Chapter 7
To run up the inclined surface of the palisade and drop to the
ground outside was the work of but a moment, or would have been but
for Nobs. I had to put my rope about him after we reached the top,
lift him over the sharpened stakes and lower him upon the outside.
To find Ajor in the unknown country to the north seemed rather
hopeless; yet I could do no less than try, praying in the meanwhile
that she would come through unscathed and in safety to her father.
As Nobs and I swung along in the growing light of the coming day,
I was impressed by the lessening numbers of savage beasts the
farther north I traveled. With the decrease among the carnivora,
the herbivora increased in quantity, though anywhere in Caspak they
are sufficiently plentiful to furnish ample food for the meateaters
of each locality. The wild cattle, antelope, deer, and horses
I passed showed changes in evolution from their cousins farther
south. The kine were smaller and less shaggy, the horses larger.
North of the Kro-lu village I saw a small band of the latter
of about the size of those of our old Western plains--such as the
Indians bred in former days and to a lesser extent even now. They
were fat and sleek, and I looked upon them with covetous eyes and
with thoughts that any old cow-puncher may well imagine I might
entertain after having hoofed it for weeks; but they were wary,
scarce permitting me to approach within bow-and-arrow range, much
less within roping-distance; yet I still had hopes which I never
discarded.
Twice before noon we were stalked and charged by man-eaters; but
even though I was without firearms, I still had ample protection in
Nobs, who evidently had learned something of Caspakian hunt rules
under the tutelage of Du-seen or some other Galu, and of course
a great deal more by experience. He always was on the alert for
dangerous foes, invariably warning me by low growls of the approach
of a large carnivorous animal long before I could either see or
hear it, and then when the thing appeared, he would run snapping
at its heels, drawing the charge away from me until I found safety
in some tree; yet never did the wily Nobs take an unnecessary chance
of a mauling. He would dart in and away so quickly that not even
the lightning-like movements of the great cats could reach him.
I have seen him tantalize them thus until they fairly screamed in
rage.
The greatest inconvenience the hunters caused me was the delay,
for they have a nasty habit of keeping one treed for an hour or
more if balked in their designs; but at last we came in sight of
a line of cliffs running east and west across our path as far as
the eye could see in either direction, and I knew that we reached
the natural boundary which marks the line between the Kro-lu and
Galu countries. The southern face of these cliffs loomed high and
forbidding, rising to an altitude of some two hundred feet, sheer
and precipitous, without a break that the eye could perceive. How
I was to find a crossing I could not guess. Whether to search to
the east toward the still loftier barrier-cliffs fronting upon the
ocean, or westward in the direction of the inland sea was a question
which baffled me. Were there many passes or only one? I had no
way of knowing. I could but trust to chance. It never occurred
to me that Nobs had made the crossing at least once, possibly
a greater number of times, and that he might lead me to the pass;
and so it was with no idea of assistance that I appealed to him as
a man alone with a dumb brute so often does.
"Nobs," I said, "how the devil are we going to cross those cliffs?"
I do not say that he understood me, even though I realize that an
Airedale is a mighty intelligent dog; but I do swear that he seemed
to understand me, for he wheeled about, barking joyously and trotted
off toward the west; and when I didn't follow him, he ran back to
me barking furiously, and at last taking hold of the calf of my leg
in an effort to pull me along in the direction he wished me to go.
Now, as my legs were naked and Nobs' jaws are much more powerful
than he realizes, I gave in and followed him, for I knew that
I might as well go west as east, as far as any knowledge I had of
the correct direction went.
We followed the base of the cliffs for a considerable distance.
The ground was rolling and tree-dotted and covered with grazing
animals, alone, in pairs and in herds--a motley aggregation of the
modern and extinct herbivore of the world. A huge woolly mastodon
stood swaying to and fro in the shade of a giant fern--a mighty
bull with enormous upcurving tusks. Near him grazed an aurochs
bull with a cow and a calf, close beside a lone rhinoceros asleep
in a dust-hole. Deer, antelope, bison, horses, sheep, and goats
were all in sight at the same time, and at a little distance a
great megatherium reared up on its huge tail and massive hind feet
to tear the leaves from a tall tree. The forgotten past rubbed
flanks with the present--while Tom Billings, modern of the moderns,
passed in the garb of pre-Glacial man, and before him trotted a
creature of a breed scarce sixty years old. Nobs was a parvenu;
but it failed to worry him.
