With the first rays of the morning sun Tharn slid from his arboreal couch and set out at a rapid trot along the trail into the west. An hour later he was crossing the narrow belt of grasses bordering the precipice overlooking a forest-filled valley.
Here he found where Mog and Alurna had started their tortuous descent. Here, too, were signs of the passage of other Neanderthals, and those of Vulcar's searching party.
Before descending the cliff, Tharn turned back to the plain in search of food. Not long after, he had completed a successful stalk of Narjok, the horned deer, and brought it down with a single arrow. After devouring a generous quantity of raw flank-meat, he drank deep of the waters of a small spring and came back to the brink of the precipice.
Tharn went down that vertical cliffside as though it were a broad staircase. At the base he found a tangle of overlapping footsteps leading straight toward a game trail leading into the nearby jungle. Toward its mouth moved the young giant; and so confident was he that Alurna had been carried along this path that only by chance did he keep from losing valuable time.
As the Cro-Magnard neared the trees, the undergrowth parted with a slight rustle, and Gubo, the hyena, slunk deeper into the forest.
At the first sound of disturbed brush, Tharn had pivoted about and with unthinkable quickness unslung his bow and fitted an arrow into place. At sight of cowardly Gubo he smiled and relaxed; but before he turned back to the trail, he saw signs of a recent struggle in the matted grass close by. It might have nothing to do with the business at hand—and, again, it might.
A brief investigation gave him the complete picture. Here, Mog had gone down beneath Sadu; a few paces away were the broken grasses where Alurna had been tossed. He knew, without troubling to look, that Mog's bones were bleaching behind yonder wall of verdure.
Well, the Hairy One was dead; it would save Tharn the task of killing him. Now all that remained was to take the trail of the frightened girl at the place where she had plunged blindly into the dark waste of jungle. She could not have gotten far; and, except for the unlikely chance that one of the big cats had pulled her down, his mission should be finished before nightfall.
Delaying no longer, Tharn took up the trail of the princess, forging rapidly ahead and following with ease the evidence of her hurried flight.