Og—Son of Fire

Presently the wolf cub began backing out. Og watched his progress and as his head came to view with the limp form of the rabbit dangling from his jaws Og seized him by the scruff of the neck and wrenched the rabbit from his mouth. With a growl the wolf cub sprang at him. But Og was waiting for just this and as he leaped Og’s hand shot out and cuffed him so hard that he was knocked heels over head and sent sprawling into the rock pile. Og looked at him and smiled. Then as he came whimpering back toward him, Og tore off a leg of the rabbit and tossed it to him. He did likewise for the other cub. Then he squatted down and tearing the rest of the animal to pieces he ate the choicest parts and tossed the scraps to the wolf cubs. And as he crouched there eating the raw flesh of the rabbit his brain was still very busy (as the brightness of his eyes attested) with the discovery that the wolf cubs could be made capital hunting companions. He reasoned that he could teach them to hunt and give over their kill to him if he went about it properly and once trained they would be invaluable, for they were swifter of foot and keener of eye and of nose than he was.

Just how he was to go about this work of making them understand that he was their master and that they must do as he willed, Og was not sure. Being primitive, as they were, Og and the cubs were closer to a common ground of understanding than are humans and animals to-day. Og could read a great deal from their attitude and demeanor and he could see that already he had impressed upon them that he was wiser and stronger than they were, and thus their master. He realized that this was the first step in their training. He had a vague feeling, too, that the next step was the development of a spirit of camaraderie; a friendly sharing of everything, food, hardships and troubles. In that way he could help them and they would not get discontented and run away. He looked back to the occurrence of the day before when he had rescued the one cub from death in the crack in the earth, and he realized that already this spirit had begun to develop, and he marveled that these things could come about.

So interested was he with his thoughts that he had consumed the rabbit and was licking the blood from his fingers when he thought of his fire, and of the miracle that fire worked with food. He experienced a sense of disappointment that he had not thought of this sooner and tried to cook the rabbit. But he realized that he had still another left and he decided to experiment with that.

All eagerness and enthusiasm, he began to gather great armfuls of wood until he had a huge pile stacked up in front of a towering bowlder that had a sheltering overhang, which Og, wise woodsman that he was, recognized as a capital place for a night’s camp. With his back to this he began to build his fire, lighting it from his still flaming bundle of fagots.

After he had a scorching blaze well under way, Og took the remaining rabbit, which he had slung over his shoulder by a bark sling, and with the dangling form in his hands crouched before the fire and studied the situation for a long time, while the wolf cubs sat and looked on expectantly. Truly he was at a loss to know just how to proceed with what was to be the first meal ever cooked by a human being. Finally the obvious and most simple method seemed to appeal to him and he dropped the rabbit into the flames and watched it eagerly. He crouched as close to the fire as he dared to watch the transformation of the rabbit into cooked food. But presently he began to cough and spit, and hold his sensitive nose with his fingers. The odor of burning fur was nauseating and for a moment discouraging. Og could not understand it. He hauled the blackened animal from the fire and held it at arm’s length, while with his fingers still on his nose he looked at it ruefully. Then his eyes brightened with a new thought. It was the hair that caused the stench; the fur. Then why not take it off? He never ate the skin and fur of animals anyway.

With his fingers and sharp sticks (the hairy men had not yet discovered the use of flint knives) he began skinning the rabbit, until presently he held in his hand a tempting chunk of raw meat. Og was of a mind to forego the cooking of it and eat it as it was, as he had always eaten rabbit. Yet the memory of the savory odor and flavor of the cooked horse remained with him and he put the rabbit again in the fire. Forthwith a most delightful odor began to assail his nostrils, and the wolf cubs began to get uneasy and crowd forward, their mouths dripping saliva.

So tempting and insistent was the odor that long before the rabbit was properly cooked Og dragged it from the fire to eat it. But when he tried to break the tender steaming flesh apart he grunted with irritation. It was so hot it burned. He laid it on a cool stone and waited impatiently for he knew now that things cooled off and lost heat when no flame showed.

What a feast that was. Og tore the flesh from the bones and ate with great gusto, making a loud smacking sound. But he did not feast without sharing with the wolf cubs. Many a savory lump went to them and all the bones that Og’s strong teeth could not crack were theirs also. And as Og ate, his fast developing brain made note of the fact that wherever the flames had touched the rabbit it was blackened and burned. This meat did not taste as good as the meat that had laid on the coals and was cooked to a rich brown. Og decided that he would lay his meat on the coals after the flame had burned out thereafter.

So intent was the hairy boy at his feast that for a time he forgot to be alert. Indeed the need for caution was only recalled to him by a growl of one of the wolf cubs, as both of them got up and came around to his side of the fire, the hair on their backs bristling. Og, startled, looked up inquiringly. He neither saw, smelled nor heard any real reasons for fear, yet he sensed from the wolf cubs that something ill was in the wind.

While they were feasting twilight had come on. The sun had gone down and a blue half light of evening overcast the sky save in the west where great crimson and orange streaks were splashed across the horizon. But there among the giant trees where Og and the wolf cubs were, a really heavy darkness had settled down; a darkness that was thick and ominous to Og as night always was. Instinctively the hairy boy crept nearer the fire and moved his stone hammer closer to him as he peered with anxious eyes among the giant tree trunks any one of which he knew was big enough to hide the slinking form of Sabre Tooth the tiger, or the big cave leopard, or any other of the many evil monsters of the forest.

