal, regarded her less as a woman than as a goddess––a being who, for her own unknown reasons, chose to be beneficent toward him, but who plainly could become destructive if he should in any way transgress. Toward GrÔm––who regarded him altogether impersonally as a means to an end, a pawn to be played prudently in a game of vast import––his attitude was that of the submitted slave, his fate lying in the hollow of his master’s hand. Toward the rest of the tribe––who, till their curiosity was sated, kept crowding in to stare and jeer and 135 curse––he displayed the savage fear and hate of a lynx at bay.

But the babe on A-ya’s arm seemed to him something peculiarly precious. It was not only the son of GrÔm, his grave and distant master, but also of that wonderful, beautiful, enigmatic deity, his mistress, the fashioner and controller of the flames. The adoration which soon grew up in his heart for A-ya’s beauty, but which his awe of her did not suffer him even to realize to himself, was turned upon the babe, and speedily took the form of a passionate and dog-like devotion. A-ya, with her mother instinct, was quick to understand this, and also to realize the possible value to her child of such a devotion, in some future emergency. Moreover, it softened her heart toward the hideous captive, so that she busied herself not only to help GrÔm teach him their language, but also to reform his manners and make him somewhat less unpleasant an associate. His wounds soon healed, thanks to the vitality of his youthful stock; and the bones of the broken leg soon knit themselves securely. But GrÔm’s surgery having been hasty and something less than exact, the leg remained so crooked that its owner could do no more than hobble about with a laborious, dragging gait. It being obvious that he could not run away, there was no guard set upon him.

But it soon became equally obvious that nothing would induce him to remove himself from the neighborhood of A-ya’s baby. He was like a gigantic watchdog squatting at GrÔm’s doorway, chained to it by 136 links stronger than any that hands could fashion. And those of the tribe who had been hoping to do honor to the Shining One, as well as to the spirits of their slain kinsmen back in the barrow on the windy hills, by a great and bloody sacrifice, began to realize with discontent that their hopes were like enough to be disappointed.

II

The captive said his name was Ook-ootsk––a clicking guttural which none but A-ya was able to master. When he had learned to make himself understood, he proved eager to repay GrÔm’s protection by giving all the information that he possessed. Simple-minded, but with much of a child’s shrewdness, he quickly came to regard himself as of some importance when both the Chief and GrÔm would spend hours in interrogating him. His own people he repudiated with bitterness, because, when he had fallen among the rocks and shattered his leg, his party had refused to burden their flight by helping him. It became his pride to identify himself with the interests of his master, and to call himself the slave of his master’s baby.

The information which he was able to give was such as to cause the Chief and GrÔm the most profound disquietude. It appeared that the Bow-legs, having gradually recovered from the panic of their appalling defeat in the Pass of the Little Hills, had made up their minds that the disaster must be avenged. But 137 no longer did they hold their opponents cheap on account of their scanty numbers. They realized that if they would hope to succeed in their next attack they must organize, and prepare themselves by learning how to employ their forces better. To this end, therefore, when Mawg and his fellow-renegades fell into their hands, instead of tearing them to pieces in bestial sport, they had spared them, and made much of them, and set themselves diligently to learn all that the strangers could teach. And Mawg, seeing here his opportunity both for vengeance on GrÔm and for the gratification of that mad passion for A-ya which had so long obsessed him, had gone about the business with shrewd foresight and a convincing zeal.

It was apparent from the accounts which Ook-ootsk was able to give that the invasion would take place as soon as possible after their hordes were adequately armed with the new weapons. This, said Ook-ootsk, would be soon after the dry season had set in. In any case, he said, the hordes were bound to wait for the dry season, because the way from their country to the Valley of Fire lay through a region of swamps which became impassable for any large body of migrants during the month of rains.

As the dry season was already close upon them, Bawr and GrÔm now set themselves feverishly to the arrangement of their defenses. Counting the older boys who had grown into sizable youths since the last great battle and all the able-bodied women and girls, they could muster no more than about six score 138 of actual combatants. They knew that defeat would mean nothing less than instant annihilation for the tribe, and for the women a foul captivity and a loathsome mating. But they knew also that a mere successful defense would avail them only for the moment. Unless they could inflict upon the invaders such a defeat as would amount to a paralyzing catastrophe, they would soon be worn down by mere force of numbers, or starved to death in their caves. It was not only for defense, therefore, but for wholesale attack––the attack of six score upon as many thousand––that Bawr planned his strategy and GrÔm wove unheard-of devices.

