Ru frightens the bear with his torch
But the furry one did not wait for the onslaught. With a howl of terror, he turned and lumbered away into the woods; while Ru, pursuing him with the firebrand, at the same time motioned to his people to come down from the trees.
CHAPTER VIII
A New Misadventure
For three days following the bear-chasing exploit, Ru was as much sought after as he had previously been shunned. It was as if his people now felt him to be the possessor of some unique and supernatural power; as if they believed him to be in league with unseen but mighty spirits, whose friendship was at all costs to be won. And since the obvious way to court such friendship was through courting Ru, he was showered with attentions where of old he had met only neglect. Four or five of his kinsmen were at all times ready to go chattering at his side whether or not he desired their company; and, when he sat down to rest at the end of the day's migration, there was always someone to approach with flattering words and seek either to wheedle out of him the secret of the firebrand, or else to beg some charm that would give protection against the fire-god. Even the young women of the tribe—Mono the Budding Tree, Sizz-O the Serpent-Tongued, and others—cast admiring, half-inviting glances toward him from beneath their high-ridged bushy brows; while more than once Yonyo the Smiling-Eyed approached with jests and laughter that scarcely availed to break down his sullen silence.
For he was still disdainful of his people—as disdainful of them as they had been of him. Brooding upon the wound on his breast, whose cross-shaped ghastly scar was as a mark of shame, he distrusted their vows of friendship; he suspected that at heart they loved him no better than before. And so, although at times in his loneliness he longed to dash down the barriers at a stroke and be one with his people as of old, yet his pride and wounded sensibilities combined to keep open that rift which his own peculiarities and Grumgra's hatred had created.
But after three days, he suffered a fall at once sudden and disconcerting. And the indirect cause of the misfortune was a lack of that caution which, had he been but a little wiser, he would surely have exercised. One evening he was seated in a lonely corner of the encampment, experimenting before his own little fire with some long sticks and a mass of tallow, when suddenly he became conscious of two gleaming black eyes peering at him from amid the shrubbery. At the instant of his discovery, the eyes disappeared, and he could not be sure whose they were nor how long they had been watching; but an hour later the unhappy sequel told him all that he desired to know.
It was late twilight, and he was seated in the midst of the tribe, chewing eagerly at the roasted ribs of a wild horse, when Woonoo the Hot-Blooded came strutting from behind a clump of shrubbery, waving a brilliant yellow torch—almost precisely like the torch of Ru's invention! And behind Woonoo towered Grumgra, wielding a similar but very much larger torch! They both moved without a word to the center of the encampment, while scores of gaping men and women paused between bites to stare at them in awestricken wonder.