Tharn's lips twitched with amusement. He knew Barkoo—knew he found fault only to hide an extravagant satisfaction that the chief's son had succeeded where older heads had failed; for Barkoo had schooled him in forest lore almost from the day Tharn had first walked.
That had been a little more than twenty summers ago; today Tharn was more at home in the jungles and on the plains than any other member of his tribe. His confidence had grown with his knowledge until he knew nothing of fear and little of caution. He took impossible chances for the pure love of danger, flaunting his carelessness in the face of his former teacher, jeering at the other's gloomy prophecies of disaster.
Tharn pursed his lips solemnly. "It is true," he admitted soberly, "that a wiser hunter would have made a better choice. That is, if he were not so clumsy that the meat would run away first. Then the wise hunter would not be able to kill even a little Neela. Wise old men cannot run fast."
Barkoo glared at him. "It was Sleeza," he snapped, then reddened at being trapped into a defense. He wheeled on the grinning Korgul. "Get a strong branch," he said sharply....
With the dead weight of the kill swinging from the branch between Korgul and Torbat, the four Cro-Magnon hunters set out for the distant caves of their tribe.
Soon they entered the mouth of a beaten elephant path leading into the depths of dense jungle to the west. It was nearly dark here beneath the over-spreading forest giants, the huge moss-covered boughs festooned with loops and whorls of heavy vines. The air was overladen with the heavy smell of rotting vegetation; the sounds of innumerable small life were constantly in the hunters' ears. Here in the humid jungle, the bodies of the men glistened with perspiration.
By the time they had crossed the belt of woods to come into the open at the beginning of another prairie, Dyta, the sun, was close to the western horizon. Hazy in the far distance were three low hills, their common base buried among a sizable clump of trees. In those hills were the caves of the tribe, and at sight of them the four men quickened their steps.
They were perhaps a third of the way across the open ground, when Tharn, in the lead, halted abruptly, his eyes on a section of the grasses some hundred yards ahead.
Barkoo came up beside him. "What is it?" he asked tensely.