o that green maze was
more than she could endure. And so she went on, staggering now and then
under the lashes of heat and weariness, finding an occasional waterhole
to quench her thirst and stripping fruit from trees and bushes to
satisfy hunger.

Near nightfall she came upon a large clearing through which flowed a
wide shallow stream. It had been several hours since last water had
passed her lips and sight of the river lifted her spirits. She pushed
her way through a heavy growth of reeds on the near bank, knelt and
drank thirstily, then slipped out of her tunic and submerged her entire
body in the brackish liquid.

Emerging at last, she dried her body with handfuls of grasses, her
lithe, sweetly rounded figure gleaming like an image molded of pure gold
in the fading sunlight. Her spirits were soaring again, for when first
leaving the water she had glimpsed the beginnings of a second trail into
the forest--a trail pointing straight as a spear shaft toward the north.

Already her plans were made. She would spend the night among the
high-flung branches of that tree at the trail's entrance, when dawn came
again she would start out once more--this time toward home.

Donning her tunic she ran lightly toward the tree, its base buried among
a heavy growth of bushes.

While from the depths of tangled undergrowth near the bole of that tree,
a pair of glowing yellow eyes were fixed in an unblinking stare upon the
swiftly approaching girl!

* * * * *

A storm was blowing up. Tharn, belly flat against a broad branch while
he gnawed the sweet pulpy interior of a hard-shelled fruit, caught the
signs of it in the scent of the air, in the uneasy pattern of a shifting
breeze, in the faintly yellowish cast of the sky overhead. He mentioned
the possibility to Trakor, who, wedged into a fork nearby, was dozing in
the heat of day.

"A nice dry cave would come in handy if the rain comes," the youth
observed. "I know how Gerdak's warriors hated being caught in a storm.
They say the jungle is never more dangerous, with winds blowing branches
through the air with the speed of flying spears, great trees being
uprooted to crash down and crush the unlucky, while Rora, the lightning,
flickers angrily about their heads."

"It is a part of jungle living," Tharn said philosophically. "This one
will not come for half a sun yet--if it comes at all. Or it may be only
a little storm."

"And if it is a bad one?