Before he could recover, Tharn was upon him. As the young cave-man's fingers clamped on the stranger's throat, a knee came up with savage force into Tharn's stomach, almost tearing loose his hold. But the maneuver cost the man his balance, and he fell backward with Tharn's weight across his chest.
Frantically the warrior fought to loosen the terrible grip cutting off his breath. He clawed wildly at the iron fingers, struck heavy blows at his attacker's face and body. But Tharn only tightened his hold, waiting grimly as the efforts to dislodge him became increasingly weaker. Then a convulsive shudder passed through the body, followed by complete limpness. The man was dead.
Tharn got to his feet. For a long moment he stood there, staring in wonder at the dead, distorted face. His thoughts were a jumble of conflicting emotions: pride at vanquishing a grown man by bare hands alone; strong satisfaction in an enemy's death; and a feeling of guilt at taking a human life. What was it that Barkoo had told him, long ago?
"Death cannot be understood, completely, by one who has never killed. A true warrior takes no life without knowing regret. Slay only when your life is in danger, or when someone has wronged you. Those who kill for the love of killing are beneath the beasts; for beasts kill only for cause."
Tharn stooped, swung the corpse across his shoulder and entered the jungle. There he concealed the body and once more took to the trees.
The forest ended suddenly, some fifty yards from the base of an immense overhanging cliff. A single glance told Tharn that he had reached the trail's end, and he leaped lightly into the branches of a tree at the lip of the clearing. Swiftly he swarmed upward until a broad bough was reached that pointed outward toward the hillside.
Below and before him went on the everyday life of a Cro-Magnon village. Four women carved steaks from the freshly killed body of a deer; naked children climbed in and out of the caves and ran about the open ground; two girls, several seasons short of woman-hood, scraped hair, by means of flint tools, from a deerskin staked flat to the ground.
There was but one thing lacking in this peaceful, commonplace picture, and Tharn noted its absence at once. There was not a single grown male in sight! Did this mean a trap had been laid for the pursuit which the warriors of this tribe had every reason to expect? Were they, then, lying in wait for Barkoo and his men at the outer rim of the forest?
Tharn was about to start back toward the prairie, when he suddenly stiffened to attention. A woman—a girl, rather; she could not have been more than eighteen—had slid to the ground from one of the caves. The man in the trees half rose to watch her.
She was a bit above average in height, slim, yet perfectly formed. That part of her body not covered by the soft folds of panther skin was evenly tanned but not darkly so. Soft, lustrous brown hair fell to her bare shoulders in lovely half-curls that gave off reddish glints when touched by the sun's direct rays.