As we neared the inland sea we saw more flying reptiles and several
great amphibians, but none of them attacked us. As we were topping
a rise in the middle of the afternoon, I saw something that brought
me to a sudden stop. Calling Nobs in a whisper, I cautioned him to
silence and kept him at heel while I threw myself flat and watched,
from behind a sheltering shrub, a body of warriors approaching
the cliff from the south. I could see that they were Galus, and I
guessed that Du-seen led them. They had taken a shorter route to
the pass and so had overhauled me. I could see them plainly, for
they were no great distance away, and saw with relief that Ajor
was not with them.
The cliffs before them were broken and ragged, those coming from
the east overlapping the cliffs from the west. Into the defile
formed by this overlapping the party filed. I could see them
climbing upward for a few minutes, and then they disappeared from
view. When the last of them had passed from sight, I rose and bent
my steps in the direction of the pass--the same pass toward which
Nobs had evidently been leading me. I went warily as I approached
it, for fear the party might have halted to rest. If they hadn't
halted, I had no fear of being discovered, for I had seen that
the Galus marched without point, flankers or rear guard; and when
I reached the pass and saw a narrow, one-man trail leading upward
at a stiff angle, I wished that I were chief of the Galus for a
few weeks. A dozen men could hold off forever in that narrow pass
all the hordes which might be brought up from the south; yet there
it lay entirely unguarded.
The Galus might be a great people in Caspak; but they were pitifully
inefficient in even the simpler forms of military tactics. I was
surprised that even a man of the Stone Age should be so lacking
in military perspicacity. Du-seen dropped far below par in my
estimation as I saw the slovenly formation of his troop as it passed
through an enemy country and entered the domain of the chief against
whom he had risen in revolt; but Du-seen must have known Jor the
chief and known that Jor would not be waiting for him at the pass.
Nevertheless he took unwarranted chances. With one squad of a
home-guard company I could have conquered Caspak.
Nobs and I followed to the summit of the pass, and there we saw the
party defiling into the Galu country, the level of which was not,
on an average, over fifty feet below the summit of the cliffs and
about a hundred and fifty feet above the adjacent Kro-lu domain.
Immediately the landscape changed. The trees, the flowers and the
shrubs were of a hardier type, and I realized that at night the
Galu blanket might be almost a necessity. Acacia and eucalyptus
predominated among the trees; yet there were ash and oak and even
pine and fir and hemlock. The tree-life was riotous. The forests
were dense and peopled by enormous trees. From the summit of the
cliff I could see forests rising hundreds of feet above the level
upon which I stood, and even at the distance they were from me I
realized that the boles were of gigantic size.
At last I had come to the Galu country. Though not conceived in
Caspak, I had indeed come up cor-sva jo--from the beginning I had
come up through the hideous horrors of the lower Caspakian spheres
of evolution, and I could not but feel something of the elation and
pride which had filled To-mar and So-al when they realized that the
call had come to them and they were about to rise from the estate
of Band-lus to that of Kro-lus. I was glad that I was not batu.
But where was Ajor? Though my eyes searched the wide landscape
before me, I saw nothing other than the warriors of Du-seen and
the beasts of the fields and the forests. Surrounded by forests,
I could see wide plains dotting the country as far as the eye could
reach; but nowhere was a sign of a small Galu she--the beloved she
whom I would have given my right hand to see.
Nobs and I were hungry; we had not eaten since the preceding night,
and below us was game-deer, sheep, anything that a hungry hunter
might crave; so down the steep trail we made our way, and then
upon my belly with Nobs crouching low behind me, I crawled toward a
small herd of red deer feeding at the edge of a plain close beside
a forest. There was ample cover, what with solitary trees and
dotting bushes so that I found no difficulty in stalking up wind
to within fifty feet of my quarry--a large, sleek doe unaccompanied
by a fawn. Greatly then did I regret my rifle. Never in my life
had I shot an arrow, but I knew how it was done, and fitting the
shaft to my string, I aimed carefully and let drive. At the same
instant I called to Nobs and leaped to me feet.
