aw. This appalling monster
started after Bawr with a swift, crouching rush, as silent, for all
its weight, as if its feet were shod with thistledown.

Grom leapt to his feet with a wild yell of warning, at the same time
letting fly an arrow. In his haste the shaft went wide. Bawr, looking
over his shoulder, saw the giant beast almost upon him. With a
tremendous bound he gained the foot of a tree. Dropping his club and
spear, he sprang desperately, caught a branch, and swung himself
upward.

But the saber-tooth was already at his heels, before he had time to
swing quite out of reach. The gigantic brute gathered itself for a
spring which would have enabled it to pluck Bawr from his refuge like
a ripe fig. But that spring was never delivered. With a roar of rage
the monster turned instead, and bit furiously at the shaft of an arrow
sticking in its flank. Grom's second shaft had flown true; and Bawr,
greatly marveling, drew up his legs to a place of safety.

With the fire of that deep wound in its entrails the saber-tooth
forgot all about its quarry in the tree. It had caught sight of Grom
when he uttered his yell of warning, and it knew instantly whence the
strange attack had come. It bit off the protruding shaft; and then,
fixing its dreadful eyes on Grom, it ceased its snarling and came
charging for the ledge with a rush which seemed likely to carry it
clear up the twenty-foot perpendicular of smooth rock.

Grom, enamored of the new weapon, forgot the spear which was likely to
be far more efficient at these close quarters. Leaning far out over
the parapet, he drew his arrow to the head and let drive just as the
monster reared itself, open-jawed, at the wall. The pointed hickory
went down into the gaping gullet, and stood out some inches at the
side of the neck. With a horrible coughing screech the monster
recoiled, put its head between its paws, and tried to claw the anguish
from its throat. But after a moment, seeming to realize that this was
impossible, it backed away, gathered itself together, and sprang for
the ledge. It received another of Grom's shafts deep in the chest,
without seeming to notice the wound; and its impetus was so tremendous
that it succeeded in getting its fore-paws fixed upon the ledge.
Clinging there, its enormous pale-green eyes staring straight into
Grom's, it struggled to draw itself up all the way--an effort in which
it would doubtless have succeeded at once but for that first arrow in
i