e to her, but the tones
of his voice seemed to reassure her. She sat up, revealing again the
form of the little one, which she had been shielding with her hair and
her bosom as if she feared the tall white hunter might dash its brains
out; and Grom noted with keen interest that the child also had one of
those terrible, cup-shaped wounds, almost obliterating its fat,
copper-colored shoulder. He saw, also, that the woman's face, though
uncomely, was more intelligent and human than the bestial faces of the
Bow-legs' women. It was a broad face, with very small, deep-set eyes,
high cheek bones, a tiny nose, and a very wide mouth, and it looked as
if some one had sat on it hard and pushed it in. The idea made him
smile, and the smile completed the woman's reassurance. She poured a
stream of chatter quite unlike the clicks and barkings of the
Bow-legs. Then she crept closer to Grom's feet, and proceeded to give
her little one the breast. It was twisting uneasily with the pain of
its dreadful wound, but it nursed hungrily, and with the prudent
stoicism of a wild creature it made no outcry.

As Grom stood studying the pair, the mother kept throwing glances of
horror over her shoulder, as if expecting her assailants to arrive at
any moment. Grom followed her eyes, but there was no sign of any
pursuit. Then he observed the fugitives' wounds more closely, and
noted that the blood upon them was already, in most cases, pretty well
coagulated. He noted also certain other wounds, deep, narrow
punctures, like stabs. He guessed that they could not be much less
than an hour old. The Thing, whatever it was, which had inflicted
them--the Thing with so strange a mouth, and so strange a way of using
it--had apparently given up the pursuit. Grom's curiosity burned
within him, and he was angry at the woman because she could not speak
to him in his own language, or at least in that of the Bow-legs. It
seemed to him willful obstinacy on her part to refuse to understand
the Bow-legs' tongue. He stooped over her, and roughly examined one of
the wounds with his huge fingers. She winced, but made no complaint,
only covering her baby with her hair and her arms in terror lest it
should suffer a like harsh handling.

With a qualm of compunction, which rather puzzled him, Grom gave over
his investigating, and turned to a tall, slim youth with a great mop
of chestnut hair who at this moment came running up to him. It was
A-ya's young brother, Mo, Grom's