The arrow caught the doe full in the side, and in the same moment
Nobs was after her. She turned to flee with the two of us pursuing
her, Nobs with his great fangs bared and I with my short spear
poised for a cast. The balance of the herd sprang quickly away;
but the hurt doe lagged, and in a moment Nobs was beside her and
had leaped at her throat. He had her down when I came up, and I
finished her with my spear. It didn't take me long to have a fire
going and a steak broiling, and while I was preparing for my own
feast, Nobs was filling himself with raw venison. Never have I
enjoyed a meal so heartily.
For two days I searched fruitlessly back and forth from the inland
sea almost to the barrier cliffs for some trace of Ajor, and always
I trended northward; but I saw no sign of any human being, not even
the band of Galu warriors under Du-seen; and then I commenced to
have misgivings. Had Chal-az spoken the truth to me when he said
that Ajor had quit the village of the Kro-lu? Might he not have
been acting upon the orders of Al-tan, in whose savage bosom might
have lurked some small spark of shame that he had attempted to do
to death one who had befriended a Kro-lu warrior--a guest who had
brought no harm upon the Kro-lu race--and thus have sent me out
upon a fruitless mission in the hope that the wild beasts would do
what Al-tan hesitated to do? I did not know; but the more I thought
upon it, the more convinced I became that Ajor had not quitted the
Kro-lu village; but if not, what had brought Du-seen forth without
her? There was a puzzler, and once again I was all at sea.
On the second day of my experience of the Galu country I came upon a
bunch of as magnificent horses as it has ever been my lot to see.
They were dark bays with blazed faces and perfect surcingles of
white about their barrels. Their forelegs were white to the knees.
In height they stood almost sixteen hands, the mares being a trifle
smaller than the stallions, of which there were three or four in
this band of a hundred, which comprised many colts and half-grown
horses. Their markings were almost identical, indicating a purity
of strain that might have persisted since long ages ago. If I had
coveted one of the little ponies of the Kro-lu country, imagine
my state of mind when I came upon these magnificent creatures! No
sooner had I espied them than I determined to possess one of them;
nor did it take me long to select a beautiful young stallion--a
four-year-old, I guessed him.
The horses were grazing close to the edge of the forest in which
Nobs and I were concealed, while the ground between us and them
was dotted with clumps of flowering brush which offered perfect
concealment. The stallion of my choice grazed with a filly and two
yearlings a little apart from the balance of the herd and nearest
to the forest and to me. At my whispered "Charge!" Nobs flattened
himself to the ground, and I knew that he would not again move until
I called him, unless danger threatened me from the rear. Carefully
I crept forward toward my unsuspecting quarry, coming undetected
to the concealment of a bush not more than twenty feet from him.
Here I quietly arranged my noose, spreading it flat and open upon
the ground.
To step to one side of the bush and throw directly from the ground,
which is the style I am best in, would take but an instant, and
in that instant the stallion would doubtless be under way at top
speed in the opposite direction. Then he would have to wheel about
when I surprised him, and in doing so, he would most certainly
rise slightly upon his hind feet and throw up his head, presenting
a perfect target for my noose as he pivoted.
Yes, I had it beautifully worked out, and I waited until he should
turn in my direction. At last it became evident that he was doing
so, when apparently without cause, the filly raised her head, neighed
and started off at a trot in the opposite direction, immediately
followed, of course, by the colts and my stallion. It looked for
a moment as though my last hope was blasted; but presently their
fright, if fright it was, passed, and they resumed grazing again
a hundred yards farther on. This time there was no bush within
fifty feet of them, and I was at a loss as to how to get within
safe roping-distance. Anywhere under forty feet I am an excellent
roper, at fifty feet I am fair; but over that I knew it would
be a matter of luck if I succeeded in getting my noose about that
beautiful arched neck.
As I stood debating the question in my mind, I was almost upon the
point of making the attempt at the long throw. I had plenty of
rope, this Galu weapon being fully sixty feet long. How I wished
for the collies from the ranch! At a word they would have circled
this little bunch and driven it straight down to me; and then it
flashed into my mind that Nobs had run with those collies all one
summer, that he had gone down to the pasture with them after the
cows every evening and done his part in driving them back to the
milking-barn, and had done it intelligently; but Nobs had never
done the thing alone, and it had been a year since he had done it
at all. However, the chances were more in favor of my foozling
the long throw than that Nobs would fall down in his part if I gave
him the chance.