Suddenly Og knew the danger that threatened him and he grew cold. From far down the night came a weird blood chilling call, that grew and grew in intensity until it seemed as if a thousand voices were howling in the dark. It was the pack call of the wolves and Og knew that this was the great pack, the pack of a thousand fanged jaws and sinister gleaming eyes. And they were coming in his direction.

CHAPTER VI
AT BAY WITH THE WOLF PACK

Og trembled with the inborn fear of the hairy men who knew that to be caught alone at night by the wolf pack was certain and horrible death. Despite the knowledge that he had a mighty weapon in his fire Og felt this fear and he crouched lower and shuddered as he peered among the trees for the searching, gleaming eyes of the first of the pack hunters.

Yet with his fears he did not lose his new found interest in mental speculation. He watched the wolf cubs with great curiosity. Here was coming a horde of their kind; would they listen to the pack call and desert him, or would they be urged on by the presence of a great number to turn and attack him? Og knew he could prevent this now with a blow of his stone hammer. Yet he forbore, for he had confidence in them and, for some reason he could not understand, he wanted his confidence tested out. So far he had been to them a master and a companion helping them and sharing their hardships. Here was to be a test of their loyalty. He wondered how it would work out.

On came the giant pack, their terrible chorus now echoing through the night. They were following a scent Og knew by the directness and swiftness of their coming. Og thought a moment and then he knew. They were headed for the Valley of the Stream. From afar they too had caught the odor of the dead horses and they were coming to the feast. Presently Og heard the soft pad-padding of many feet. Then in the blackness among the trees he caught the gleam of eyes, many of them, hundreds of them, thousands of them, as the big pack flowed among the giant sequoias. Og could see their sinister shapes vaguely as they loped along through the darkness, and as he watched them come he could hardly believe there were so many wolves in the world.

The pack stopped. Og and his fire arrested them. They stopped their calling too, and in the gloom among the trees they began encircling the campfire, drawing closer and closer. Og watched them fearfully and he knew that he would stand little chance in the face of that horde if they were to plunge in upon him. He knew that the fire held them from an immediate attack. How long this would keep them off he could not guess. Eventually, he knew, he would have to fight for his life. How long he could stand up under the wolf pack was a question. Grimly he determined to sell his life dearly. He stood up, and grasped a fiery brand in either hand, and flattened himself against the big bowlder, alert and ready for the attack when it should come.

Closer and closer crept the wolves. Bold yet cautious with their boldness. Some came fully into the firelight and lay there and snarled and glared at him. Og shifted his fire brand and whipped stone upon stone at them. Some leaped back with snarls. Others stood their ground. One hit fairly between the eyes, fell, kicked convulsively for a moment and lay still. Og knew that he had killed him, and despite his situation the hunting yell of triumph of the hairy men leapt to his lips and echoed through the night. It was an achievement for a hairy man to kill a wolf under any circumstances.

The call seemed to affect the wolf pack like a challenge, and one, a scarred and savage looking old warrior, the leader of the pack, stalked so close to the fire that Og could have reached over and touched him with his fire brand. There he stood and snarled at the hairy boy, and Og read in that snarl certain death. The hairy boy knew his time was at hand.

With a mighty leap the old wolf hurled himself clear over the fire and with eyes blazing and fangs opened and ready to set in the hairy boy’s throat he bore down upon the valiant figure who leaned back against the rock.

Og saw him coming, saw him leap, saw the evil light in his eyes, the set of his powerful jaws, and the long yellow fangs. He was frightened; terribly frightened, and he shrieked with terror as he lunged forward with one of his fire brands. But his fear did not affect his aim. The blazing stick was jammed squarely into the big wolf’s mouth and down his throat, and with a gurgling snarl of rage and fear the beast fell struggling at Og’s feet. Swiftly the hairy boy reached for his stone hammer. But quickly as he moved two other forms moved quicker. With snarls that were ugly the wolf cubs leaped upon the fallen leader of the pack and burying their teeth into his hairy throat held him struggling and kicking on the ground until Og with his stone hammer crushed in his skull.

Again the triumphant hunting call of the hairy men echoed through the night, and this time the pack did not creep closer, for Og, elated at his victory, seized fiery brand after fiery brand and hurled them blazing at the slinking forms. The wolves leaped back snarling. Og knew he had them cowed. He knew, too, he had them puzzled. They could not understand why two young wolves should be on the boy’s side of the fire and should help to pull down their leader. The pack snarled at the cubs and the young wolves hurled defiance back.

But the call of the cooked meat; the feast awaiting the pack in the valley of the stream was too strong for the wolf horde. True they had smelled cooked meat here,—a little of it, and here, too, was some food. But their leader was gone and there was small use in lingering facing a puny human being made strong by some mysterious power in blazing sticks, when the air was heavy with the scent of much meat not far away. Gradually the pack began to melt into the blackness as group after group impatiently started up wind toward the feast. Soon only a few stragglers were left to snarl across the camp fire at the hairy boy and the, to them, renegade wolves. And before long these, too, followed the big pack northward.

