s precious to the tribe as life
itself--which they had brought with them in their flight upon the
rafts. And Grom, the Chief, saw his harassed people in danger of
sinking back into the degradation from which his discovery and
conquest of fire had so wonderfully uplifted them.

From the top of a solitary jobo tree, which towered above the rank
surrounding jungle, Grom could make out what looked like a low bank of
purple cloud along the western and north-western horizon. As it was
always there, whenever he climbed to look at it, he concluded that it
was not a cloud-bank, but a line of hills. Where there were hills
there might be caves. In any case, the People must have some better
place to inhabit than this region of swamps and monsters. The way to
that blue line of promise lay across what would surely be the path of
the migrating beasts, if they should take it into their heads to swim
across the river. The possibility was one from which even his resolute
spirit shrank. But he felt that he must face any risk in the hope of
winning his way to those cloudy hills. Within an hour of his reaching
this decision the Tribe of the Cave Folk was once more on the march.

The first few days of the march were like a nightmare. Grom led the
way along the shore of the river, both because that seemed the
shortest way to the hills, and because, in case of emergency, the open
water afforded a door of escape by raft. Had it been possible to make
the journey by raft matters would have been simplified; but Grom had
already proved by experience that his heavy unwieldy rafts could not
be forced upwards against the mighty current of the river. At the last
point to which the flood-tides would carry them the rafts had been
abandoned--herded together into a quiet cove, and lashed to the shore
by twisted vine-ropes against some possible future need.

At the head of the dismal march went Grom, with his mate A-ya, and her
two children, and the hairy little scout Loob, whose feet were as
quick as his eyes and ears and nostrils, and whose sinews were as
untiring as those of the gray wolf. Immediately behind these came the
main body of the warriors, on a wide line so as to guard against
surprise on the flank. Then followed the women and children, bunched
as closely as possible behind the center of the line; and a knot of
picked warriors, under young Mo, the brother of A-ya, guarded the
rear. There were no old men and women, all these having gone down i