Having come to a decision, I had to creep back to Nobs and get him,
and then with him at my heels return to a large bush near the four
horses. Here we could see directly through the bush, and pointing
the animals out to Nobs I whispered: "Fetch 'em, boy!"
In an instant he was gone, circling wide toward the rear of the
quarry. They caught sight of him almost immediately and broke
into a trot away from him; but when they saw that he was apparently
giving them a wide berth they stopped again, though they stood
watching him, with high-held heads and quivering nostrils. It was
a beautiful sight. And then Nobs turned in behind them and trotted
slowly back toward me. He did not bark, nor come rushing down upon
them, and when he had come closer to them, he proceeded at a walk.
The splendid creatures seemed more curious than fearful, making
no effort to escape until Nobs was quite close to them; then they
trotted slowly away, but at right angles.
And now the fun and trouble commenced. Nobs, of course, attempted
to turn them, and he seemed to have selected the stallion to work
upon, for he paid no attention to the others, having intelligence
enough to know that a lone dog could run his legs off before he
could round up four horses that didn't wish to be rounded up. The
stallion, however, had notions of his own about being headed, and
the result was as pretty a race as one would care to see. Gad, how
that horse could run! He seemed to flatten out and shoot through
the air with the very minimum of exertion, and at his forefoot ran
Nobs, doing his best to turn him. He was barking now, and twice he
leaped high against the stallion's flank; but this cost too much
effort and always lost him ground, as each time he was hurled heels
over head by the impact; yet before they disappeared over a rise
in the ground I was sure that Nob's persistence was bearing fruit;
it seemed to me that the horse was giving way a trifle to the right.
Nobs was between him and the main herd, to which the yearling and
filly had already fled.
As I stood waiting for Nobs' return, I could not but speculate
upon my chances should I be attacked by some formidable beast. I
was some distance from the forest and armed with weapons in the use
of which I was quite untrained, though I had practiced some with
the spear since leaving the Kro-lu country. I must admit that my
thoughts were not pleasant ones, verging almost upon cowardice,
until I chanced to think of little Ajor alone in this same land
and armed only with a knife! I was immediately filled with shame;
but in thinking the matter over since, I have come to the conclusion
that my state of mind was influenced largely by my approximate
nakedness. If you have never wandered about in broad daylight
garbed in a bit of red-deer skin in inadequate length, you can have
no conception of the sensation of futility that overwhelms one.
Clothes, to a man accustomed to wearing clothes, impart a certain
self-confidence; lack of them induces panic.
But no beast attacked me, though I saw several menacing forms
passing through the dark aisles of the forest. At last I commenced
to worry over Nobs' protracted absence and to fear that something
had befallen him. I was coiling my rope to start out in search
of him, when I saw the stallion leap into view at almost the same
spot behind which he had disappeared, and at his heels ran Nobs.
Neither was running so fast or furiously as when last I had seen
them.
The horse, as he approached me, I could see was laboring hard; yet
he kept gamely to his task, and Nobs, too. The splendid fellow was
driving the quarry straight toward me. I crouched behind my bush
and laid my noose in readiness to throw. As the two approached my
hiding-place, Nobs reduced his speed, and the stallion, evidently
only too glad of the respite, dropped into a trot. It was at this
gait that he passed me; my rope-hand flew forward; the honda, well
down, held the noose open, and the beautiful bay fairly ran his
head into it.
Instantly he wheeled to dash off at right angles. I braced myself
with the rope around my hip and brought him to a sudden stand.
Rearing and struggling, he fought for his liberty while Nobs,
panting and with lolling tongue, came and threw himself down near
me. He seemed to know that his work was done and that he had
earned his rest. The stallion was pretty well spent, and after a
few minutes of struggling he stood with feet far spread, nostrils
dilated and eyes wide, watching me as I edged toward him, taking
in the slack of the rope as I advanced. A dozen times he reared
and tried to break away; but always I spoke soothingly to him and
after an hour of effort I succeeded in reaching his head and stroking
his muzzle. Then I gathered a handful of grass and offered it to
him, and always I talked to him in a quiet and reassuring voice.
