Ab, dogged and enduring, lost no space as the race led away toward the hill and home of the fleet thing ahead of him. There were miles to be covered, and therein he had hope. They were on the straight path to Hilltop's cave, though there were divergent, curving side paths almost as available; but to avoid her pursuer, the fugitive could take none of these. There were cross-cuts everywhere. In leaving the direct path she would but lose ground. To reach soon enough by straight, clean running the towering wooded hill in which was her father's cave seemed the only hope of the half-unwilling fugitive.
There were descents and ascents in the long chase and plateaus where the running was on level ground. Straining forward, gaining little, but confident of overtaking the girl, Ab, deep-chested and physically untroubled, pressed onward, when he noted that the girl made a sudden spurt and bounded forward with a speed not shown before, while, at the same time, she swerved from the right of the path.
It was not Ab who had made her swerve. Some new alarm had come to her. She was about to reach and, as Ab supposed, pass one of the inletting paths entering almost at right angles from the left. She did not pass it. She leaped into it in evident terror and then, breaking out from the wood on the right, came another form and one surely in swift following. Ab knew the figure well. Oak was the new pursuer!
The awful rage which rose in the heart of Ab as he saw what was happening is what can no more be described than one can tell what a tiger in the jungle thinks. He saw another--the other his friend--pursuing and intending to take what he wanted to be his and what had become to him more than all else in the world; more than much eating and the skins of things to keep him warm, more than a mammoth's tooth to carve, more than the glorious skin of the great cave tiger, the possession of which made a rude nobility, more than anything and all else! He leaped aside from the path. He knew well the other path upon which were running Oak and Lightfoot. He knew that he could intercept them, because, though the running was not so good, the distance to be covered was much less, for to him path running was a light matter. In the wood he ran as easily and leaped as well and attained a point almost as quickly as the beasts. There was a stress of effort and, as the shadows deepened, he burst in upon the cross path where he knew were the fleeing Lightfoot and following Oak. He had thought to head them off, but Ab was not the only man who was swift of foot in the cave country. They passed, almost as he bounded from the forest. He saw them close together not many yards ahead of him and, with a shout of rage, bent himself in swift and terrible pursuit again.
It was all plain to Ab now as he flew along, unnoted by the two ahead of him. He knew that Oak had, like him, determined to own Lightfoot, and had like him, been seeking her. Only chance had made the chase thus cross Oak's path; but that made no difference. There must be a grim meeting soon. Ab could see that the endurance of the wonderfully fleet-footed woman was not equal to that of the man so near her. She would soon be overtaken. Before her rose the hill, not a mile in its slope, where were her father's cave, and safety. He knew that she had not the strength to breast it fleetly enough for covert. And, as he looked, he saw the girl turn a frightened face toward her close pursuer and knew that she saw him as well. Her pace slackened for a moment as this revelation came to her, and he felt, somehow, that in him she recognized comparative protection. Then she recovered herself and bent all the power she had toward the ascent. But Oak had been gaining steadily, and now, with a sudden rush, he reached her and grasped her, the woman shrieking wildly. A moment later Ab rushed in upon them with a shout. Instinctively Oak released the girl, for in the cry he heard that which meant menace and immediate danger. As Lightfoot felt herself free she stood for a moment or two without a movement, with wide-open eyes, looking upon what was happening before her. Then she bounded away, not looking backward as she ran.
The two men stood there glaring at each other, Oak perched, and yet not perched, so broad and perfect was his foothold, on the crest of a slight shelf of the downward slope. There stood the two men, poised, the one above, the other below, two who had been as close together from childhood as all the attributes of mind and body might allow, and yet now as far apart as human beings may be. They were beautiful in a way, each in his murderous, unconscious posing for the leap. The sun hit the blue ax of Oak and made it look a gray. The raised ax of Ab, which was of a lighter colored stone, was in the shade and its yellowness was darkened into brown. The spectacle lasted for but a second. As Oak leaped Ab bounded aside and they stood upon a level, a tiny plateau, and there was fierce, strong fencing. One could not note its methods; even the keen-eyed wolverine, crouching low upon an adjacent monster limb, could never have followed the swift movements of these stone axes. The dreadful play was brief. The clash of stone together ceased as there came a duller sound, which told that stone had bitten bone. Oak, slightly the higher of the two, as they stood thus in the fray, leaned forward suddenly, his arms aloft, while from his hand dropped the blue ax. He floundered down uncouthly and grasped the beech leaves with his hands, and then lay still. Ab stood there weaponless, a creature wandering of mind. His yellow ax had parted from his hand, sunk deeply into the skull of Oak, and he looked upon it curiously and vacantly. He was not sane. He stepped forward and pulled the ax away and lifted it to a level with his eyes and went to where the sunlight shone. The ax was not yellow any more. Meanwhile a girl was flitting toward her home and the shadows of the waning day were deepening.
[CHAPTER XIX.]
A RACE WITH DREAD.
Ab looked toward the forest wherein Lightfoot had fled and then looked upon that which lay at his feet. It was Oak--there were the form and features of his friend--but, somehow, it was not Oak. There was too much silence and the blood upon the leaves seemed far too bright. His rage departed, and he wanted Oak to answer and called to him, but Oak did not answer. Then came slowly to him the idea that Oak was dead and that the wild beasts would that night devour the dead man where he lay. The thought nerved him to desperate, sudden action. He leaped forward, he put his arms about the body and carried it away to a hollow in the wooded slope. He worked madly, doing some things as he had seen the cave people do at other buryings. He placed the weapons of Oak beside him. He took from his belt his own knife, because it was better than that of Oak, and laid it close to the dead man's hand, and then, first covering the body with beech leaves, he worked frantically upon the overhanging soil, prying it down with a sharp-pointed fragment of limb, and tossing in upon all as heavy stones as he could lift, until a great cairn rose above the hunter who would hunt no more.