The wonder stick

by Stanton A. Coblentz

At length, mounting the recumbent trunk of a huge dead tree, Grumgra began to speak in his usual bellowing voice.

"One of our people," he commenced, without formality, "has just done a great deed. He has learned how to make the fire-god work for us. He has given us these fire-sticks you see now." Here Grumgra swung the torch about his head in scintillating circles. "After this, we may all have fire-sticks to help us in our hunting. Is it not strange magic, my people? This magic was made by one of our bravest men—one of the wisest and biggest of us all—Woonoo the Hot-Blooded!"

Grumgra paused, and a tumult of excited gibbering signified the applause of the audience. Ru, trembling with anger, noted an admiring gleam in the eyes of Yonyo as she glanced toward the Hot-Blooded; and at the same time Grumgra continued in words that scorched him to the heart.

"There is another of our people," resumed the Growling Wolf, in tones that justified his name, "who would have us think him a friend of the fire-god. But this man is really like a worm; he is not strong at all, and did not make the fire-stick. For the fire-god is mighty and would not help a half-man like the Sparrow-Hearted—"

"Lies! Lies!" screamed Ru, springing to his feet in a quivering frenzy. "All lies! I was the one that made the fire-stick! I was the one—"

But his words were drowned by a chorus of hisses and hoots. He felt someone seizing him from behind; he was thrust brutally to earth; while on all sides rang the jeering laughter of his fellows.

Released from the bruising hands, Ru crawled away like one in a nightmare. As he reached the outer fringe of shadows, he could still see the monstrous form of Grumgra waving the flaming brand, and just beneath him the huge but smaller fire-wielding shape of Woonoo; while dozens of grimacing hairy faces, shining with apelike grins and contortions in the unsteady light, seemed to burn and glow maliciously as the taunting faces of imps.

And thus ended the three-day reign of Ru. Thus ended that power which he had won by his wits, and lost by his carelessness. Henceforth he was to be again the despised, the outcast, the butt of derision, the solitary wanderer; henceforth he was to hear that hated appellation, "Sparrow-Hearted," dinned again and again into his ears, and was to be shunned by his people, and most of all by her, the tantalizing, the Smiling-Eyed.

All the rest of that night no one came near him; and all the following day he roamed by himself, no longer sought by the gay, chattering groups; and the merriment that rang about him from the forest recesses burdened him with melancholy thoughts. A feeling of sadness and of desolation was upon him and would not be shaken off, a sense of frustration, of anger and of futility. He would scarcely have known how to laugh even had he had someone to laugh with; and in the brooding silence of the woods and the overshadowing gloom of the hills and crags he found but little compensation for the scorn in the eyes of Yonyo and the sneer in the eyes of his kinsmen.

But if he had fallen from his momentary high estate, his present troubles were as nothing beside those which awaited him after another day or two.