I had expected a battle royal; but on the contrary I found his
taming a matter of comparative ease. Though wild, he was gentle
to a degree, and of such remarkable intelligence that he soon
discovered that I had no intention of harming him. After that,
all was easy. Before that day was done, I had taught him to lead
and to stand while I stroked his head and flanks, and to eat from
my hand, and had the satisfaction of seeing the light of fear die
in his large, intelligent eyes.
The following day I fashioned a hackamore from a piece which I cut
from the end of my long Galu rope, and then I mounted him fully
prepared for a struggle of titanic proportions in which I was none
too sure that he would not come off victor; but he never made the
slightest effort to unseat me, and from then on his education was
rapid. No horse ever learned more quickly the meaning of the rein
and the pressure of the knees. I think he soon learned to love
me, and I know that I loved him; while he and Nobs were the best
of pals. I called him Ace. I had a friend who was once in the
French flying-corps, and when Ace let himself out, he certainly
flew.
I cannot explain to you, nor can you understand, unless you too are
a horseman, the exhilarating feeling of well-being which pervaded
me from the moment that I commenced riding Ace. I was a new man,
imbued with a sense of superiority that led me to feel that I could
go forth and conquer all Caspak single-handed. Now, when I needed
meat, I ran it down on Ace and roped it, and when some great beast
with which we could not cope threatened us, we galloped away to
safety; but for the most part the creatures we met looked upon us
in terror, for Ace and I in combination presented a new and unusual
beast beyond their experience and ken.
For five days I rode back and forth across the southern end of the
Galu country without seeing a human being; yet all the time I was
working slowly toward the north, for I had determined to comb the
territory thoroughly in search of Ajor; but on the fifth day as
I emerged from a forest, I saw some distance ahead of me a single
small figure pursued by many others. Instantly I recognized the
quarry as Ajor. The entire party was fully a mile away from me,
and they were crossing my path at right angles. Ajor a few hundred
yards in advance of those who followed her. One of her pursuers
was far in advance of the others, and was gaining upon her rapidly.
With a word and a pressure of the knees I sent Ace leaping out into
the open, and with Nobs running close alongside, we raced toward
her.
At first none of them saw us; but as we neared Ajor, the pack
behind the foremost pursuer discovered us and set up such a howl
as I never before have heard. They were all Galus, and I soon
recognized the foremost as Du-seen. He was almost upon Ajor now,
and with a sense of terror such as I had never before experienced,
I saw that he ran with his knife in his hand, and that his intention
was to slay rather than capture. I could not understand it, but
I could only urge Ace to greater speed, and most nobly did the
wondrous creature respond to my demands. If ever a four-footed
creature approximated flying, it was Ace that day.
Du-seen, intent upon his brutal design, had as yet not noticed us.
He was within a pace of Ajor when Ace and I dashed between them,
and I, leaning down to the left, swept my little barbarian into
the hollow of an arm and up on the withers of my glorious Ace. We
had snatched her from the very clutches of Du-seen, who halted,
mystified and raging. Ajor, too, was mystified, as we had come
up from diagonally behind her so that she had no idea that we were
near until she was swung to Ace's back. The little savage turned
with drawn knife to stab me, thinking that I was some new enemy,
when her eyes found my face and she recognized me. With a little
sob she threw her arms about my neck, gasping: "My Tom! My Tom!"
And then Ace sank suddenly into thick mud to his belly, and Ajor
and I were thrown far over his head. He had run into one of those
numerous springs which cover Caspak. Sometimes they are little
lakes, again but tiny pools, and often mere quagmires of mud, as
was this one overgrown with lush grasses which effectually hid its
treacherous identity. It is a wonder that Ace did not break a leg,
so fast he was going when he fell; but he didn't, though with four
good legs he was unable to wallow from the mire. Ajor and I had
sprawled face down in the covering grasses and so had not sunk
deeply; but when we tried to rise, we found that there was not
footing, and presently we saw that Du-seen and his followers were
coming down upon us. There was no escape. It was evident that we
were doomed.
