spectral in the moonlight,
their foot-long tusks giving their broad masks a dreadful grin.

Before one saber-tooth the bear would have stood his ground
scornfully; but before the two he thought it best to defer. Slowly,
and with a thunderous grumbling, he moved over to the body of the
rhinoceros, pretending that he preferred it. The air was split and
battered with the clamor of raving voices. Other saber-tooths came,
and then another bear.

There were swift, sudden battles, as swiftly dropped because
neither combatant wished to fight to a finish when there was
feasting so abundant for all. And once a leopard, dodging the paw
of a saber-tooth, sprang into the tree, only to fall back howling
from the spears thrust at him through the floor of Grom's platform.

Just before dawn the girl slept, while Grom kept watch beside her lest
another leopard should fancy to explore their refuge. An hour later,
when the first pallor was spreading, she awoke with a cry of fear, and
clung to Grom's arm, shuddering strongly.

"But--what is it?" he asked, in a tender voice, stroking her heavy
mane.

"I was afraid!" she answered, like a child.

"What were you afraid of?" asked Grom.

"I was afraid of Mawg. I _am_ afraid of him!" she answered, sitting up
and shaking the hair from her eyes, and staring out fearfully over the
gray transparent plains.

"Why should you fear Mawg?" demanded Grom proudly. "Am not I your man?
And am not I always with you? Many such mad brutes as Mawg could not
take you from me."

"I know," answered the girl, "that he and such as he would be as
straws in my lord's hands. But--even Grom must sometimes sleep!"

Grom laughed gently at her forebodings.

"He must sleep now, indeed, for we have a long and perilous journey
before us," said he. Laying his great shaggy head in her lap, and
stretching his limbs as far as the tiny platform would allow he was
asleep in two seconds. The girl, stooping forward till her rich hair
shadowed the rugged, sleeping face, with its calm brows, pondered
deeply over his inexplicable forbearance toward his rival. Her
instincts all assured her that it was dangerous; but something else
within her, something which she strove in vain to grasp, suggested to
her that in some way it was noble, and made her glad of it. Then, all
at once, the first of the sunrise, flooding into the tree-top, bathed
her face with a rosy glow, and wonderfully transfigured it.

CHAPTER VI

THE BAT