"New York," he said, "good ol' New York."
The girl heard. She looked upward fearfully, her rounded bare arm going back to the bow slung across her shoulder. Swiftly she fitted an arrow and stepped back against the friendly bole of a shaggy barked jungle giant. Noork grinned.
"Tako, woman," he greeted her.
"Tako," she replied fearfully. "Who speaks to Tholon Sarna? Be you hunter or escaped slave?"
"A friend," said Noork simply. "It was I who killed the spotted narl last night when it attacked you."
Doubtfully the girl put away her bow. Her fingers, however, were never far from the hilt of her hunting dagger.
Noork swung outward from his perch, and then downward along the ladder of limbs to her side. The girl exclaimed at his brown skin.
"Your hair is the color of the sun!" she said. "Your garb is Vasad, yet you speak the language of the true men." Her violet oddly slanting eyes opened yet wider. "Who are you?"
"I am Noork," the man told her. "For many days have I dwelt among the wild Vasads of the jungle with their golden-skinned chief, Gurn, for my friend."
The girl impulsively took a step nearer. "Gurn!" she cried. "Is he tall and strong? Has he a bracelet of golden discs linked together with human hair? Does he talk with his own shadow when he thinks?"