Part 1 (2/2)
”--has fled,” finished one of the hunters ”He heard you quarreling with Sleeza We cannot catch hirinned ”Next time, Barkoo, let Sleeza bite you While youthe grim attempt at hue, the bobbing heads and flying legs of Neela and his flock, now far away
Barkoo swore rowled
”As it is, darkness will come before we reach the caves of Tharn To return eht Barkoo by the ar man, clad only in an anirasses less than twenty yards fro war-spear held aloft as he swooped toward them
Instantly the herd turned aside and with a fresh burst of speed sought to out-run this new danger
”Look at hi lion the youth was covering the ground inaniat full speed, the youngacross the gap between hi her full in the exposed side
As though her legs had been jerked from under her, the creature turned a coround, her screa hunters
Barkoo, when the young ht-lipped tribute
”Ilike this,” he said, exasperated ”When I asked him to coh at us--taunt us as bad hunters”
”Some day he will not come back from the hunt,” predicted one of the oes out alone after Jalok, the panther, and Tarlok, the leopard, with only a knife and a rope Why, just a sun ago, I heard him say Sadu, the lion, was to be next Smart hunters leave Sadu alone!”
Tharn, the son of Tharn, watched the three coht Barkoo's attempt at an unimpressed expression, and his own lean handsome face broke in a wide s vividly with his sun-baked skin
He wondered what had caused the zebra herd to bolt before the hunters could atteht of the branches of a tree, and had hidden in the grass near the probable route of the anied thenore the son of his chief, ca toe
”Not ul ”A wise hunter would have picked a fatter one”
Tharn's lips twitched with amusement He knew Barkoo--knew he found fault only to hide an extravagant satisfaction that the chief's son had succeeded where older heads had failed; for Barkoo had schooled him in forest lore almost from the day Tharn had first walked
That had been a little o; today Tharn was les and on the plains than any other roith his knowledge until he knew nothing of fear and little of caution He took i his carelessness in the face of his forloomy prophecies of disaster
Tharn pursed his lips solemnly ”It is true,” he admitted soberly, ”that a wiser hunter would have made a better choice That is, if he were not so clumsy that the meat would run away first Then the wise hunter would not be able to kill even a little Neela Wise old lared at hi trapped into a defense He wheeled on the grinning Korgul ”Get a strong branch,” he said sharply
With the dead weight of the kill swinging fronon hunters set out for the distant caves of their tribe
Soon they entered theinto the depths of dense jungle to the west It was nearly dark here beneath the over-spreading forest giants, the huge hs festooned with loops and whorls of heavy vines The air was overladen with the heavy setation; the sounds of innumerable small life were constantly in the hunters' ears Here in the hulistened with perspiration
By the time they had crossed the belt of woods to co of another prairie, Dyta, the sun, was close to the western horizon Hazy in the far distance were three low hills, their co a sizable clump of trees In those hills were the caves of the tribe, and at sight of them the four men quickened their steps
They were perhaps a third of the way across the open ground, when Tharn, in the lead, halted abruptly, his eyes on a section of the grasses some hundred yards ahead