Og stood at bay until the last gleaming eye had disappeared from the blackness in front of him. Then he put his fire brands into the flames once more and crouching down drew the body of the old wolf to him. Long he gazed at this and at the two wolf cubs and gradually he realized that the young wolves had stood the test. They had been loyal to him. They had repaid him for his care of them. Og began to have a feeling of gratitude that he sought to express. And his method of expression took a strange form. As he had chanted “Og, Og, Og,” in The Valley of the Stream when he had conquered fire, now he began to chant, “Ru, Ru, Ru, Ru,” rocking eagerly back and forth and pointing to the two wolf cubs who watched him curiously. He was giving them a name, the highest honor a hairy man could bestow. “Ru” was their name and to Og it meant, “the beast that repays loyalty with loyalty.” And thus did the wolves that renounced the pack become “Ru” the dog, the enemy of the lawless and the companion of man.

CHAPTER VII
A CAPTIVE OF THE TREE PEOPLE

The hairy people had not yet developed to the state where they possessed knives. True they had learned the use of sharp stones for cutting purposes. Their method was to take a jagged piece of rock and with the object to be cut laid upon another rock, beat it until it was worn or chewed into the required pieces. Then the rocks were cast aside. None had yet had the forethought to keep a sharp stone in his possession to be used as a knife. They had not progressed far enough up the scale to be able to think ahead. Meeting the future was not to be considered.

Og suddenly found himself greatly handicapped because of this trait of his people. He wanted to skin the two wolves that had been killed the night before; the grizzled old leader of the pack and the one he had dispatched with a thrown stone. The hairy men used teeth, fingers, sharp sticks and stones in their skinning. They did not remove the skin to preserve it. They pulled it off in strips and threw it away. Their chief desire was to get at the meat. They had not the ingenuity to make use of the hairy coat. They had not yet thought of wearing clothing for warmth.

Og did not at first have any other idea than that of tearing the skins from the wolves, so that he could eat them. But the skins were tough and his teeth and fingers were inadequate. He needed a sharp stone. But there were no sharp stones to be had. Here in the forest there were few stones, and those that he did find were worn smooth and round by weather and water. Og searched and searched till the sun had climbed high in the sky and still he was unrewarded. And as he searched he perforce thought of many another good sharp stone he had used in the past and had thrown away. He wished now that he had one at hand.

This wish made an impression on him. Indeed, he stopped short in his searching and turned the idea over in his mind. Why had he not saved one of those sharp stones; carried it with him as he did his stone hammer? It would be available now and worth a great deal to him. He stored this thought in a recess of his brain where was slumbering the idea he had had when he first started this journey; the idea that it would be a good thing to carry food or provisions with him.

This thought had come to his mind as he surveyed the two dead wolves that morning. Here was more than enough food for him and the wolf cubs. Any other hairy man would have stayed and camped there until the food was all eaten. But Og did not intend to do this. He was traveling. He meant to go on in search of his people as soon as he could start, but he hated the thought of leaving so much good food behind. Then out of the corner of his brain had come the suggestion: why not carry it along! Og had pondered over this idea for a long time. It was a good thought, he could see. But to carry the two wolves as they were would weigh him down. There was a great deal on each wolf that he could not eat, the head, the feet, the heavy bones, the skin. Why not remove them and take only the meat! That he would do, but first he must needs find a sharp stone with which to skin the beasts.

The hairy boy searched for that stone and wandered far away from the big bowlder beside which his camp fire burned. Each time he found a stone, he examined it carefully for a sharp edge. He would sit on his haunches and turn it over and over, while back in his brain was the same thought that he had had when he was searching for hammer stones and that was that if he only knew just how he was certain that he could put a sharp edge on to it. Presently he got the idea that perhaps the sharp edge was inside the stone. He would break it open and see. He had broken stones before by hitting them against other stones. He would try to break this one open.

With all the force of his long strong arm and heavy shoulders he hurled the stone against a boulder. It rebounded with a sharp crack and Og hastily retrieved it. It had not smashed, but its force had broken loose from the boulder a big scale of stone with a capital cutting edge on it. Og picked up the scale and examined it. It was just what he needed. He gave a grunt of triumph as he felt of the edge. Then he went over and looked at the scar it had left on the boulder. And as he examined this scar a crude thought took shape. Why could he not make a stone knife by breaking round stones with other stones until they were the shape he wanted them to be? Indeed, why could he not break stone with other stones into hammer heads or throwing stones or anything else that he wanted? The suggestion was fascinating. The idea of making anything to suit a given purpose was born in Og. He was the first of the hairy people to conceive this possibility and it stirred in him almost as much interest as had his discovery of fire. He was inspired by a new desire. He would try to make a knife out of a round stone, some day. It would be an achievement to make a stone, the hardest substance he knew, into any shape he wanted just by chipping it with other stones. He would——

Og’s thought was not completed. As he stood there by the big rock a heavy club whizzed through the air, crashed against the boulder just over his head and rebounded with a sharp crack. Instinctively Og ducked and scuttled behind the stone, looking up with startled eyes into the direction whence the club had come.