Of the two great caves occupied by the tribe one was now abandoned, as not lending itself easily to defense. To Bawr’s battle-trained eyes it revealed itself as rather a trap than a refuge, because from the heights behind it an enemy could roll down rocks enough to effectively block its mouth. But the cliff in which the other cave was hollowed was practically inaccessible, and hung beetling far over the entrance.

Into this natural fortress the tribe––with an infinite deal of grumbling––was removed. Store of roots and dried flesh was gathered within; and every one was set to the collection of dry and half-dry fuel. The light stuff, with an immense number of short, highly-inflammable faggots, was piled inside the doorway where no rain could reach it. And the heavy wood was stacked outside, to right and left, in such a fashion 139 as to form practical ramparts for the innermost line of defense.

Directly in front of the cave spread a small fan-shaped plateau several hundred square yards in area. On the right a narrow path, wide enough for but one wayfarer at a time, descended between perpendicular boulders to the second cave. On the left the plateau was bordered by broken ground, a jumble of serrated rocks, to be traversed only with difficulty. In front there was a steep but shallow dip, from which the land sloped gently up the valley, clothed with high bush and deep thickets intersected with innumerable narrow trails.

Directly in front of the cave, and about the center of the plateau, burned always, night and day, the sacred fire, tended in turn by the members of the little band appointed to this distinguished service by the Chief. Under the Chief’s direction the whole of the plateau was now cleared of underbrush and grass, and then along its brink was laid a chain of small fires, some ten or twelve feet apart, and all ready for lighting.

Meanwhile, GrÔm was busy preparing the device on which, according to his plan of campaign, the ultimate issue was to hang. For days the tribe was kept on the stretch collecting dry and leafy brushwood from the other side of the valley, and bundles of dead grass from the rich savannahs beyond the valley-mouth, on the other side of the dancing flames. All this inflammable stuff GrÔm distributed lavishly 140 through the thickets before the plateau, to a distance of nearly a mile up the slope, till the whole space was in reality one vast bonfire laid ready for the torch.

While these preparations were being rushed––somewhat to the perplexity of the tribe, who could not fathom the tactics of stuffing the landscape with rubbish––Bawr was keeping a little band of scouts on guard at the far-off head of the valley. They were chosen from the swift runners of the tribe; and Bawr, who was a far-seeing general, had them relieved twice in twenty-four hours, that they might not grow weary and fail in vigilance.

When all was ready came a time of trying suspense. As day after day rolled by without event, cloudless and hot, the country became as dry as tinder; and the tribe, seeing that nothing unusual happened, began to doubt or to forget the danger that hung over them. There were murmurs over the strain of ceaseless watching, murmurs which Bawr suppressed with small ceremony. But the lame Ook-ootsk, squatting misshapen in GrÔm’s doorway with A-ya’s baby in his ape-like arms grew more and more anxious. As he conveyed to GrÔm, the longer the delay the greater the force which was being gathered for the assault.

Having no inkling of GrÔm’s larger designs, he looked with distrust on the little heaps of wood that were to be fires along the edge of the plateau, and wished them to be piled much bigger, intimating that his people, though they would be terribly afraid of the Shining One, would be forced on from behind by 141 sheer numbers and would trample the small fires out. The confidence of the Chief and GrÔm, and of A-ya as well, in the face of the awful peril which hung over them, filled him with amazement.

Then, at last, one evening just in the dying flush of the sunset, came the scouts, running breathlessly, and one with a ragged spear-wound in his shoulder. Their eyes were wide as they told of the countless myriads of the Bow-legs who were pouring into the head of the valley, led by Mawg and a gigantic black-faced chief as tall as Bawr himself.

“Are they as many,” asked GrÔm, “as they who came against us in the Little Hills?”

But the panting men threw up their hands.

“As a swarm of locusts to a flock of starlings,” they replied.

To their astonishment the Chief smiled with grim satisfaction at this appalling news.

“It is well,” said he. Mounting a rock by the cave-door, he gazed up the valley, striving to make out the vanguard of the approaching hordes; while GrÔm, marshalling the servitors of the fire, stationed them by the range of piles, ready to set light to them on the given word.

