The wonder stick

by Stanton A. Coblentz

Twilight had not yet fallen when a loud sobbing, from the extreme end of the encampment, aroused the attention of the curious. One of the younger women was weeping as women in those days seldom wept, her whole frame shaking convulsively, her dark eyes a blur of tears. And to those who questioned her she could not give coherent reply. She could only blurt out disconsolately, "My Malgu! My Malgu!" and return at once to her stormy grieving.

But there was little need to explain. It was known that Malgu was her three-year-old son; and as there was no sign of him now, it was assumed that he had been lost on the way to camp. And this could mean but one thing. Considering the wolves, bears, hyenas, and other carnivores that infested the woods, there was little chance that anyone would see Malgu again.

So the people merely shrugged their shoulders, as sensible people do when told of some regrettable incident. And since there was nothing to be gained by lamentations, they turned straightway to more pressing affairs. After a few minutes, only a low, half-stifled moaning told of the bereaved mother's grief; and two hundred voices were prattling as gaily as though Malgu had never been.

As night settled down, a great weariness overcame the people. One by one they wrapped themselves in their furs and hides, placed themselves as near as possible to the fire, curled up snail-like so as to retain all possible warmth, and surrendered themselves to slumber. And it was not long before a series of hearty snores replaced the garrulous voices of the early evening.

But there were some who were not permitted to sleep. Six men, designated by Grumgra to keep the fires alive and at the same time watch for prowling beasts, were to do duty until midnight, when they would be replaced by six of their kindred.

Among the earlier group of sentinels, the first to be named was Ru—who clearly owed his choice to his presumption in questioning Grumgra's wisdom. There had been a howl of derision when, in the presence of the entire tribe, the chieftain had assigned him to the hated duty; and it was the knowledge of his comrades' mockery and chuckling glee, far more than regret at the loss of dearly needed repose, that angered Ru when he took his place beside one of the fires and prepared for the long, lonely watch.

Certainly, his task was not an enviable one, for he had to keep close to his own particular fire, and there could be no communion between him and his fellow sentinels. Through the intervening shadows, he could hardly recognize them as human at all; they looked like ghosts as they watched beside the uncanny yellow fires at distant ends of the encampment; and, like ghosts, they kept elusively away from him.

As though to make his vigil more difficult, Nature as well as man seemed to be conspiring against him. While the day had been blue and clear, the night turned out to be dark and starless; and a cold wind, which came howling out of the north, had shoved a black mantle of clouds across the sky. Not often had Ru seen so wild and bleak a night. Except for the light of the fires, which quivered and tossed and darted out lean orange lips like distracted things, there appeared to be no illumination in the world; and, except for the dark, slumbering camp and a narrow and fitfully lighted circle of the fields, he seemed to be standing in the midst of a gigantic void. Yet from that void there issued strange and disquieting sounds—not only the moaning and soughing of the gale as it plunged through the limbs of unseen trees, but the voices of night prowlers occasionally lifted in growls and grumblings and long-drawn wails that brought no consolation to the heart of Ru. Once, indeed, the void did seem to be pierced by something other than sound, for out of the distance he could distinguish two close-set phosphorescent orbs staring at him like menacing phantoms—then, in an instant, they were gone, and there was only the darkness again, and the chilly wind whirling and sobbing past.

"Evil spirits are abroad in the world!" thought Ru, as he piled fresh logs upon the fire; and he pictured the streams and the air and the clouds as alive with savage monsters and still more savage men, some of them made in the image of Grumgra, though scowling even more ferociously than he, and with clubs ten times as long; and some of them in the likeness of the wolves and hyenas that might even now be prowling within a stone's throw of the camp.

He was occupied with such gruesome thoughts, and was wondering whether the wicked spirits might not be tempted to leap in a plundering band upon his people and smite them with bearlike teeth and claws, when his attention was distracted by something moist and cool settling upon his palm. It was only a drop, but after a second it was followed by another, and then by another still—and with a sinking of the heart Ru realized that it was raining. This in itself would have been no occasion for alarm, since the people were used to getting wet, and moreover were protected by their thick, hairy manes—but as the downpour began to come faster and faster and the wind began to screech and scream like some triumphant marauder, Ru glanced with growing anxiety at the fires, and piled on the fagots with desperate speed in the hope of reviving the flagging flames.