ptitude for its use) carried Grom's wonderful invention--the bow.
Hobbo, however, because of his immense strength, bore the heavy
fire-basket, wherein the smoldering coals were cherished in a bed of
clay. As a food reserve, everyone carried a few strips of half-dried
meat; but their main dependence, of course, was to be upon the spoils
of their hunting and the fruits that they might gather on their
march.

The forest into whose depths Grom now led the way was in reality a
survival from a previous age, into which the forms, both vegetable and
animal, of contemporary life had been gradually infiltrating. The
soil, of incredible fertility, still poured forth those gigantic tree
grasses, and colossal, sappy ferns and psuedo-palms, which had
flourished chiefly in the carboniferous period. But here they were
mingled with the more enduring hard-wood growths of the later tropical
forests; and only these were strong enough to support the massive,
strangling coils of the cable-like lianas, which wound their way up
the huge trunks and reached out in aerial, swaying bridges from
tree-top to tree-top. On every side, high or low, the deep-green gloom
was splashed with color from the gorgeous orchids and other epiphytes,
which flowered out into grotesque or monstrous wing-petaled shapes of
vermilion and purple and orange and rose and white, eyed with velvet
black or streaked with iridescent bronze.

To men of to-day this jungle would have been impenetrable, except by
the incessant use of axe or machete. But Grom and his party were
Cave-Men, and had not yet forgotten all the instincts and capacities
of their tree-dwelling ancestors. Sometimes, where it seemed easiest,
they forced their way along the ground, or followed the trodden trail
of some great jungle beast, so long as it led in the right direction.
But here they had to be ceaselessly on the watch against surprise by
creatures whose monstrous tracks were unlike any that they had ever
seen before. Whenever possible, therefore, they preferred to journey,
after the fashion of their apish ancestors, by way of the high
branches and the liana bridges. Hampered as they were by their
weapons, their progress by this aerial way was slow. But it was
comparatively secure. And it was also comparatively cool; while down
at the ground-level the steaming heat and the stinging insects were
almost beyond endurance.

Yet before the end of that first day's journey they learned that even
in tree-