to
each other. Their bodies were covered with dark hair. Their arms were
long and strong, their legs short. They had little eyes set near
together, and almost no forehead at all. Every one of them had
something in his hand to throw at the travellers.

Hawk-Eye kept straight on. "Run," he cried. "We can't fight; they are
too many."

On, on they ran, panting and breathless. A little way ahead there were
some large rocks on the edge of the wood. There they might find a
momentary shelter. They had almost reached the rocks, when suddenly a
woman of the wild tribe let herself down out of a tree on the edge of
the bluff and made a bold dash down the slope. Before they could stop
her, she had seized Firefly and dragged her away. She got as far as the
first oak tree on the slope and had actually snatched a limb, intending
to swing herself and Firefly into it, when Limberleg, screaming with
fury, reached the spot. Limberleg seized Firefly by one arm. The wild
woman had hold of the other.

They pulled in opposite directions and screamed, and if it had not been
for Hawk-Eye, there's no telling what might have become of poor Firefly.
She might have been pulled in two, or she might have been carried off
and adopted into the wild clan. But Hawk-Eye was there in almost no
time, and though the people on the bluff rained down sticks and stones
upon them, Hawk-Eye drove his spear into the woman's arm. With a shriek
of pain she let go of Firefly and dashed away into the forest.

"Run for your lives," cried Hawk-Eye, and they started again at top
speed for the rocks. They reached them none too soon, for the people on
the bluff, infuriated by the injury to the woman, came dashing down the
slope after them. Once in the shelter of the rocks, Hawk-Eye turned and
faced his pursuers. When they had almost reached his hiding-place he
gave a fierce yell and threw his spear. It was a very well made spear
with a bone barb on the end, and it struck the leader of the wild tribe
in the thigh. With a shriek of pain he fell to the ground. Then he
seized the spear and pulled it out of his flesh.

The wild tribe had no weapons but sticks and stones. They were
tree-dwellers. They did not even know the secret of fire. They lived
upon roots and berries and nuts, and such small game as they could catch
with their hands or in snares. Their homes were rude shelters in the
trees. When they saw what had happened to their leader, they