“Times have changed since you hunted last, Wab. We are craftier than the horse and keener witted. I am a thinker. Trust me to find a way to bring one down when the time comes. I can do it. Come; we will go over the mountains to the broad plains. We will be back by nightfall, each with all the dripping horse flesh we can carry.”
And Wab, partly because he had to follow Gog and partly because a horse hunt appealed to him, still followed.
Soon they began to climb the slope of the mountains to the southward. Up they mounted, Gog picking pathways through the forest that clothed the heights. The traveling was hard for Wab, because he had grown fat and soft of flesh since he had been spending most of his time sitting in the warmth of the camp fire.
For a long time they toiled upward and very little in the way of conversation passed between them save occasional grunts, for each needed to spare their lungs of extra strain. But soon they mounted the rolling summit where they could look outward across the wide pleasant valley and the plain beneath; at least Gog observed the scene and imparted what he saw to his partly blind companion.
But midway in his description of all that he beheld, he paused and grunted.
“What is it?” demanded Wab, sensing that his companion had seen something that he had not located before.
“It is strange forms moving on the edge of the forest down the mountain here below us. They are not horses. They climb in the trees. Ah, I know now. The tree people. Ho! ho! the tree people. Wab, we are in luck. Here is sport, indeed. We will make war on these great cowards,” exclaimed Gog viciously, his fighting instinct dominating every other emotion or desire.
“Make war on them? Why?” asked Wab. “We do not want their forest. We do not care to drive them out of here as we did out of the valley of the volcano so long ago. Why make war? We are hunters now.”
“Ho! ho! Why make war? Just for the love of it, perhaps. Just to hear them squeal and to see them run. They are great cowards, afraid of hairy men. We two can put the whole tribe to flight. Come; it will be great sport. Think of the skulls we can smash! Think of the blood we can spill,” and the savage old fighter grinned wickedly and, grasping his stone hammer menacingly, he started down the mountain.
And Wab followed, but not without a strange presentiment that all was not well. He knew that he would make a poor adversary in any conflict.