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Updated: May 4, 2025
Just as the monster overtook him he fell, paralyzed with his fright, and one tremendous horn pinned him to the earth. At this instant the Chief arrived, running up from the rear of the line, and Grôm, coming from the front. The Chief, closing in fearlessly, swung his club with all his strength across the beast's front, blinding one eye, and confusing him for the fraction of a moment.
When the two started on their journey back to the Country of the Little Hills, Grôm carried with him a bundle of blazing brands. He had conceived the idea of keeping the bright god alive by feeding him continually as they went, and of renewing his might from time to time by stopping to build a big fire. The undertaking proved a troublesome one from the first.
During all this excitement the main body of the tribe came straggling back along the beach from their hunting of whelks and mussels. At the foot of the bluff below the cave they found the body of the second bear, and gathered anxiously about it, clamoring over its spear-wounds and the arrows sticking in it, till Bawr and Grôm, who were in the rear, came up.
Finding that, at first, they gained slightly on their pursuers, Grôm bade her slow down a little till they did no more than hold their own. Fearing lest she should exhaust herself, he ran always a pace behind her, admonishing her how to save her strength and her breath, and ever warily casting his eyes about for a possible refuge. Warily, too, he chose the smoothest ways, sparing her feet.
Knowing the temper of the rhinoceros, Grôm expected it to fly into a fury and charge upon the fire at once. His mouth opened, indeed, for the yell of warning which should wake the sleepers and send them leaping into the tree. But he checked himself in time. The monster, for once in its life, seemed to be abashed. The curling red flames were too elusive a foe for it.
Young Mô, his fiery temper stung by their challenge, clapped an arrow to his string and raised his bow to shoot. But Grôm checked him sternly, dreading to fix any thirst of vengeance in the minds of the terrible troop. "They can't come at us here. Let them forget about us," said he. "Don't take any more notice of them at all."
The three were among the swiftest runners of the tribe; but Grôm soon saw that the utmost they could hope was to maintain their distance. And there was the imminent risk that the bees, disturbed by the noise of flight and pursuit, might take umbrage. To lessen this frightful risk, he swerved out till he was some thirty or forty paces distant from the belt of woods.
The galling smart in his shoulder grew momentarily more severe. He lashed back at it savagely with the side of his horn, but the arrow was just out of his reach. Then, bewildered and alarmed, he tried to escape from this new kind of fly with the intolerable sting by galloping furiously up and down the glade. As he passed the deodar, Grôm let drive another arrow, at close range.
Mô, who was not only brave to recklessness, but who would have followed Grôm through the mouth of hell, sprang forward eagerly. Grôm, who realized that the mystery before him was a perilous one, and who loved to do dangerous things in a prudent manner, looked to his bow-string and saw that his arrows were handy in his girdle, before he started on the venture.
Her defiant eyes darted everywhere, and everywhere noted black looks. She could not understand it, but she divined that there was some plot afoot against Grôm. Her heart swelled with rage, and her dark-maned head went up arrogantly, for she felt as if the strongest and wisest of the tribe were now but children in comparison with her lord.
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