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  The track before him doubled back toward the creek and into the ravine. Cautiously Hok approached, his javelin poised. He did not enter the cleft, but scouted along its lip. Where it opened at the riverside he picked up again the tracks of the Gnorrl. A gout of blood showed beside them and, farther on, another.

  The trail led him along the sand of the river’s brink to where, winding upstream around a rocky height, it was lost to view. He paused a moment under the high rock before turning the corner. Breeze brought him a tiny wreath of smoke.

  “The Gnorrl uses fire,” he said to himself. “It cooks.”

  No question what cooking it did this morning. More blood spotted the track at juncture of bluff and river. Here were many footmarks of varying degrees of freshness, easily classifiable as made by three pairs of feet—two large, one smaller. Hok slipped gingerly around the point of the bank.

  Just beyond the steep slope of rock curved away from the water. It made a crescent-shaped open space, tufted here and there with grass, almost entirely enclosed by the bluff and the river. At the center point of the bank’s inward curve, at twice Hok’s height above the sandy soil’s level, opened the wide mouth of a cavern. A tall man, standing on its floor, might touch the roof by jumping, and across the opening from side to side would take four considerable stretchings of the legs. A jagged shelf extended above this grotto, filling it with shadow, and an ancient water channel descended diagonally from the cavern’s lower lip to the ground, making a natural runway up which two men might mount abreast. The air was full of the musky odor Hok had first known beside the slain deer.

  This was the den of the Gnorrl.

  Hok’s heart drummed partridge-like within him, but he advanced without hesitation. His nose curled with revulsion at the stench. He got a better view of the cavern, and from its shadowy interior came forth new wisps of smoke, laden with the smell of roasting.

  He gained the foot of the runway—deep and narrow and not as steep as the bank to left and right. It was worn as smooth as Hok’s palm; the feet of Gnorrls must have trod it for uncountable years. Hok set up a fierce yell, beating with his javelin-shaft on the stone.

  “Hi, hi! Gnorrl, Gnorrl! Come out, baby-killer!”

  He heard movement in the cave overhead. A deep rumble made reply. Hok laughed scornfully: “Gnorrl!

  Come out, and eat javelin!”

  Something crept into view at the lip of the opening—a dark, coarse hand, matted with hair, that grasped the shoulder of rock beside the deep-worn runway. Above it peeped the low, bearded face of the Gnorrl.

  It looked like the one Hok had seen yesterday, the one that had wanted to fight for the deer’s carcass. This time he refused to shrink from its biting gaze. “Come out, Gnorrl!” he urged. “Show me your body!”

  As though it understood, the thing rose into view. It swung a stick abruptly; from that stick’s cleft end a stone whizzed, over Hok’s instinctively ducking head. The Gnorrl charged down after the missile, lumbering swift as a rhinoceros.

  Hok let fly with his javelin. The upward angle was strange, but he knew his weapon. There was a hum in the air, an abrupt chock as the stone point drove home, and the Gnorrl fell on its face. It came sliding down the sloping way. Almost at Hok’s feet it subsided quivering, blood from its gasping mouth soaking the sand.

  A coughing roar sounded from above, where another Gnorrl had appeared. This was a female, almost as thickset and fearsome as her fallen mate. She saw at once what had happened. Her voice shrilled into a scream as she dashed Vengefully down the narrow way.

  Hok snatched his second javelin from behind his shoulder, but there was no time to flex and throw. He quickly planted the butt-end in the sand, dropped to one knee, his right hand supporting the shaft at an angle. Even as the she-Gnorrl launched herself through the air, her great hands crooked like talons for the grapple, he point-blanked the flint head into the center of her gross breast. The force of her own assault impaled her, and Hok, releasing the javelin, sprang lightly to one side. She floundered down, the blood-gushing point springing into sight between her hairy shoulder blades. Hok caught hold of the shaft just at the lashings and with a wrench pulled it clear through her body.

  She still lived, trying to squirm around and clutch his ankle. He danced away, laughed, and stabbed through her eye into the brain. As she sagged into death he freed his javelin a second time and sprang across the carcass of the male to mount upward to the cave.

