, in a stretch of open meadows. An ice-cold rivulet babbled past
their roots. It was time for the noonday rest, and these trees seemed
to offer a safe retreat. The girl drank, splashed herself with the
delicious coolness, flung back her dripping hair, then swung herself
up lightly into the branches. Grom lingered a few moments below,
letting the water trickle down and over his great muscles by handfuls.
Then he threw himself down upon his face and drank deep.

While he was in this helpless position--his sleepless vigilance for
the moment at fault--from behind a near-by thicket rushed a gigantic,
shaggy grey form, and hurled itself at him ponderously but with awful
swiftness, like a grey bowlder dashing down a hillside. The girl, from
her perch in the lower branches, gave a shriek of warning. Grom
bounded to his feet, and darted for the tree. But the monster--a gray
bear, of a bulk beyond that of the hugest grizzly--was almost upon
him, and would have seized him before he could climb out of reach. A
spear hurtled close past his head. It grazed, and laid open, the side
of the beast's snout, and sank deep into its shoulder. With a roar,
the beast halted to claw it forth. And in that moment Grom swung
himself up into the branches, dropping both his spears as he did so.

The bear, mad with pain and fury, reared himself against the trunk and
began to draw himself up. Grom struck at him with his club, but from
his difficult position could put no force into his blow and the bear
hardly seemed to notice it.

"We must lead him up, then drop down and run," said Grom. And the two
mounted nimbly.

The bear followed, till the branches began to yield too perilously
beneath his weight. Then Grom and the girl slipped over into the next
tree. As they did so another bear even huger than the first, and
apparently her mate, appeared below, glanced up with shrewd,
implacable eyes, and proceeded to climb the second tree.

Grom looked at the girl with piercing anxiety such as he had never
known before.

"Can you run, very fast?" he demanded.

The girl laughed, her terror almost forgotten in her pride at having
once more saved him.

"I ran from the wolves," she reminded him.

"Then we must run, perhaps very far," answered Grom, reassured, "till
we find some place of steep rocks where we can fight with some hope.
For these beasts are obstinate, and will never give up from pursuing
us. And, unlike the red cave-bears they seem to know h