"Slay me!" begged Ajor. "Let me die at thy loved hands rather than
beneath the knife of this hateful thing, for he will kill me. He
has sworn to kill me. Last night he captured me, and when later
he would have his way with me, I struck him with my fists and with
my knife I stabbed him, and then I escaped, leaving him raging in
pain and thwarted desire. Today they searched for me and found
me; and as I fled, Du-seen ran after me crying that he would slay
me. Kill me, my Tom, and then fall upon thine own spear, for they
will kill you horribly if they take you alive."
I couldn't kill her--not at least until the last moment; and I told
her so, and that I loved her, and that until death came, I would
live and fight for her.
Nobs had followed us into the bog and had done fairly well at
first, but when he neared us he too sank to his belly and could
only flounder about. We were in this predicament when Du-seen and
his followers approached the edge of the horrible swamp. I saw that
Al-tan was with him and many other Kro-lu warriors. The alliance
against Jor the chief had, therefore, been consummated, and this
horde was already marching upon the Galu city. I sighed as I
thought how close I had been to saving not only Ajor but her father
and his people from defeat and death.
Beyond the swamp was a dense wood. Could we have reached this,
we would have been safe; but it might as well have been a hundred
miles away as a hundred yards across that hidden lake of sticky mud.
Upon the edge of the swamp Du-seen and his horde halted to revile
us. They could not reach us with their hands; but at a command from
Du-seen they fitted arrows to their bows, and I saw that the end
had come. Ajor huddled close to me, and I took her in my arms. "I
love you, Tom," she said, "only you." Tears came to my eyes then,
not tears of self-pity for my predicament, but tears from a heart
filled with a great love--a heart that sees the sun of its life
and its love setting even as it rises.
The renegade Galus and their Kro-lu allies stood waiting for the
word from Du-seen that would launch that barbed avalanche of death
upon us, when there broke from the wood beyond the swamp the sweetest
music that ever fell upon the ears of man--the sharp staccato of at
least two score rifles fired rapidly at will. Down went the Galu
and Kro-lu warriors like tenpins before that deadly fusillade.
What could it mean? To me it meant but one thing, and that was
that Hollis and Short and the others had scaled the cliffs and made
their way north to the Galu country upon the opposite side of the
island in time to save Ajor and me from almost certain death. I
didn't have to have an introduction to them to know that the men
who held those rifles were the men of my own party; and when, a
few minutes later, they came forth from their concealment, my eyes
verified my hopes. There they were, every man-jack of them; and
with them were a thousand straight, sleek warriors of the Galu
race; and ahead of the others came two men in the garb of Galus.
Each was tall and straight and wonderfully muscled; yet they differed
as Ace might differ from a perfect specimen of another species.
As they approached the mire, Ajor held forth her arms and cried,
"Jor, my chief! My father!" and the elder of the two rushed in
knee-deep to rescue her, and then the other came close and looked
into my face, and his eyes went wide, and mine too, and I cried:
"Bowen! For heaven's sake, Bowen Tyler!"
It was he. My search was ended. Around me were all my company
and the man we had searched a new world to find. They cut saplings
from the forest and laid a road into the swamp before they could
get us all out, and then we marched back to the city of Jor the
Galu chief, and there was great rejoicing when Ajor came home again
mounted upon the glossy back of the stallion Ace.
Tyler and Hollis and Short and all the rest of us Americans nearly
worked our jaws loose on the march back to the village, and for
days afterward we kept it up. They told me how they had crossed
the barrier cliffs in five days, working twenty-four hours a day in
three eight-hour shifts with two reliefs to each shift alternating
half-hourly. Two men with electric drills driven from the dynamos
aboard the Toreador drilled two holes four feet apart in the face
of the cliff and in the same horizontal planes. The holes slanted
slightly downward. Into these holes the iron rods brought as
a part of our equipment and for just this purpose were inserted,
extending about a foot beyond the face of the rock, across these
two rods a plank was laid, and then the next shift, mounting to the
new level, bored two more holes five feet above the new platform,
and so on.