  Inside the dark chamber crouched a halfling male cub of the Gnorrls. Its frightened face was greasy with eating, and one hand clutched a gnawed morsel. Hok darted a glance at the fire and the interrupted cooking. That one glance was enough. He set foot on the floor of the grotto, watching the young Gnorrl.

  It chattered at him like a crazy monkey. Monkeylike, too, it was fuzzy of body, nervous of movement. Hok chuckled harshly. The young Gnorrl understood, tried to retreat. In a far corner of the grotto opened a small inner cave. Hok let the thing win almost to that hiding; then, still chuckling, he darted his javelin.

  Just before noon, called by Hok’s damp-wood smoke signal, Zhik and the others arrived. They found their new leader seated at the foot of the runway, scrubbing his weapons with sand.

  “The Gnorrls are dead, all,” he told them. “I have thrown them into the river.”

  “Is this their cave?” asked Eowi, her eyes round.

  “No,” replied Hok. “It is our cave now. Get green wood, to burn and drive away their smell. In this good game country we stay.”

  CHAPTER III

  Skirmishing

  THE grotto, with its water-worn sides and floor of hard-trodden earth, was more than large enough for all the surviving members of Hok’s family. In odd corners the new tenantry found the possessions of the slain Gnorrls. Near the runway were heaped throwing stones, to be flung by hand, or with a cleft stick, as Hok had seen and survived. A horizontal crack, like a natural shelf, held other stones, rather roughly chipped into tools and weapons. These included hide-scrapers that Asha and Eowi appropriated, also several almond-shaped flints, like helveless axes, to be held in the hand.

  Gnorrls, too, were learning something about the weapons of the strangers. On the morning after the first night in the cave, Zhik went for a brief scout down river and returned to say that Hok’s three victims had washed ashore in the shallows not far away. Barp and Unn slipped off to see the corpses, and returned shuddering. From the shelter of a willow clump they had seen half a dozen living Gnorrls moaning sadly over die dead. Eventually, said the frightened boys, these grotesque mourners had carried the bodies away.

  “They are like men,” commented Zhik. “They weep for the slain and take them away to bury them. The Gnorrls worship.”

  “They are evil,” growled Hok, and dutifully boxed the ears of Barp and Unn, warning them to avoid all contact with Gnorrls.

  Other clues to Gnorrl-life turned up in the cave, and from them Hok and Zhik deduced that the shaggy people lived in rock-sheltered communities during winter, rather wretchedly and scantily. Warm weather would set them roving in small groups again, even as true men loved to do. It had been only chance that the last three Gnorrls idled in these winter quarters.

  If this was an established stronghold of the things, they would want to come back, and there would be trouble; but Hok felt that the odds lay with the defenders. The Gnorrls would have to gather upon the open half-moon of sand below, in fair view and could scale the runway only a pair at a time. The ledge above the grotto precluded attack from that quarter. Wisdom and watchfulness would do the rest.

  Accordingly the young chief announced that whenever he and Zhik were absent, Barp and Unn must keep faithful watch at the river’s brink, where they could see up and down stream, while the women held themselves ready at all times to hurl spears or stones against attackers.

  THE next adventure with Gnorrls was Zhik’s alone. He and Hok, hunting, for meat, went in opposite directions across a plain on which grazed deer and cattle. When the bro
thers met later in the day, Zhik was minus a javelin and trembling with rage and excitement.

  He had stalked a wild cow, crept through high grass and pierced her heart with a javelin. Then, before he could come up to her, the nearby thickets had vomited Gnorrls, and he had been forced to run for his life.

  It was the last lone hunt of either young man for many months. Not only did they roam together thenceforth, but they made more preparations at the cave. From leg bones of deer and bison they cut serviceable points, which they bound to straight shafts. Thus they made plenty of good javelins for throwing or stabbing. These they stacked near the runway, ready for instant use. Hok instituted target practice for Barp, Unn and the women.

  But the feared attack did not come until autumn’s frosts made the mornings white. It was then that the Gnorrls tried to take back their ancient shelter.

  They made a rush early in the dawn. Only Asha was awake, and had gone down to fill a skin water-bag. The hairy ones were upon her in a triumphant, yelling wave. Even as Hok and Zhik started to wakefulness on their pallets at the lip of the grotto, they saw their stepmother beaten to death with stones and ragged clubs, and her limp body dragged backward out of sight beyond the shoulder of the bluff.

