rhinoceros was too dense of
brain to fear the fire, or even to notice it. Once more clutching the
girl's hand, he ran back a little way, seeking to draw the two perils
together, and give them an opportunity to distract each other's
attention.

He ran back till the flying, plunging herd of the pig-tapirs came into
full view around the curve of the trail. Then, with all his strength,
he forced his way into the grass, on the left, shouldering aside the
upright stems to make room for the girl to enter. She hurled her
blazing brand full into the face of the rhinoceros, hoping to confuse
or divert him for an instant, then thrust herself lithely in past
Grom.

The rhinoceros was diverted for an instant. The smoke and sparks half
blinded him, and in a paroxysm of fury he checked himself to trample
the strange assailant under foot. Then he thundered forward. But the
tough stems of the grass had closed up again. The two fugitives were
hidden. He saw the packed herd of the tapirs bearing down upon him;
and, forgetting the insignificant creatures who had first roused his
anger, he charged forward at full speed to meet this new foe.

Realizing well enough that in three or four seconds more the crash
would come, and that the struggle between the rhinoceros and the
maddened herd would be little short of a cataclysm, Grom and the girl
struggled breathlessly to force themselves to a safe distance lest
they should be crushed in the melee.

The sweat ran down into their eyes, and swarms of tiny insects,
breeding in the giant stems, choked their throats and nostrils; but
they wrestled their way onward blindly, foot by foot. Behind them, out
in the trail, came a ponderous crash, and, then an appalling explosion
of squeals, screams, grunts and roars. The next instant the rigid
stems gave way suddenly before them, and they fell forward, with a
startled cry from the girl, into a deep and sunless water.

They came up, spluttering and choking; but as soon as she could catch
breath the girl laughed, whereupon the grimness of Grom's face
relaxed. The water was a deep creek, perfectly overshadowed and hidden
by the rank growth along its banks. But just opposite was the tree
whose refuge they had been trying to gain. They swam across in
half-a-dozen strokes, and drew themselves ashore, and shook themselves
like a pair of retrievers. Through all the flight, the fierce effort
among the grass-stems, and the unexpected ducking, they had kept
ten