teau such a scene met my astonished
gaze as never before had startled it, for the unique battle-methods of
the half-brutes were rather the most remarkable I had ever witnessed.
Along the very edge of the cliff-top stood a thin line of mighty
males--the best rope-throwers of the tribe. A few feet behind these
the rest of the males, with the exception of about twenty, formed a
second line. Still farther in the rear all the women and young
children were clus-tered into a single group under the protection of
the remaining twenty fighting males and all the old males.

But it was the work of the first two lines that interested me. The
forces of Hooja--a great horde of savage Sagoths and primeval cave
men--were working their way up the steep cliff-face, their agility but
slightly less than that of my captors who had clambered so nimbly
aloft--even he who was burdened by my weight.

As the attackers came on they paused occasionally wherever a projection
gave them sufficient foothold and launched arrows and spears at the
defenders above them. During the entire battle both sides hurled
taunts and insults at one another--the human beings naturally excelling
the brutes in the coarseness and vileness of their vilification and
invective.

The "firing-line" of the brute-men wielded no weapon other than their
long fiber nooses. When a foeman came within range of them a noose
would settle unerringly about him and he would be dragged, fighting and
yelling, to the cliff-top, unless, as occasionally occurred, he was
quick enough to draw his knife and cut the rope above him, in which
event he usually plunged down-ward to a no less certain death than that
which awaited him above.

Those who were hauled up within reach of the power-ful clutches of the
defenders had the nooses snatched from them and were catapulted back
through the first line to the second, where they were seized and killed
by the simple expedient of a single powerful closing of mighty fangs
upon the backs of their necks.

But the arrows of the invaders were taking a much heavier toll than the
nooses of the defenders and I foresaw that it was but a matter of time
before Hooja's forces must conquer unless the brute-men changed their
tactics, or the cave men tired of the battle.

Gr-gr-gr was standing in the center of the first line. All about him
were boulders and large fragments of broken rock. I approached him and
without a word toppled a large mass of rock over