tricks with
their savage faces to make them still uglier and to show the dull
terror that gripped them.

"Run--we must run--run away--the breath of the beast is on us--he
follows close--run...." Through the mutterings and growls a sick child
whimpered once, then was still. Gor was speaking again:

"Run! Run away!" he mocked them. "And where shall the tribe of Zoran
go? With Gwanga, to make food for his cat belly or to be hammered to
death with the stones of the great tribes of the south?"

There was none to reply--only a despairing moan from ugly lips. Gor
waited, then answered his own question.

"No!" he shouted, and beat upon his hairy chest that was round as the
trunk of a tree. "Gor will save you--Gor, the wanderer! You named me
well: my feet have traveled far. Beyond the red-topped mountains of
the north I have gone; I have seen the tribes of the south, and I
brought you a head for proof. I have followed the sun, and I have gone
where it rises."

In the half light, coarse strands of hair waved as hideous heads were
nodded in confirmation of the boast, though many still drooped
despairingly.

"If Gor leads, where will he go?" a voice demanded.

Another growled: "Gor's feet have gone far: where have they gone where
the Beast cannot follow our scent?"

"Down!" said Gor with unconscious dramatic effect, and he pointed at
the rocky floor of the cave. "I have gone where even the Beast of the
North cannot go. The caves back of this you have seen, but only Gor
has seen the hole--the hole where a strong man can climb down; a hole
too small for the great beast to get through. Gor has gone down to
find more caves below and more caves below them.

"Far down is a place where it is always warm. There is water in lakes
and streams. Gor has caught fish in that water, and they were good.
There are growing things like the round earth-plants that come in the
night, and they, too, were good.

"Will you follow Gor?" he demanded. "And when the Beast is gone and
the Sun-god comes back we will return--"

* * * * *

The blast that found its way inside the cave furnished its own answer;
the echoing, "We follow! We follow!" spoken through chattering teeth
was not needed. The women of the tribe shivered more from the cold
than from fear as they gathered together their belongings, their furs
and hides and crude stone implements; and the shambling man-shape,
called Gor, led them to the hole down w