top. They were like gigantic
green paint-brushes, with yellow-gray handles, stuck up at random.
Far off they saw a herd of curious beasts at pasture, and away to
the left a giant bird, as tall as the tree by which it stood, seemed
to keep watch. A little to the right, where the treeless ridge came
abruptly to an end, gleamed a considerable stretch of water. It was
toward this point, where the water washed the steep-shouldered
promontory, that Grom decided to shape his course across the plain.

By the time the sun was some three hours high they had arrived within
a couple of hundred yards of the open. Sick of the oppressive jungle,
and eager for the change to a type of country with which they were
more familiar, they were swinging on through the tree-tops at a great
pace, when that savage, snarling jabber which they so dreaded was
heard in the branches behind them. Grom instantly put A-ya in the
lead, while he himself dropped to the rear to meet this deadliest of
perils. There was no need to urge his party to haste; but it seemed to
them all as if they were standing still, so swiftly did the clamor of
the apes come upon them.

"Down to earth," ordered Grom sharply, seeing that they must be
overtaken before they could reach the open, and realizing that in the
tree-tops they could not hope to match these four-handed dwellers of
the trees.

As they dropped nimbly from branch to branch, the foremost of the apes
arrived in sight, set up a screech of triumph, and came swooping down
after them in vast, swinging leaps. In the hurry Hobbo dropped his
fire-basket, which broke as it fell and scattered the precious coals.
Grom, guarding the rear of the flight, made the mistake of keeping his
eye too much on the enemy, too little on where he was going. In a
moment or two, he found himself cut off, upon a branch from which
there was no escape without a drop of twenty feet to a most uncertain
foothold. Rather than risk it, he ran in upon his nearest assailant at
the base of the branch, thrusting at the blue-faced beast with his
spear. But his position being so insecure, his thrust lacked force and
precision. The great ape caught it deftly; and Grom, to preserve his
balance, had to let the spear be wrenched from his hand. At the same
moment another ape dropped on the branch behind him.

For just one second Grom thought his hour had come. He crouched to
steady himself, then darted forward and hurled his club straight at
his foe's pr