the beak.

The crawling figure of Mawg was still a good hundred paces from the
unsuspecting Grom, when the great bird overtook it. A-ya, watching
from her tree-top, clutched a branch and held her breath. Mawg's ears
caught a sound behind him, and he glanced around sharply. With a
scream, he bounded to his feet. But it was too late. Before he could
either strike or flee, he was beaten down again, with a smash of that
pile-driving beak. The bird planted one huge foot on its victim's
loins, gripped his head in its beak, and neatly snapped his neck. Then
it fell greedily to its hideous meal.

At Mawg's scream of terror, Grom had turned and rushed to the rescue,
swinging his club. But before he had covered half the distance, he saw
that the monster had done its work; and he hesitated. He was too late
to help the victim. And he knew the mettle of this ferocious bird,
almost as much to be dreaded, in single combat, as the saber-tooth
itself. At his approach, the bird had lifted its dripping beak, half
turned, and stood gripping the prey with one foot, swaying its grim
head slowly and eyeing him with malevolent defiance. Still he
hesitated, fingering his club; for the insolence of that challenging
stare made his blood seethe. Then came A-ya's voice from the tree-top,
calling him. "Come away!" she cried. "It was Mawg."

Whereupon he turned, with the content of one who sees all old scores
cleanly wiped out together, and went back to gather his ripe
plantains.

The peril of Mawg being thus removed from their path, they journeyed
more swiftly; and when the next new moon was a thin white sickle in
the sky, just above the line of saw-toothed hills, they came safely
back to the comfortable caves and the clear-burning watch-fires of
their tribe.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BENDING OF THE BOW

Before the Caves of the Pointed Hills the fires of the tribe burned
brightly. Within the caves reigned plenty and an unheard-of security;
for since the conquest of fire those monstrous beasts and gigantic
carnivorous, running birds, which had been Man's ceaseless menace ever
since he swung down out of the tree-tops to walk the earth erect, had
been held at a distance through awe of the licking flames. Though the
great battle which had hurled back the invading hosts of the Bow-legs
had cost the tribe more than half its warriors, the Caves were
swarming with vigorous children. To Bawr, the Chief, and to Grom, his
Right Hand and Councilor,