to Harkness in utter fright that was
unlike the Diane he had known.

"Towahg," Harkness suggested; "you saw Towahg!" But the girl shook her
head. She was recovering something of her normal poise; her breath came
more evenly.

"No! It was not Towahg. I saw it. I was hidden under the big leaves. It
was an ape-man. He came swinging along through the branches of the
trees: he was up high and he looked in all directions. I ran. I think he
did not see me.

"And now," she confessed, "I am ashamed. I thought I had forgotten the
horror of that experience, but this brought it all back.... There! I am
all right now."

Harkness held her tenderly close. "Frightened," he reassured her, "and
no wonder! That night on the pyramid left its mark on us all. Now, come;
come quietly."

He was leading the girl toward the knoll that they all called home. Chet
followed, casting frequent glances toward the trees. They had covered
half the distance to the barricade when Chet spoke in a voice that was
half a whisper in its hushed tenseness.

"Drop--quick!" he ordered. "Get into the grass. It's coming. Now let's
see what it is."

* * * * *

He knew that the others had taken cover. For himself, he had flung his
lanky figure into the tall grass. The bow was beside him, an arrow
ready; and the tip of polished bone and the feathered shaft made it a
weapon that was not one to be disregarded. Long hours of practice had
developed his natural aptitude into real skill. Before him, he parted
the tall grass cautiously to see the forest whence the sound had come.

The swish of leaves had warned Chet; some far-flung branch must have
failed to bear the big beast's weight and had bent to swing him to the
ground--or perhaps the descent was intentional.

And now there was silence, the silence of noonday that is so filled with
unheard summer sounds. A foot above Chet's head a tiny bat-winged bird
rocked and tilted on vermilion leather wings, while its iridescent head
made flickering rainbow colors with the vibrations of a throat that
hummed a steady call. Across the meadow were countless other flashing,
humming things, like dust specks dancing in the sun, but magnified and
intensely colored.

Above their droning note was the shrill cry of the insects that spent
their days in idle and ceaseless unmusical scrapings. They inhabited the
shadowed zone along the forest edge. And now, where the foliage of the
towering trees was