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Grôm, looking back over his shoulder, realized that their pursuers were now gaining upon them appreciably. With an effort he quickened his pace still further. Loob responded without difficulty. But A-ya's face showed signs of distress, and at this Grôm's heart sank. He began to scan the water, weighing the chances of the crocodiles. It looked as if they were trapped beyond escape.
Thereupon Loob tripped delicately over the surging trunks and smote at the struggling monsters' heads with his light club. The anchorage of this natural raft having been broken, the weight of the monsters striving to gain a foothold upon it soon thrust its firm outer portion forth into the grip of the current.
The little expedition traveled Indian file, Grôm leading the way, with A-ya at his heels, then Loob the Scout, and young Mô bringing up the rear. They had started about dawn, when the first of the morning rose was just beginning to pale the cave-mouth fires.
But Grôm and A-ya, Mô and Loob triumphant in spite of their wounds, were by this time far away among the inland thickets, where those intolerable eyes could not search them out, nor the clashing wings pursue. From the topmost summit of that range of pointed hills which held the caves and the cave-mouth fires of his people, Grôm stared northward with keen curiosity.
To his surprise there were no more of them to be seen. Then far off down the shore he heard the voice of Loob, shouting for help. The shouting changed at once to a scream of terror, and Grôm started to the rescue on the full run taking care, however, to keep within cover of the thickets.
They crouched down in it, heads under, for nearly a minute; while Loob, spear in hand, stood over them, his wild little eyes scanning the water depths in front and the jungle depths behind for the approach of any foe. When they could hold their breath no longer, they stood up.
But A-ya, who sensed through sympathy her lord's disquietude, and the little scout Loob, who was always, on principle, ill at ease in any spot where there was no tree to climb, were as eager as their chief to push ahead; and the others would never have dared, in any case, to question Grôm's decision.
It was a very little party which started southward from the Caves simply Grôm, A-ya, young Mô, and a dwarfish kinsman of Grôm's, named Loob, who was the swiftest runner in the tribe and noted for his cunning as a scout.
In that moment Grôm swung himself to the ground. As he reached it both Mô and Loob discharged their arrows. Another ape fell from his perch, but caught himself on a lower branch and hung there writhing; while a third, with a shaft half buried in his paunch, fled back yelling into the tree-top.
At the head of the dismal march went Grôm, with his mate A-ya, and her two children, and the hairy little scout Loob, whose feet were as quick as his eyes and ears and nostrils, and whose sinews were as untiring as those of the gray wolf. Immediately behind these came the main body of the warriors, on a wide line so as to guard against surprise on the flank.
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