n.
Feverishly the hunter cast about for another trail, smaller and
slimmer. Forward he searched for it, and then back among the trampings
of the pursuers. But in vain. Clearly Mawg had been the sole
fugitive.

Grom sat down in sudden despair. If Mawg, who at least was no coward,
had fled alone, then surely the girl was dead. Grom's club and his
spears dropped from his nerveless hands. His interest in life sank
into a sick indifference, a dull anguish which he did not even try to
understand. It was well for him that no prowling beast came by in that
moment of his unseeing weakness. Then a new thought came to him, and
his despair flamed into rage. He leapt to his feet, clutching at his
shaggy beard. The girl had been seized, without doubt, by the great
Black Chief. The thought of this defilement to his woman, the mother
of his man-child, drove him quite mad for the moment. Snatching up his
weapons, he roared with anguish, and ran blindly forward along the
trampled trail, ready to hurl himself upon the whole loathsome tribe.
A gigantic leopard, crouching in a thicket of scarlet poinsettia
beside the trail, made as if to pounce upon him as he went by--but
shrank back, instead, with flattened ears, daunted by his fury.

But presently the madness burned itself out. As sanity returned he
checked his rush, glanced once more watchfully about him, and at
length stepped furtively into the thick of the jungle. Now more than
ever was his coolest craft demanded, that A-ya might be plucked from
the monster's arms.

Following up the plain clue of that tremendous pursuit, Grom worked
his way deep into the Bow-legs' country. With all his craft and his
lynx-like stealth, it was at times hair-raising work. Not only the
ground thickets, but the tree-tops as well, were swarming with his
keen-eyed foes. He had to worm his way between swamp-sodden roots, and
sometimes lie moveless as a stone for hours, enduring the stings of a
million insects. Sometimes, not daring to lift his head to look about
him, he had to trust to his ears and his hound-like sense of smell for
information as to what was going on. And sometimes it was only his
tireless immobility that saved him from the stroke of a startled adder
or a questioning and indignant crotalus. After long swaying, poised
for the death-stroke, the serpent would decide that the menacing thing
before it was not alive. It would slowly dissolve its tense coils, and
glide away; and Grom would resume