face of his
former teacher, jeering at the other's gloomy prophecies of disaster.

Tharn pursed his lips solemnly. "It is true," he admitted soberly, "that
a wiser hunter would have made a better choice. That is, if he were not
so clumsy that the meat would run away first. Then the wise hunter would
not be able to kill even a little Neela. Wise old men cannot run fast."

Barkoo glared at him. "It was Sleeza," he snapped, then reddened at
being trapped into a defense. He wheeled on the grinning Korgul. "Get a
strong branch," he said sharply....

* * * * *

With the dead weight of the kill swinging from the branch between Korgul
and Torbat, the four Cro-Magnon hunters set out for the distant caves of
their tribe.

Soon they entered the mouth of a beaten elephant path leading into the
depths of dense jungle to the west. It was nearly dark here beneath the
over-spreading forest giants, the huge moss-covered boughs festooned
with loops and whorls of heavy vines. The air was overladen with the
heavy smell of rotting vegetation; the sounds of innumerable small life
were constantly in the hunters' ears. Here in the humid jungle, the
bodies of the men glistened with perspiration.

By the time they had crossed the belt of woods to come into the open at
the beginning of another prairie, Dyta, the sun, was close to the
western horizon. Hazy in the far distance were three low hills, their
common base buried among a sizable clump of trees. In those hills were
the caves of the tribe, and at sight of them the four men quickened
their steps.

They were perhaps a third of the way across the open ground, when Tharn,
in the lead, halted abruptly, his eyes on a section of the grasses some
hundred yards ahead.

Barkoo came up beside him. "What is it?" he asked tensely.

Tharn shrugged. "I don't know--yet. The wind is wrong. But something is
crawling toward us very slowly and with many pauses."

Barkoo grunted. Tharn's uncanny instinct in locating and identifying
unseen creatures annoyed him. It smacked too strongly of kinship with
the wild beasts; it was not natural for a human to possess that sort of
ability.

"Come," said Tharn. With head erect, the long spear trailing in his
right hand, he set out at a brisk pace, his companions close on his
heels.

They had gone half the way when a low moan came to the sharp ears of the
younger man. In it was a note of human suffering and physical agony so
p