geness, although the landscape as yet
was in no way greatly changed.

As the sun got low, Grom cast about for a safe tree in whose top to
pass the perilous hours of dark. As he stared around him a cry of fear
came from the bunch of woods which he had just quitted. The voice was
a woman's. He ran back. The next second the trees parted, and a girl
came rushing towards him, her dark hair streaming behind her. Close
after her came three huge cave-wolves.

Grom shouted, and hurled a spear. It struck one of the wolves full in
the chest, splitting the heart. At this the other two halted
irresolutely. But as Grom's tall figure came bounding down upon them,
their indecision vanished. They wheeled about, and ran off into the
thickets. The girl came forward timorously, and knelt at Grom's feet.

At first with wonder and some annoyance, the warrior looked down upon
her. Then recognition came into his eyes. He saw the tip of a deep
wound on her shoulder, and knew that it ran, livid and angry, half-way
down her bosom. It was the young girl A-ya. His eyes softened, for he
had heard how it was she who had saved him in the battle, fighting so
furiously over him when he was down--she in whose blood he had found
his shoulders bathed. Yet up to that time he had never noticed her,
his mind being full of other matters than women. Now he looked at her
and wondered. He was sorely afraid of being hampered in his great
enterprise, but he asked her gently why she had followed him.

"I was afraid for you," she answered, without looking up. "You go to
such great dangers. I could not stay with the tribe, and wait."

"You think I need help?" he asked, with a self-confident look in his
eyes.

"You did need me in the battle!" answered the girl proudly.

"True!" said Grom. "But for you I should now have been sleeping under
the stones and the wind."

He looked at her with a feeling that surprised himself, a kind of
thrilling tenderness, such as he had never felt toward a woman before.
His wives had been good wives and dutiful, and he had been content
with them. But it occurred to him that neither of them would ever have
thought to come with him on this expedition.

"I could not stay without you," said the girl again. "Also, I was
afraid of Mawg," she added cunningly.

A wave of jealous wrath surged through Grom's veins.

"If Mawg had troubled you, I would have killed him!" said he fiercely.
And, snatching the girl to her feet, he crushed her