A loud chattering gibberish of sounds greeted his curiosity and at the same time Og beheld in the lower branches of the trees over his head three big forms, that stormed at him a perfect tirade. They were the tree people.

Og looked at them and uttered a grunt of contempt. Then he came out from behind the boulder, and searching out a throwing stone he hurled it up at them with whistling swiftness. It hit the biggest of the ape-like men a resounding thump in the chest and with a squeal of rage and pain the big form, followed by his companions, scrambled up the tree, and made off through the forest, swinging from limb to limb but making a terrible din at their going. Og heard their cries, and vaguely understood them. They were showering imprecations upon him and threatening dire things in tree folk talk. Og cried his defiance back at them for he held them in contempt, as cowards. They were the tree people; the tribes of the woods whom his people centuries before had vanquished and driven out wherever they came in contact with them.

Og looked upon them as beneath the hairy people in every way. True, they were strong, but they did not know their strength. They were not flesh eaters and so they were not really dangerous. And they were great cowards too, except when they traveled in hordes.

Og chuckled softly to himself as he thought of how he had served these three and driven them away, and after he had seen them out of sight he turned back toward the boulder where he had left the wolf cubs and his fire, dismissing them from his mind entirely.

But hardly had he come within sight of his camp fire again, when he heard far off a hollow booming as of many sticks being beaten on hollow logs. Og stopped and listened and understood. It was the war noise of the tree people and he smiled grimly. He knew what had happened. Somewhere there was a tribe of tree people. Why they were so far north he could not understand for their dwelling place was south of the domains of the hairy people. They were somewhere in the great sequoia forest now, however, and the three he had seen and beaten off with stones had probably been detached from the drove. Doubtless they had hurried back to the main group and communicated the fact to all that one of their number had been injured by a hairy boy. That had made them all angry. So angry that they beat their chests in rage. That was the hollow booming sound. Og knew that they were beating their chests to try and work up their courage to the point of attacking him. He knew that this was the way of the tree people. They always grew terribly enraged but they were such great cowards that they dared not attack even one single hairy man, though they always tried to work up their own courage by beating their chests and making terrible faces and raising hideous yells. But nothing usually came of their effort.

Og went to his camp fire, the booming noise still sounding through the forest. It lasted much longer than the hairy boy had expected and after a time he gave ear to it again and a slightly worried look came into his brown eyes. Was the sound drawing nearer? The hairy boy peered off among the giant trees. He could see forms moving among them. He could hear branches swishing and leaves rustling and always the booming sound persisted. Was the horde coming to attack him? For a moment Og was troubled. But the traditions of his people soon banished this. Never had the tree people had the courage to attack even a single hairy man. They raved and shrieked frightful names and made hideous faces and a great pretense at war, yet one hairy man, with a stone hammer or handful of throwing stones, could drive them off.

Og smiled. Here was he not only armed with stone hammer and backed by two valiant allies in the form of wolf cubs, but he had at his command a great new powerful weapon—fire; a weapon that had driven off The Mountain That Walked and held the wolf pack at bay. Why should he fear the tree people though the forest was full of them? He grunted contemptuously and set about skinning the dead wolves, heedless of the forms in the trees all about him—great sinister forms that swung from branch to branch or leaped from tree to tree, watching him the while and making hideous grinning faces at him. But there was one among them—one huge ponderous beast with tremendously long arms and a deep chest and a face that was well nigh hideous with battle scars—who swung closer to the lonesome camp beside the boulder than any other. He was the leader of the horde and a brute to be reckoned with. His great strength alone gave him more courage than any of the others. Indeed, he had more courage than any other tree man had ever had, and he somehow imparted his courage to others of his clan. This tree tribe was different in spirit from the horde that the hairy men had coped with in the past and doubtless they would have attacked Og on sight had their big leader led them. But he hesitated, not because of the boy or his hammer or the wolf cubs that snarled up at him, but because of a strange thing with red and orange tongues that snapped and crackled beside the boy and sent wisps of blue fog up among the trees that got into his nose and made him cough and gag. The fire was the thing that held him back. It struck fear to his usually strong heart and made him hesitate. So long as the fire burned there he had not the courage to lead his band to attack.

Secure in his belief that all tree people were cowards and dared not attack him, and this security made doubly certain by the fact that the horde swarmed about in the trees above him, yet not one dared to come down to the ground, Og worked on skinning and tearing the meat from the dead wolves. He was longer at his task than he had thought he would be. Twilight came on ere he finished. And by that time he was very hungry despite the fact that all during the time he was skinning and cutting up the wolves he had been licking the blood from his fingers or dividing with the wolf cubs succulent scraps of flesh that appealed to him. From the pile of meat he had wrapped in one of the wolf skins he selected a choice chunk or two, and scraping live coals from the fire he put them over the heat to broil.

Darkness had settled down in the sequoia forest by the time he had eaten; the heavy ominous darkness of a starless and moonless night that always struck terror to the hearts of the hairy men. Despite the comfort and cheer of the fire and the companionship of the wolf cubs Og felt the vague mysteries of the blackness that caused his people to huddle into the farthest corners of their caves and wait for the coming of dawn. He felt uneasy and dreadfully lonely and the vague forms that he could see swinging about in the trees above him, chattering or beating their chests or glaring down at him, did not add to his comfort at all.

