Yet Og was courageous. He would not let his fears master him. He watched the swinging chattering forms above him for a long time. He even shouted names at them, sent stones hissing among them, and cried out derisively that they had not the courage to come down and attack him. Indeed Og’s procedure was not unlike that of the tree people in a sense. He reviled and insulted them and depreciated their courage to such an extent that he succeeded in instilling in himself an overbalanced sense of confidence which permitted him in the end to heap a few sticks into the fire, move his stone hammer within easy reach, then huddle up in a ball and fall asleep.
How long he slept Og never knew. He was aroused by a strange uncanny sense of imminent danger. But while he was still coming out of the stupor of sleep the sharp yelps of the wolf cubs brought him to his feet like a flash. The first thing that he realized, and this was impressed upon him with a shock, was that the fire was out. Only one dully glowing coal remained to pierce the terrible, oppressive, horror-laden darkness about him. But other impressions followed swiftly. He knew he was not alone. Other forms, scores of them, swarmed about him in the blackness. He could see their eyes; he could hear the sobbing of their breath; their gibberish, and a hollow beating sound seemed to come from every quarter. He could feel them moving swiftly about him. Their hands reached out towards him and tried to clutch him. He could hear the clicking of their teeth.
For a moment Og was paralyzed with fear. Then the skin between his shoulders tightened and his hair began to bristle. With this his courage came back to him swiftly, and with a wild, almost fiendish yell he began to lay about him with his stone hammer. But despite his valiant efforts the forms in the dark were too many for him. They pressed in about him so close that he could scarcely swing his hammer. They clutched at him on all sides. Big powerful hands gripped his wrists. Sinuous arms were entwined about his body. Sharp teeth were imbedded in his flesh.
Still he fought—fought like a mad man. He threw them off, beat them back, trampled them down, wrestled, struggled, struck, kicked and bit. But to no avail. The clutches tightened on his wrists and arms. His legs and body were made helpless and then, spelling the end, a pair of huge, powerful paw-like hands closed slowly but irresistibly about his throat and choked him—choked him until his tongue hung out, until his eyes bulged from their sockets, until his lungs pained for want of air and his head throbbed with the pent-up blood in the arteries there. Og knew it was the end, yet he kicked and fought, though his efforts grew very feeble. Slowly he became unconscious. A blackness not of night was upon him. Yet before all his senses left him he could feel that many hands had lifted him from the ground and that he was being carried upward in a halting, jerky fashion. He knew he was in the trees because of the swishing of bending branches. After that he heard no more.
CHAPTER VIII
SCAR FACE THE TERRIBLE
Only vaguely was Og aware of anything that happened to him during the rest of the night. Now and then he gained a state of semi-consciousness and saw dimly that he was part of a weird tree-top procession formed by the huge band of apish tree people. Hundreds of them were swinging through the tops of the giant sequoias, and as they traveled their strange arboreal highway, this army of apish beings reminded Og of a band of conquerors, such was their demeanor. They swung through the branches, chanting weird songs, and now and then they uttered strange, deep-voiced, booming cries that Og guessed were their war cries and shouts of victory; cheers of conquerors, for this big tree-people band were proud of their achievement; proud that they had made war against a hairy man and, having captured him, were carrying him off a prisoner.
Never in the history of the race of tree men, at least not in the lives of any of his troupe—and that was as far back as the history of their race was known to them—had they had the courage to attack even one hairy man, let alone best him in conquest and carry him off. It was a triumph, an achievement, and to them, in their elation, it all appeared to be a great step forward for their kind.