It was nearly an hour––so swift had been the terror of the scouts––before a low, terrible sound of crashings and mutterings announced that the hordes were drawing near. It was now twilight, with the first stars appearing in a pallid violet sky; and up the valley could be discerned an obscurely rolling confusion 142 among the thickets. Bawr gave orders, rapid and concise; and the combatants lined out in a double rank along the front of the plateau some three or four paces behind the piles of wood.

They were armed with stone-headed clubs, large or small, according to personal taste, and each carried at least three flint-tipped spears. At the head of the narrow path leading up from the lower cave were stationed half a dozen women, similarly armed. Bawr had chosen these women because each of them had one or more young children in the cave behind her; and he knew that no adventurous foe would get up that path alive. But A-ya was not among these six wild mothers, for her place was at the service of the fires.

The ominous roar and that obscure confusion rolled swiftly nearer, and Bawr, with a swing of his huge club, sprang down from his post of observation and strode to the front. GrÔm shouted an order, and light was set to all the crescent of fires. They flared up briskly; and at the same time the big central fire, which had been allowed to sink to a heap of glowing coals, was heaped with dry stuff which sent up an instant column of flame. The sudden wide illumination, shed some hundreds of yards up the valley, revealed the front ranks of the Bow-legs swarming in the brush, their hideous yellow faces, gaping nostrils and pig-like eyes all turned up in awe towards the glare.

The advance of the front ranks came to an instant halt, and the low muttering rose to a chorus of harsh 143 cries. Then the tall figure of Mawg sprang to the front, followed, after a moment of wondering hesitation, by that of the head chief of the hordes, a massive creature of the true Bow-leg type, but as tall as Bawr himself, and in color almost black. This giant and Mawg, refusing to be awed by the tremendous phenomenon of the fire, went leaping along the lines of their followers, urging them forward, and pointing out that their enemies stood close beside the flames and took no hurt.

On the front ranks themselves this reasoning seemed, at first, to produce little effect. But to those just behind it appeared more cogent, seconded as it was by a consuming curiosity. Moreover, the masses in the rear were rolling down, and their pressure presently became irresistible. All at once the front ranks realized that they had no choice in the matter. They sagged forward, surged obstinately back again, then gave like a bursting dam and poured, yelling and leaping, straight onward toward the crescent of fires.

As soon as the rush was fairly begun, both Mawg and the Black Chief cleverly extricated themselves from it, running aside to the higher, broken ground at the left of the plateau whence they could see and direct the attack. It was plain enough that they accounted the front ranks doomed, and were depending on sheer weight of numbers for the inevitable victory.

Standing grim, silent, immovable between their fires, the Chief and GrÔm awaited the dreadful onset. In all the tribe not a voice was raised, not a fighter, man 144 or woman, quailed. But many hearts stood still, for it looked as if that living flood could never be stayed. Presently from all along its front came a cloud of spears. But they fell short, not more than half a dozen reaching the edge of the plateau. In instant response came a deep-chested shout from Bawr, followed by a discharge of spears from behind the line of fire.

These spears, driven with free arm and practised skill, went clean home in the packed ranks of the foe, but they caused no more than a second’s wavering, as the dead went down and their fellows crowded on straight over them. A second volley from the grimly silent fighters on the plateau had somewhat more effect. Driven low, and at shorter range, every jagged flint-point found its mark, and the screaming victims hampered those behind. But after a moment the mad flood came on again, till it was within some thirty paces of the edge of the plateau.

Then came a long shout from GrÔm, a signal which had been anxiously awaited by the front line of his fighters. Each fire had been laid, on the inner side, with dry faggots of a resinous wood which not only blazed freely but held the flame tenaciously. These faggots had been placed with only their tips in the fire. Seizing them by their unlighted ends, the warriors hurled them, blazing, full into the gaping faces before them.

The brutal, gaping faces screeched with pain and terror, and the whole front rank, beating frantically 145 at the strange missiles, wheeled about and clawed at the rank behind, battling to force its way through. But the rolling masses were not to be denied. After a brief, terrible struggle, the would-be fugitives were borne down and trodden underfoot. The new-comers were greeted with a second discharge of the blazing brands, and the dreadful scene repeated itself. But now there was a difference. For many of the assailants, realizing that there was no chance of retreat, came straight on, heedless of brand or spear, with the deadly, uncalculating fury of a beast at bay.