Yet Og was courageous. He would not let his fears master him. He watched the swinging chattering forms above him for a long time. He even shouted names at them, sent stones hissing among them, and cried out derisively that they had not the courage to come down and attack him. Indeed Og’s procedure was not unlike that of the tree people in a sense. He reviled and insulted them and depreciated their courage to such an extent that he succeeded in instilling in himself an overbalanced sense of confidence which permitted him in the end to heap a few sticks into the fire, move his stone hammer within easy reach, then huddle up in a ball and fall asleep.

How long he slept Og never knew. He was aroused by a strange uncanny sense of imminent danger. But while he was still coming out of the stupor of sleep the sharp yelps of the wolf cubs brought him to his feet like a flash. The first thing that he realized, and this was impressed upon him with a shock, was that the fire was out. Only one dully glowing coal remained to pierce the terrible, oppressive, horror-laden darkness about him. But other impressions followed swiftly. He knew he was not alone. Other forms, scores of them, swarmed about him in the blackness. He could see their eyes; he could hear the sobbing of their breath; their gibberish, and a hollow beating sound seemed to come from every quarter. He could feel them moving swiftly about him. Their hands reached out towards him and tried to clutch him. He could hear the clicking of their teeth.

For a moment Og was paralyzed with fear. Then the skin between his shoulders tightened and his hair began to bristle. With this his courage came back to him swiftly, and with a wild, almost fiendish yell he began to lay about him with his stone hammer. But despite his valiant efforts the forms in the dark were too many for him. They pressed in about him so close that he could scarcely swing his hammer. They clutched at him on all sides. Big powerful hands gripped his wrists. Sinuous arms were entwined about his body. Sharp teeth were imbedded in his flesh.

Still he fought—fought like a mad man. He threw them off, beat them back, trampled them down, wrestled, struggled, struck, kicked and bit. But to no avail. The clutches tightened on his wrists and arms. His legs and body were made helpless and then, spelling the end, a pair of huge, powerful paw-like hands closed slowly but irresistibly about his throat and choked him—choked him until his tongue hung out, until his eyes bulged from their sockets, until his lungs pained for want of air and his head throbbed with the pent-up blood in the arteries there. Og knew it was the end, yet he kicked and fought, though his efforts grew very feeble. Slowly he became unconscious. A blackness not of night was upon him. Yet before all his senses left him he could feel that many hands had lifted him from the ground and that he was being carried upward in a halting, jerky fashion. He knew he was in the trees because of the swishing of bending branches. After that he heard no more.

CHAPTER VIII
SCAR FACE THE TERRIBLE

Only vaguely was Og aware of anything that happened to him during the rest of the night. Now and then he gained a state of semi-consciousness and saw dimly that he was part of a weird tree-top procession formed by the huge band of apish tree people. Hundreds of them were swinging through the tops of the giant sequoias, and as they traveled their strange arboreal highway, this army of apish beings reminded Og of a band of conquerors, such was their demeanor. They swung through the branches, chanting weird songs, and now and then they uttered strange, deep-voiced, booming cries that Og guessed were their war cries and shouts of victory; cheers of conquerors, for this big tree-people band were proud of their achievement; proud that they had made war against a hairy man and, having captured him, were carrying him off a prisoner.

Never in the history of the race of tree men, at least not in the lives of any of his troupe—and that was as far back as the history of their race was known to them—had they had the courage to attack even one hairy man, let alone best him in conquest and carry him off. It was a triumph, an achievement, and to them, in their elation, it all appeared to be a great step forward for their kind.

To be sure this attitude was but a whim of the moment or the hour. Perhaps had the band suddenly come upon a grove of trees with edible fruit they would have straight way forgotten their captive and left him to his own devices while they ate. Indeed this was a rare exhibition of steadfastness of purpose for the apish folk of the band and doubtless if it had not been for Scar Face, their leader who really did have more purpose than the rest of the tribe, they would long ago have strangled Og or dropped him from a high tree and killed him that way.

But always had Scar Face been jealous of the prowess of the hairy folk. Always had he envied them their courage, and their advancement. He had striven to be like them, to make his people like them but always he had failed, for the ape men’s brain had not yet developed to the point where they could think out even the simple problems that the limited intelligence of the hairy people could master. In truth, they were several steps below the hairy folk in the scale of intelligence, and their progress upward was very much slower than that of these men who had learned to live in caves.

The light of a new day was filling the eastern sky with its brilliance when Og gained full consciousness and was able to comprehend the situation. The army of tree folk was still swinging enthusiastically onward over its tree-top highway, and Og found that he was still a prisoner. The giant leader held him captive, and because of his great strength the ape man handled him as if he were a child. One of the tree men’s great arms was thrown about Og’s middle and with head and feet and arms dangling the great creature carried him as easily as Og would have carried the limp body of a young goat that he had slain.

Og was weak, and sore, and passive; passive because he had not the strength to make an effort to free himself from his captors. He simply remained inert and limp and permitted himself to be carried in this awkward fashion wherever the huge tree man chose to take him.

