Part 21 (2/2)

The half-finished spear head reminded Urb of his own immediate problem

”Gorb,” he said, ”only two kills have our one forth each day to hunt It is not because Narjok or Bana or Muta run away before we can kill them We cannot find them at all; only twice in those five suns have we come upon the spoor of any one of them”

Gorb paused at his work and drew a hairy forear after Dyta had found his lair, I heard Sadu roaring and growling ary Sadu; he, too, was angry because there is no runted Since the day before, he had been turning an idea over in his slow-ht to put it into words

”Tomorrow,” he said, ”when Dyta first awakens, soo; Boz and Kor and Tolb and you, Gorb, will go with me There are many hills; there will be rasslands nearby When we find a good place ill come back for the others of our tribe”

”Good!” approved Gorb, turning back to his labors ”It has been o with you, Urb”

Early the nexta little band of Neanderthalsun They were six; besides those na, the sullen, had been taken All were are flint-studded hardwood clubs, so heavy that only an arht wield one; rude knives of flint and short-shafted spears co with the curious shuffling gait peculiar to their kind alone Their passage see dule Urb was in the lead, his ser, ears and nose alert lest Sadu or Jalok or Tarlok find him and his fellows unprepared But if any of the more formidable beasts were near, they reive the Hairy Men a wide berth when several were together--Pandor, who feared no creature that walked or fleriggled

The shaggy-coated roup of low mountains far to the east, the upper portions of which were clearly discernible on the few occasions the band crossed a clearing of any consequence

At noon they halted on the reed-covered banks of a shallow river; and while Urb and Tolb hunted gale patriarch

Soon the two hunters returned, bearing between them the still warm carcass of Muta, the wild boar Each of the six hacked off a juicy portion and devoured it raw, bloodat the river's brink, the brute-men stretched out beneath the trees, covered their faces with huge fronds of a palm tree and slept until e band took up their h a fringe of jungle and paused at the foot of a lofty cliff Urb, deciding too little daylight re the vertical slope, ordered the Neanderthals back into the forest

Here they supped on flesh of the boar killed earlier in the day, then sought couches aht it was all very well to sleep in coht it was safer aloft The great cats usually laid up during the day, digesting the previous night's kill; but once Uda, the ry carnivora

With the first rays of theand aard, they th aided theether, and finally the crest was reached

Here they stood at the edge of a great tableland, clothed with primeval forest from which, in the distance, loomed four low mountain peaks

Garazing to their left caught their scent and bounded away across a narrow ribbon of grassland which lay between the forest and the plateau's edge A band of monkeys chattered and scolded at them from the safety of middle terraces, while a cloud of raucous-voiced birds rose with a whirring beat of wings and flew deeper inland

Not far to their right was the entrance to a narrow deep-worn galed mazes of brush, creeper, vine and trees It was toward this trail that Urb turned his footsteps,for his coh,” he exulted ”If we can find caves in those hills, ill go back to fetch the rest of our people”

In silence the six frightful, man-like creatures faded into the black shadows of the overhanging forest, their goal the towering heights at the far end of this plateau

And directly between them and their objective lay Sephar, mysterious city of an unknown race

Dylara lay face down on a broad branch, her head pillowed on a heap of uish The swollen ankle throbbed steadily, its pain almost unbearable