For some seconds, under the specific directions of the Chief on the right center and of GrÔm far to the left, many of the blazing brands had been thrown, not into the faces of the front rank, but far over their heads, to fall among the tinder-dry brushwood. Long tongues of flame leaped up at once, here, there, everywhere, curling and licking savagely. Screeches of horror arose, which brought all the hordes to a halt as far back as they could be heard. A light wind was blowing up the valley, and almost at once the scattered flames, gathering volume, came together with a roar. The hordes, smitten with the blindest madness of panic, turned to flee, springing upon and tearing at each other in the desperate struggle to escape.

Shouting triumph and derision, the defenders bounded forward, down over the edge of the plateau, and fell upon the huddled ranks before them. But these, with all escape cut off, and far outnumbering their exultant adversaries, now fought like rats in a 146 pit. And the men of the caves found themselves locked in a struggle to the death just when they had thought the fight was done.

A-ya, no longer needed at the fires, was just about to follow GrÔm down into the thick of the reeking battle, when a scream from the cave-mouth made her whip round. She was just in time to see Ook-ootsk hurl his spear at the tall figure of Mawg, leaping down upon him from the broken slope on the left. A half score of the Bow-legs were following hard upon Mawg’s heels. With a scream of warning to GrÔm she rushed back to the cave. But GrÔm did not hear her. He had been pulled down, struck senseless and buried under a writhing heap of foes.

Her long hair streaming behind her, her eyes like those of a tigress protecting her cubs, A-ya darted to the cave-door. But she did not reach it. Just outside the threshold a club descended upon her head, and she dropped. Instantly she was pounced upon, and bound. A moment later three Bow-legs, followed by Mawg, streaming with blood, came running out of the cave. Mawg swung the limp form across his shoulder with a grin of satisfaction, and the party beat a hurried retreat up the slopes.

In a few minutes that last death-grapple along the front of the plateau came to an end, and Bawr, leaving nearly a third of his followers slain with the slain Bow-legs, led the exultant survivors back to the cave. It had been a costly victory for the Children of the Shining One; but for the invaders it was little less than 147 annihilation. The flames were raging for a mile up the valley, wherever they were not choked by the piles and windrows of the dead or dying Bow-legs. The lurid night was shaken with the incessant rising and falling chorus of shrieks, and far off under the glare rolled that awful receding wave of fugitives, with the flames leaping upon them and slaying them as they fled. Leaning upon his club and gazing thoughtfully across the scene of incredible destruction, Bawr told himself that never again, so long as the memory of this night survived, would the Bow-legs dare to come against his people.

Then wild lamentation from the women drew the Chief into the cave. Here he found that half the little ones had been killed in that swift incursion of Mawg, and that nearly all the old men and women had been slaughtered in defending their charges. Across GrÔm’s doorway, crouching on his face and with his great teeth buried in the throat of a dead Bow-leg, lay the lame captive, Ook-ootsk. Seeing that he still breathed, and marking the fury with which he had fought in defense of their little ones, the warriors lifted him aside gently. Beneath him, and safely guarded in the crook of his shaggy arm, they found GrÔm’s baby, without a hurt. The women defending the head of the path on the right having seen the rape of A-ya, Bawr handed the babe to one of his own wives to cherish.

Then search was made for GrÔm. At first the Chief imagined that he had followed the captors of A-ya, in 148 a desperate hope of effecting her rescue alone. But they found him under a heap of dead, so nearly dead himself that they despaired of him. Realizing that it was he who had saved the tribe, they began over him that great keening lamentation hitherto reserved strictly for the funeral of the supreme Chief himself. But Bawr, his massive features furrowed with solicitude, stopped them, vowing that GrÔm should not die. And lifting the hero in his arms he bore him into the cave.

GrÔm’s wounds proved to be deep, but not fatal to one of these clean-blooded sons of the open and the wind. It was some days before it was clearly borne in upon him that A-ya had been carried off alive by the Bow-legs. Then, with a great cry, he sprang to his feet. The blood spouted afresh from his wounds, and he fell back in a swoon. When he came to himself again, for days he would speak to no one, and it looked as if he would die, not of his wounds so much as of the insufficient will to live. But a chance word of the captive Ook-ootsk, who was being nursed back to life beside him, reminded him that there was vengeance to be lived for, and he roused himself a little. Then Bawr, ever subtle in the reading of his people’s hearts, suggested to him that even such a feat as the rescue of the girl A-ya might not be impossible to the subjugator of the fire and the slayer of a whole people.

And from that moment GrÔm began climbing steadily back to life.