During the nights the searchlights from the Toreador were kept
playing upon the cliff at the point where the drills were working,
and at the rate of ten feet an hour the summit was reached upon
the fifth day. Ropes were lowered, blocks lashed to trees at the
top, and crude elevators rigged, so that by the night of the fifth
day the entire party, with the exception of the few men needed to
man the Toreador, were within Caspak with an abundance of arms,
ammunition and equipment.
From then on, they fought their way north in search of me, after
a vain and perilous effort to enter the hideous reptile-infested
country to the south. Owing to the number of guns among them,
they had not lost a man; but their path was strewn with the dead
creatures they had been forced to slay to win their way to the
north end of the island, where they had found Bowen and his bride
among the Galus of Jor.
The reunion between Bowen and Nobs was marked by a frantic display
upon Nobs' part, which almost stripped Bowen of the scanty attire
that the Galu custom had vouchsafed him. When we arrived at the
Galu city, Lys La Rue was waiting to welcome us. She was Mrs.
Tyler now, as the master of the Toreador had married them the very
day that the search-party had found them, though neither Lys nor
Bowen would admit that any civil or religious ceremony could have
rendered more sacred the bonds with which God had united them.
Neither Bowen nor the party from the Toreador had seen any sign
of Bradley and his party. They had been so long lost now that any
hopes for them must be definitely abandoned. The Galus had heard
rumors of them, as had the Western Kro-lu and Band-lu; but none had
seen aught of them since they had left Fort Dinosaur months since.
We rested in Jor's village for a fortnight while we prepared for
the southward journey to the point where the Toreador was to lie
off shore in wait for us. During these two weeks Chal-az came up
from the Krolu country, now a full-fledged Galu. He told us that
the remnants of Al-tan's party had been slain when they attempted
to re-enter Kro-lu. Chal-az had been made chief, and when he rose,
had left the tribe under a new leader whom all respected.
Nobs stuck close to Bowen; but Ace and Ajor and I went out upon
many long rides through the beautiful north Galu country. Chal-az
had brought my arms and ammunition up from Kro-lu with him; but my
clothes were gone; nor did I miss them once I became accustomed to
the free attire of the Galu.
At last came the time for our departure; upon the following morning
we were to set out toward the south and the Toreador and dear old
California. I had asked Ajor to go with us; but Jor her father
had refused to listen to the suggestion. No pleas could swerve him
from his decision: Ajor, the cos-ata-lo, from whom might spring a
new and greater Caspakian race, could not be spared. I might have
any other she among the Galus; but Ajor--no!
The poor child was heartbroken; and as for me, I was slowly realizing
the hold that Ajor had upon my heart and wondered how I should get
along without her. As I held her in my arms that last night, I
tried to imagine what life would be like without her, for at last
there had come to me the realization that I loved her--loved my
little barbarian; and as I finally tore myself away and went to
my own hut to snatch a few hours' sleep before we set off upon our
long journey on the morrow, I consoled myself with the thought that
time would heal the wound and that back in my native land I should
find a mate who would be all and more to me than little Ajor could
ever be--a woman of my own race and my own culture.
Morning came more quickly than I could have wished. I rose and
breakfasted, but saw nothing of Ajor. It was best, I thought, that
I go thus without the harrowing pangs of a last farewell. The
party formed for the march, an escort of Galu warriors ready to
accompany us. I could not even bear to go to Ace's corral and bid
him farewell. The night before, I had given him to Ajor, and now
in my mind the two seemed inseparable.
And so we marched away, down the street flanked with its stone
houses and out through the wide gateway in the stone wall which
surrounds the city and on across the clearing toward the forest
through which we must pass to reach the northern boundary of Galu,
beyond which we would turn south. At the edge of the forest I cast
a backward glance at the city which held my heart, and beside the
massive gateway I saw that which brought me to a sudden halt. It
was a little figure leaning against one of the great upright posts
upon which the gates swing--a crumpled little figure; and even
at this distance I could see its shoulders heave to the sobs that
racked it. It was the last straw.
Bowen was near me. "Good-bye old man," I said. "I'm going back."
He looked at me in surprise. "Good-bye, old man," he said, and
grasped my hand. "I thought you'd do it in the end."
And then I went back and took Ajor in my arms and kissed the tears
from her eyes and a smile to her lips while together we watched
the last of the Americans disappear into the forest.