His captor led the horde; as they swung from branch to branch and from one tall tree to another. On and on they hurried through the tree tops, making remarkably swift progress despite the awkwardness of their going. That they were far from the point where he had camped the night before and had been captured, Og was certain. Then, too, the character of the country had changed a great deal. The sequoias were slowly giving way to trees of new and different type. They were giant trees, tremendously tall, and growing close together, but instead of branches they had spreading fronds that reached a great distance upward and outward and were very strong, despite their graceful appearance. Then there were other trees, lower and more massive in character, with short thick trunks and foliage that spread over acres of ground, sending down other stems that took root and spread onward again. A single tree was a veritable forest.

Og did not know that these were giant palms and banyan trees and that his night’s journey had taken him farther south than any point to which the hairy folk had yet ventured. He did know that the climate was perceptibly warmer, and that vegetation familiar to him was fast disappearing. Several times, from this tree-top highway, he had a clear vision of the forest floor, and he understood then why the ape people traveled in the treetops. The vegetation below him was so thick and so massed and intertwined that no earth could be seen at all, and Og knew that even the strongest hairy man could never force his way through it. Only heavy animals like the mammoth, or the hairy rhinoceros would have the strength to trample a pathway there.

Whither his captors were taking him Og had not the vaguest idea. For once these tree people seemed to have a single purpose; a single desire to get somewhere, for they never ceased going. Og felt sick and sore and uncomfortable. He made a movement once to change from this hanging position, but his great captor snarled at him and cuffed him with such terrible force that he became unconscious again, nor did he regain his senses until he felt himself being laid prone on the ground.

He discovered that he was lying on a gently sloping hill, and that he was surrounded by a circle of crouching, inquisitive tree people. Back of this first line of apish beings were massed thousands of others. There were so many that Og could scarcely believe his eyes. They covered the hillside, they filled the trees, and rocks, all about him, and all were staring at him as if waiting patiently for him to open his eyes.

Beyond the mass Og could get a partial view of the valley. It was surrounded on all sides by towering palm clad mountains, but there were few trees in the valley bottom. Instead, there was a pleasant meadow overgrown with lush grass through which a broad, lazy stream slipped slowly. To Og, used to the ruggedness of the country further north, it was beautiful and restful.

But he had little time to take in details, for so soon as he sat up a great chattering and squalling and taunting began. The tree folk became tremendously excited and danced up and down, and pointed their fingers at him, and chattered and grinned and snarled and made ugly faces. Some in the trees threw sticks at him and great round hard objects that Og had never seen before. Some stones and clods came from the tree folk on the ground, many of them hitting him resounding thumps.

Then suddenly they left off throwing and began a weird sort of dance that slowly developed into a dizzily whirling mass as the apish beings joined hands and began capering in a huge circle around him. Og knew from their manner, and from some of the squeals and calls, that the whole clan of the tree people were celebrating his capture, and as he sat there looking at them with senses still dulled from the terrific punishment he had received, and the hardships of the long journey, he wondered vaguely what was to be done with him. He knew that had he been one of the tree people, captured by the hairy men of his kind, he would have been put to death ere this. Would this be his end? This thought troubled him greatly.

It was while this strange dance was in progress that Og felt the presence of a warm body close to him and, looking down, he discovered with a feeling of gladness that beside him, torn and scratched, and as hopelessly dazed as he, were the two wolf cubs. They too had been made captives by the tree people. Og reached out and touched them and in that action he found as much comfort as they evinced by the feeble motion of their tails.

Og’s recuperation was swift, and the wolf cubs seemed to regain their strength and alertness just as quickly. Indeed, by the time the tree people had danced themselves tired, and many of them had gone off to seek other diversion, the trio of captives were almost normal once more and Og’s brain was working to puzzle out his strange situation and find, if possible, a way of escape.

The dancing ceased, the great mass of tree people dwindled, scattering among the trees on either side of the valley. All, save a group of formidable looking apish beings, disappeared. Og surveyed with suspicion those that remained. They were all bigger and stronger than he, and all bore innumerable scars. Doubtless, they were the warriors of the clan. And leading them was a huge scar-faced one, whom Og quickly realized was chief of them all. Spreading out in a semi-circle, with Scar Face in the lead, they began slowly to advance toward him, at the same time snarling and showing their teeth and making faces that were indeed hideous.

Og stood his ground and faced them, the wolf cubs flanking him on either side and snarling with as much vigor as their enemies. The hairy boy could not understand it all, but he longed mightily for his stone-headed hammer, or better still, his more recent weapons, a pair of fire brands. The fact that he had lost perhaps, forever, the valuable alliance of the Fire Demon, gave him a feeling almost of despair. The tree men would never dare venture upon him so boldly were he thus armed.

Despite the fact that he was unarmed, Og stood his ground, determined to fight with tooth and nail to his death. He had not the vaguest idea what was about to happen to him, but he determined to go down fighting.

His boldness seemed to disturb even these giant warriors of the tree folk. They did not advance with the courage that they first displayed, although they did continue to make hideous faces and horrifying noises. But old Scar Face was not the coward that the others were. When the rest stopped he came on alone, advancing with a heavy rolling stride, while his long arms dangled clear to the ground. Stooped as he was, Og could see that the big ape man was very much taller than he was, and broader of shoulders and deeper of chest—a formidable antagonist, indeed. Yet such was the courage of the hairy boy that instead of shrinking from him, he advanced a step or two toward him, crouching too, with his long arms and powerful hands spread ready to come to grips.