  The girl Eowi, who had been on guard but had gone into the rear of the cave, rushed back and hurled the first vengeful missile. It was one of the bone-tipped javelins, and it split the broad face of a Gnorrl as he gained the very foot of the runway. He sat down, howling through a sudden mask of blood, and his blind wriggles blocked for the moment a concerted charge. Meanwhile the open space below seemed thronged with the enemy, and into the heart of them Hok and Zhik threw spear after spear. No need to take careful aim at such close quarters; four of the besiegers were down in as many breaths, and the rest gave back. The occupants of the cave shouted their defiance, and Barp threw a lucky shaft that pierced the shoulder of a Gnorrl slow in retreating. Screaming loudly, the wounded monster sprang into the water and wallowed there. Again the cave-holders yelled, as at a good omen.

  Five human battlers were in action—Hok, his three brothers and Eowi. The Gnorrls numbered six times as many, and seemed to have some sort of attacking order. One or two growled commandingly, and made gestures as if to show how few were the enemy. A volley of stones spattered the defenders, and Unn yelled in startled pain. There was another dash for the runway.

  This time it was almost taken. Barp, Unn and Eowi threw their javelins too quickly and, although the casts took toll, a flood of Gnorrls came scrambling up the narrow channel in the rock. Hok and Zhik, who had reserved their casts, now skewered each his Gnorrl, but the others swarmed over the fallen and up to the very level of the cave floor. It looked like defeat, destruction. Desperately Hok slashed with his axe of flint, hewing down the foremost attacker. Then it was Eowi who turned the tide of battle.

  She had snatched a blazing stick from the breakfast fire, and ran to thrust it into the snarling face of the next Gnorrl.

  That move was genius, or luck, or both. Had the Gnorrl been killed outright, he would have fallen, and his comrades behind rushed trampling over his body to the conflict. But as the flame kindled his rank beard, there went up from his great mouth a hideous howl of pain and terror. He toppled backward on the slope of the runway, flung out his thick arms and grappled those behind him. Crazed with fear and agony, he tried to fight his way back through the press. Two or three other Gnorrls slipped and fell. Zhik, greatly daring in his extremity, sprang upon the fallen bodies, spuming them with his moccasined feet and thrusting with a javelin at those beyond and below. A moment later the whole attack was demoralized and the Gnorrls, dragging some of their wounded, fled wildly back to the river, then along the edge and out of sight beyond the bluff.

  Hok and his people waited cautiously while the morning sun lifted itself in the sky by the breadth of a hand. Then they descended to the ground and reconnoitered. The Gnorrls were not to be seen up or down river, nor on the meadow below the bluffs. On the sand lay nine of the creatures, dead or dying. Three of these had fallen upon the runway and had slid to its foot. Hok and Zhik finished the, last struggles of the wounded with judicious axe-blows and hurled the bodies into the river, where they drifted quickly away.

  The only loss on the side of the defenders was Asha, whose corpse had been borne away by the retreating Gnorrls—for what purpose Hok well knew. He grimaced in revulsion at the idea, but reflected that his stepmother’s flesh was a repast dearly bought. Lesser mishaps were a deep cut on his own cheek, which he could not remember sustaining, a wrenched ankle for Zhik, and a big bump on Unn’s forehead from a flung stone.

  THE following day a heavy snow fell, and the Gnorrls menaced them no further. Undoubtedly the strange aborigines of this northern meadow-country found another shelter from the cold. Once or twice, when hunting on fair days for snow-bogged elk and bison, Hok and his brothers saw Gnorrls at a distance and were interested to see that the natural shagginess of the things was augmented by crude mantles or skirts of skin. However, there was no more fighting, no close contact even, during all the season of snow.

  Several times in midwinter the cave-dwellers found themselves on the shortest of rations, but all of them were young and vigorous, and all lived to see the spring.

  Hok, sauntering southward with Zhik, saw something else.

  “Smoke,” he pronounced, pointing afar in the direction whence they had come a year ago. “Fire—of men, like ourselves.” He looked at his brother sidewise. “You can be chief for a time—and Barp and Unn have grown. They can help hunt and guard.”

