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For some time old Saber-Tooth continued dashing in and out of first the one cave and then the other. But the two Folk merely slipped back and forth through the connecting crevice and eluded him. In the meantime the rest of us up the bluff had proceeded to action. Every time he appeared outside we pelted him with rocks.
As Tarzan stepped over the body of the latter he saw the eyelids quiver and open, and in his heart he felt a strange sense of relief that the creature was not dead and a realization that without his suspecting it there had arisen within his savage bosom a bond of attachment for this strange new friend. Tarzan continued to approach the saber-tooth, nor did the shaggy beast at his right lag behind.
They had by this time passed beyond the special haunts of the red bear and the saber-tooth. Twice they had to run before the charge of the great wooly rhinoceros, against whose massive hide Grôm's spear and club would have been about as effective as a feather duster. But they had fled mockingly, for the clumsy monster was no match for them in speed.
Her first act was to beckon me to follow her outside, and there she pointed to the explanation of our rescue from the bear a huge saber-tooth tiger, its fine coat and its flesh torn to ribbons, lying dead a few paces from our cave, and beside it, equally mangled, and disemboweled, was the carcass of a huge cave-bear.
Appreciating the danger to his unconscious companion and being anxious to protect him from the saber-tooth the ape-man relinquished his hold upon his adversary and together the two rose to their feet. Drawing his knife Tarzan moved slowly toward the body of his companion, expecting that his recent antagonist would grasp the opportunity for escape.
At the same time, edging in closer to the wood, he whispered: "Don't run. But if they come we must go up the first tree. They are swift as the wind, these great beasts, and more terrible than the saber-tooth." "Can't go in these trees!" said Loob, whose piercing eyes had investigated them minutely at the first glimpse of the monsters in the grass.
But I know not the manner of his going whether he was drowned in the river, or was swallowed by a snake, or went into the stomach of old Saber-Tooth, the tiger, is beyond my knowledge. For know that I remember only the things I saw myself, with my own eyes, in those prehistoric days. If my mother knew my father's end, she never told me.
With neither the bears nor the great hyenas did Grôm anticipate any trouble. But he felt it barely possible that the saber-tooth might dare a rush in. Snatching up a dry branch, and leading the girl with him by the wrist, he backed slowly nearer the flames. Terrified at their dancing and the scorching of their breath, the girl sank down on her naked knees and covered her face with her hair.
What concerned the Cave Folk far more than any near-sighted and blundering rhinoceros, however malignant, was the sudden arrival of the great red bears, the black lions, the grinning and implacable saber-tooth tigers, and giant black-gray wolves which hunted in small, handy packs of six or seven in number.
Once more, therefore, he held himself in check; while Bawr, his eyes easily reading the trail, crept on with the soundless step of a wild cat. But Grôm was not the only hunter lying in ambush in the sun-drenched ravine. Out from a bed of giant, red-blooming canna arose the diabolical, grinning head and monstrous shoulders of a saber-tooth, and stared after Bawr.
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