With a roar the great tree man charged, and Og leaped forward at the same instant. They met in mid air and crashed to the ground locked in a combat that was terrible to witness. What a clash that was. With all the fury of their primitive natures they fought, for to Og it was life or death. He felt certain that the scar-faced one meant to kill him, and Og’s determination was to prevent it if he had in him the strength and courage to withstand the giant tree dweller.

Over and over they rolled on the ground, kicking, biting, clawing and thrashing with all their strength. Og had buried his powerful teeth into the corded neck of his antagonist, in an effort to reach his windpipe, while his strong hands tore at the tree man’s stomach, trying to rip open the flesh and tear at his vitals. It was the primitive man’s method of combat. He knew no other way to fight, and he pressed his attack with all the strength there was in his powerful body. The tree man, however, did not display the same viciousness. Rather he seemed to use his greater strength in protecting himself than in injuring the hairy boy. Og realized this and wondered. At first he attributed it to the tree man’s lack of courage, but presently he knew that this was not so for in the mêlée the great ape man suddenly shifted his long arms in such a manner that with a single quick movement he could have broken Og’s back and left him helpless, yet for some strange reason the tree man restrained himself. Og was more puzzled than ever.

Seeing their leader thus locked in combat with the captive seemed to instill more courage in the hearts of the other warriors of the tree clan, and suddenly they all closed in on the fighting pair, and Og again felt many hands gripping him, locking his legs and arms in helpless grips, and forcing his head and neck backward until he must needs let go his chewing at the throat of Scar Face, to protect his own neck from being broken.

Gradually they pinioned his arms and legs and head and trussed him about the body with their long strong arms, until he was utterly helpless. Then, as before, he felt himself being lifted off the ground and carried he knew not whither. For a long time they carried him and Og realized that they were taking him up to the upper end of the valley between the tall mountains. Soon the ground became rocky under foot, and seemed to slope slightly upward. Og wondered whether they meant to take him to the top of one of the mountains, and perhaps fling him from a precipice.

But they did not travel far up the slope before, one by one, they let loose their grip upon him until only Scar Face and another one of the ape men gripped him. Then, swinging him slowly back and forth between them several times, they hurled him from them. Og felt himself travel for a brief instant through space, then he landed with a dull and painful thud among a mass of jagged rocks, in the entrance to a dark cave. Half dazed he lay for a brief space where he had fallen and as he lay there he was conscious of two other forms hurtling through the air and falling beside him. They, too, lay still, where they were, and by their whimpering Og knew that he had the wolf cubs for his companions.

CHAPTER IX
SACRIFICED TO SABRE TOOTH

Why had they not killed him?

This question puzzled Og more than any other. Certainly they had had ample opportunity. That night, there in the sequoia forest, they could have strangled him and left his body for the wolves. Or at any time during their long tree top journey they needed but to drop him from the branches of one of the high palms and the crash to the ground would have broken every bone in his body. And again, when they attacked him, Scar Face could have broken his back, but refrained, or the group of warriors together could have literally torn him limb from limb, yet they had not done so. Surely it could not have been cowardice that had stayed them, nor yet mercy, for mercy was a quality that Og knew but little about and the tree men nothing at all. Why then had he been spared?

Og puzzled with this question many times in the days that followed, and tired his slowly developing brain to absolute fatigue more than once in pondering for a reason.

It was strange position he found himself in. He was a prisoner. He knew this only too well, for during the hours of daylight Scar Face and some of his stalwart fighters crouched at points of vantage and Og knew by their demeanor that he could not pass them and go where he pleased. But his was a strange sort of prison. They had hurled him into a veritable blind canyon carved by nature in the rocky side of a mountain, whose high walls tapered from their broad opening into the pleasant valley, to a narrow declivity behind him that ended in the black and foreboding entrance of a great and deep cavern.

Og feared this cave, as did the wolf cubs. They kept as far away from the black entrance as they could, and always they watched it with signs of terror in their eyes. Og could read their fear in their growls and bristling hair, and instinct told him, too, that death lurked there in some terrible form. Just what it was he could not understand, for his sensitive nose, or delicate ears, or yet that strange protective instinct that was his, did not give him any definite indication of what the danger might be. Still danger, he knew, was there and he too kept as far away from the cave’s entrance as possible.

He and the wolf cubs were allowed to roam at will up and down the canyon, from the cave to its very mouth, where it looked out upon the broad and sunlit valley, but beyond this point they could not go for always Scar Face and his tree people were on guard to prevent him. It was at the mouth of the canyon, that, once a day, he found food. The tree people always at midday left a pile of strange fruits and stranger nuts for him to eat. There on a flat rock they laid them and Og knew by this that they were afraid to come further inside the canyon in which they had made him prisoner.

The strange diet of fruit and nuts was at first distasteful to Og. The hairy people were meat eaters and fruit formed a very small part of their diet, save berries and certain roots and barks, which his people had learned to use. But the tree folk were not flesh eaters, and they gave him only what they ate themselves, but they gave in abundance, and Og, after a day of fasting, found that he could eat this new food with a certain degree of relish.

