lk?"

"So recent," said the long-faced Modilk solemnly, "that the slave-girl
must be within a few minutes of us."

Javan spoke now, his voice worried. "Where are we to spend the night,
Jotan? The big cats will be hunting soon; we must find a safe place."

Jotan slapped his friend's shoulder comfortingly. "We'll find Dylara
first," he said, "then make camp for the night. A circle of brush fires
will keep the lions and leopards away."

The eight men waded the stream, not bothering to remove their sandals,
and pressed on into the north.

While a stone's throw behind them, aloft in the branches of a leafy
tree, slept the girl they were seeking.

CHAPTER XIV

Forest Trails

"It was here we found the dead guards. Where, or in what direction, the
Hairy Men took Alurna is not known. Vulcar and his men followed this
trail away from Sephar."

The guard detailed to show Tharn the scene of Alurna's capture had told
all he knew. To the cave man it more than sufficed; following a trail
left less than a sun before would not tax his prowess.

"You have told me enough," Tharn assured him. "Hasten back to your chief
and tell him I will return soon--his daughter with me."

The Cro-Magnard, a slight smile touching his lips, watched the
retreating figure until it disappeared around a bend of the trail. Even
then he did not move, but stood quiet, arms folded across his swelling
chest, drawing great draughts of humid air deep into his lungs.

Free! Gone were stone walls, cold floors and barred doors. No longer
must he go only where others permitted. There were soft grasses and
growing things about him. Overhead was the limitless blue of space; and
there was Dyta, the sun, sending golden spears to prick, with welcome
heat, the smooth skin of the cave lord.

Siha, the wind, moving in little eddies and gusts, brought to his
nostrils a heavy pungent cloying odor belonging only to the jungle; the
combined essence of uncounted varieties of plants, together with the
comingled scent of endless small life that makes of the jungle a teeming
city in itself. Overhead, little Nobar, the monkey, sat on a low-hanging
branch and scolded roundly the two-legged creature in the trail below.

Yes, it was good to be free again. Good to know the pure pleasure of
unlimited vistas of trees and plains. A vision of his father's caves and
the members of his tribe rose before him, bringing the pangs of
homesickness. But superimposed on the famil