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Updated: May 4, 2025
Her laughter was forgotten on the instant, because she guessed that his fertile brain was on the trail of some new experiment. Arriving at the cane-thicket, Grôm broke himself half a dozen well-hardened, tapering stems, from two to three feet in length, and about as thick at their smaller ends as A-ya's little finger.
It was neither the fat buck nor the little two-toed horse with dapple hide, but a young cow-buffalo. Grôm noticed at once that she was nervous and puzzled. She seemed to suspect that she was being followed and was undecided what to do. Once she faced about angrily, staring into the coverts behind her, and made as if to charge.
It was a wide, swift water, but too shallow and turbulent for swimming, and he forded it with some difficulty. Once across, he went with more caution, oppressed with a sense of strangeness, although the landscape as yet was in no way greatly changed. As the sun got low, Grôm cast about for a safe tree in whose top to pass the perilous hours of dark.
When the beasts were thus discomfited and abashed, the boldest of the warriors would go leaping after them and bring down the hindermost with spears. So it came about that presently the great animals knew themselves beaten, and sullenly withdrew to the other side of the hills. It was just this country at the other side of the hills which most appealed to the restless imagination of Grôm.
"Oh!" murmured A-ya, sympathetically, as the bright blood ran down his beard. But the child, thinking that his father had done it on purpose, laughed with hearty appreciation. Somewhat annoyed, Grôm got up, moved a few paces farther away, and sat down again with his back to the family circle. As to the force that lurked in this slender little implement he was now fully satisfied.
"What are we to do now?" asked the girl, after a long silence. Without Grôm, they would probably have died where they were, not daring to stir in the darkness. But their faith in their chief kept them cheerful even in this desperate plight. "We must find a way out," answered Grôm, with resolute confidence. "If Hobbo had not dropped the fire!" said young Mô bitterly.
They were working, slowly, now and Grôm felt suddenly that he must put a stop to it, that he must put out the awful light in those monstrous devil eyes. Stealthily, almost imperceptibly, he fitted an arrow to his bow, raised it, drew it, and took a long, steady aim. He must not miss. The shaft flew and the great fly was pinned, through the thorax, to the soft, rotten wood of its perch.
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.
"If the water is not too deep, couldn't you push with your long spear?" suggested the girl. Acting at once on the suggestion, Grôm leaned over the edge and thrust the spear straight downwards. But he could find no bottom. "It is too deep," said he, "but I'll find a way."
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 or woman, quailed.
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