This being a prisoner was strange and unpleasant to the hairy boy and for a time he did little but sit among the jagged rocks, with the wolf cubs beside him, and wonder what it was all about. But on the second day, as his numerous cuts and bruises began to heal, his spirits lifted and presently he began seeking about for ways out of his difficulty. The discovery that the tree folk were prevented by fear from entering the canyon, although it aggravated his fear of the lurking menace of the cave, also made him realize that in his prison he could do about as he chose without any interference from them. This fact discovered, Og forthwith set about making himself weapons, for he felt that he might need them sooner than he anticipated.

A stone hammer was his first thought, and as he cast about among the rocks for desirable material, he could but think of the valuable weapons he had once possessed in the fire brands. How he regretted the over-confidence and the lack of vigilance that had made him let that precious fire burn out. Oh, if he only knew of some way of rekindling the flame; of calling back the Fire Demon.

Although there were rocks in profusion scattered about the canyon, Og was surprised to find that there was really a dearth of good material for a stone hammer. The rocks were all too large or of the wrong shape, and he spent a great deal of time searching and wandered all too close to the foreboding cave, before he recalled quite suddenly, and with a great deal of interest, the methods he had employed in getting the stone knife with which he skinned the wolves that day in the sequoia forest. He remembered suddenly that, not finding satisfactory material, he had broken a sharp scale from the large rock, by pounding it with another stone. Why not do the same thing to shape a hammer head?

Og sat down and thought the idea over. Then he found the best shaped stone he could and puzzled over it for some time before he proceeded with his first effort at craftsmanship. The stone was too heavy and too long. Og realized that if he could break off one end it would be nearer what he wanted. He proceeded to beat it against a bowlder and presently he was rewarded by having part of it break off, leaving in his hand a rather good hammer head. But, this achieved, Og was not satisfied. He surveyed the product and realized that it was not as satisfactory as the last one he had possessed. It was too irregular and misshapen. The question then took form in his mind, why not reshape it with the aid of other stones!

Elated with the idea, Og proceeded to find another stone that he could handle, and after a search he picked up one about the size of his fist that was black and extremely hard. Og did not know that he had fortunately found a piece of flint. With this and the rude hammer head in his hands he sought out a flat rock, and sitting down with the hammer head between his knees, proceeded with his task of shaping it, while the guards of the tree people looked on from the mouth of the canyon with apish inquisitiveness.

But Og had not chipped more than a half dozen strokes when he made a startling discovery, one that made him experience a strange mixture of fear and elation. He proceeded first to chip away a jagged corner of the hammer head with his piece of flint, when suddenly, and much to his astonishment, the flint gave off a series of fire sparks. So startled was Og that he dropped the black stone and sat staring at it in amazement. He had discovered fire again.

After a time he picked up the flint and felt it carefully. It was not hot, yet it contained fire. That was strange. It was black. The cooling volcanic rock from which he had lighted his resinous torch first was also black. Was this, then, the same kind of fire rock? Og searched about and found a stick. He touched it to the flint; held it there a long time yet no tiny spirals of smoke rewarded him as he expected. Still he knew the fire was in the rock. It leapt out when he struck it against another rock. He tried it, and with the second tap more sparks flew.

Og examined the flint carefully; turned it over and over, felt it again, tried once more to light the stick, then, still holding it in his hand, he sat and thought and thought and thought, until his brain grew tired. The fire was in the rock, of that he was certain, but how to get it out and in his possession, under his control, was a vexing question.

Ere long the hammer head was shaped to his satisfaction. To secure a handle and tough bark with which to lash both stone and stick together was not difficult, for among the rocks was scrubby vegetation that yielded him both of these necessities. Og put his now valuable chipping flint in a safe place, while he worked diligently but carefully at making the rest of his hammer.

The coming of night was fraught with unpleasantness for Og. A prisoner there in the canyon, with the menacing entrance of that mysterious black cave behind him, and the guards of the tree people on the alert and closing his only way of escape, made more acute his inherent fear of the hours of darkness. How glad he was to have the company of the faithful wolf cubs then.

Before night was well upon him, Og and the wolf cubs climbed as high as they could on the sides of the canyon and, huddled behind a huge bowlder, with their faces turned toward the rear of the canyon and the entrance of the cave.

And it was well for Og that he decided to climb part way up the canyon wall and take shelter behind the bowlder, for hardly had he become comfortably huddled down with the wolf cubs nestled close to him, when the narrow confines of the canyon echoed with a wild blood-chilling roar and, through the blackness of the canyon, Og could see in the entrance of the cave two glowing eyes and the outline of a huge sabre-toothed tiger.

Softly, yet swiftly, Og reached out and covered the mouths of the wolf cubs, for he knew that a whimper or growl from them would bring the great beast down upon them in an instant. Then like statues, without the movement of a muscle, they sat there and watched the great beast come slowly forth from the cave, stretch itself and yawn, then test the wind by throwing up its massive, ugly head. And as Og watched just a glimmer of the real idea for his imprisonment in the canyon took shape in his brain. Had they left him there as a sacrifice to this beast?