  “Why do you talk like this?”

  “I am going south,” replied Hok. “Where there are men, there will be women. I want one.”

  CHAPTER IV

  The Capture of Oloana

  IT was one of the smallest pools in the wide, dense-grown forest, a blob of shiny dark over which boughs and vines laced greenly. The girl turned over lazily upon its quiet surface, swam three strong, slow strokes to the brink, and waded out.

  Her golden, glistening body, its curves at once strong and graceful, would have intrigued even critical modern eyes. She shook herself, like the handsome wild thing she was, and drops showered from her like rain. Then she donned her single garment of soft doeskin, that looped over one round shoulder, covered her young bosom’s swell, fitted her waist and dropped like a short skirt to mid-thigh. Her slender feet slid themselves into sandals of well-tanned bison leather. On her right arm she fastened a sort of bracelet, strung out of small gay shells. Finally she rummaged in a belt-pouch, brought out a shallow-toothed comb of deer-horn and, leaning back against a half-rotten stump, began to arrange her great, damp cloud of blue-black hair.

  Oloana, daughter of Chief Zorr and beloved of his giant lieutenant, Kimri, feared nothing. The huntsmen of her little tribe had long ago driven the beasts before them, even in this northern edge of the forest. As for human menace, who would dare so much as look at her, for all her new ripeness of beauty?

  Yet someone was looking. He lounged easily in a tree-fork overhead, lithe and motionless as a leopard in ambush. Unlike Oloana’s dark folk, he boasted a head of hair the color of a lion’s mane. His face, clean of beard, was ruddy rather than sallow brown, and a scar across one young cheek added sternness to his undeniable good looks. He wore moccasins instead of sandals, and the fashion of his axe, dagger and javelins was strange to the people of that forest. He was Hok, who had come south to find a woman.

  His gray fighter’s eyes sparkled with honest relish, and his wide mouth spread wider in a grin of approval. His big hands opened and closed, as though eager to seize what he saw. Noiselessly he rose erect on his perch, twitching a javelin from his shoulder-loop. The long shaft whizzed in the air, and thudded into the stump beside the girl.

  Oloana screamed in panic, tried to spring away—in vain. The sharp flint point had pinned fast the edge of her skirt. Even as she struggled to tear loose, a happy laugh rang out above her. A long-limbed, bright-maned
demon fell out of the branchy heavens, lighted easily upon moccasined toes, and caught her by the elbow.

  “You are mine,” he announced, in a language similar to her own.

  She screamed again, and struck at him. Her fist rang on a chest as hard as wood. He laughed the louder, plucked away the tight-wedged javelin as easily as Oloana would have gathered a wild-flower. Still struggling and shouting in fear and rage, she felt herself whirled lightly up and across his shoulder. Then he ran.

  For another, deeper shout answered Oloana’s appeal, to be echoed by more shouts. Her people, the dark forest men, had heard her and were coming. Hope came to the girl and added fire to her battle for freedom. Hok chuckled and fled the faster.

  Still more loud came the pursuing cries. Racing figures could be seen among the thickets behind—black beards and brandished weapons.

  “No javelins!” bellowed one great voice, the voice of Zorr, Oloana’s chieftain father. “You might kill her. Run him down!”

  “We have him!” howled back the gigantic Kimri, who was to marry Oloana. “He’s running toward the ravine!”

  It was true. A narrow, ancient creek had cut deeply into the loamy floor of the forest, and there the ravisher must perforce come to bay. Oloana ceased her cries, fiercely exulting over the imminent reckoning. She heard Hok’s sharp gasp of surprise as he spied the ravine, a good five times the length of a man across, and nearly double that in depth.

  But he did not slacken his pace. Once more the stolen girl screamed, screamed in new and mortal terror, as Hok raced to the very rim of the chasm and sprang out over it.

  For one heart-smothering moment Oloana stared down at the rock-torn current far below. They must fall; be crushed—but her captor’s free hand had seized a dangling vine. Their weight carried them flying onward, upward, while the far bank rushed to meet them. Hok’s feet found the brink, clutched solid footing, and he paused to look back.