“Because you are the whelp of the Mammoth Man,” snarled Gonch. “He, your father, I hate even worse than I hate you. You do not know why.”
Again no answer; Kutnar only glared.
“Because he has the heart of a woman in his great lion body,” Gonch raved on vindictively. “Because he is a friend of beasts and would withhold them from the paunches of hungry men; because he would make weaklings of hunters and warriors; and because of the strength in his lion body which prevented my bringing him here a slave.”
Kutnar’s chest rose and fell with his hard breathing. He bit his lips until the blood came; but still he said nothing.
“I was but a wolf running amuck in his flock,” the Muskman sneered. “A rock fell from the cliff and nearly destroyed the Mammoth and Rhinoceros. Who pushed it down? I. A man set upon the Mammoth caught fast in the mire and would have destroyed him, had it not been for the meddling Rhinoceros. Who was that man? I. Who stole the Lion Man’s cub when all chance of securing the Lion Man himself was gone? I. Do you hear me, whelp? It was I.”
The boy’s eyes were now blazing like coals of fire. His face had become livid. Gonch noted the effect of his cruel mockery and he gloated over it even as he gloried in the boy’s helplessness.
“We were such dear good friends,” he scoffed. “I loved you, my comrade, as a hyena loves a bone. We fled to the southland together; you and I. Your father pursued us. He rode upon the Mammoth and soon we were overtaken. I thought it unwise for you to know who was pursuing us, for your father was angry and would have spoiled all. We lay hidden in the bushes. Another moment and you would have learned the truth, had not someone struck you from behind. Who struck that blow? A lion? No. It was——”
“You!” screamed Kutnar, and like a flash, he launched himself at his tormentor’s throat.
So sudden and unexpected was the attack that Gonch’s weapon was stricken from his hand. Now he too was unarmed. Over and over they rolled in the snow; first the man, then the boy uppermost, clawing and biting like wildcats and without apparent advantage to either. Gonch was howling with fury but Kutnar fought silently like a weasel and his hands ever worked for a weasel hold on his foeman’s throat. Rough and tumble, kick, strike, gouge; they struggled with all the strength and fury of madmen. For an instant they separated and each stood upon his feet. Gonch sprang to recover his ax but Kutnar frustrated this attempt with a quick leap that bore his detested enemy to the ground. The Muskman’s guard was open and Kutnar found the opportunity which he had long sought. Both hands clutched the Castillan’s throat and clung there like death.
Over and over they rolled again. Gonch’s cries were now screams of pain and rapidly losing force, even as his struggles to free his neck from that tearing, strangling clutch, became feebler and feebler. Kutnar felt his foe weakening; he gripped the tighter. Gonch’s body jerked convulsively, the blood trickled from his nostrils, then he relaxed and lay still. Kutnar released his hold and stood erect. The Muskman never moved. “Men will soon know of this,” the boy muttered; but there was no need of their knowing it too soon, so he seized the body by the shoulders and dragged it out of sight among some neighboring bushes. This done, he recovered his sling, also not forgetting to appropriate the Muskman’s fine flint-ax for his own use; then he was ready to proceed.