The wonder stick

by Stanton A. Coblentz

But nothing happened, absolutely nothing—the motionless trees and the wide rippling waters and the clear blue sky alike seemed unconscious of his deed of daring. And though his limbs were trembling and his eyes were filled with dread and he stood long by the tree, still prepared to dash back to safety at the least suspicious rustling, the world appeared friendly and serene as if it harbored no saber-fanged marauders.

Finally, when he had convinced himself that his persecutor had gone, not to return, Ru started cautiously across the open space and regained his club, which he had dropped in his precipitate flight. Thus protected, he strode to the brink of the lake, where he bent down and sucked in a long, refreshing draft, following which he was ready to set out again into the unknown.

It seemed to him that there was now only one possible course to pursue—to keep close to the lake and the river until he reached the point where his tribe had crossed. Then, guided by the tracks they had made, by the scraps of food and clothing they had cast aside, and by the damage they had done to the vegetation, he should have little difficulty in tracing their route and ultimately overtaking them.

But this plan was by no means as easy to carry out as Ru had expected. In places the lake shore was lined with bogs and swamps, around which he had to tramp endlessly; in other places there were steep bluffs to scale, rapid streams to ford, and thorny thickets to penetrate; and all the while he had to maintain a keen lookout for serpents and hostile beasts, and had to keep near enough to the trees to be able to reach them if necessary. Once, indeed, he did seek them in a panic when a suspicious stirring of the foliage brought reminders of the sabertooth; but it proved to be nothing more than a wild horse, which went about its business without disturbing him. On another occasion, his heart almost stopped short with fright when a tremendous crashing burst forth from a little clump of woods just ahead; but having sought his usual retreat among the branches, he observed the enormous, hairy light-brown bulks and immense curving tusks of two mammoths, and noted with relief that the beasts were evidently in a sportive mood, for they went ambling out of sight with trunks playfully waving, apparently oblivious to any creature so puny as man.

As he glided through the woods and along the shore of the lake, Ru stopped now and then to pluck berries from the dense clusters of bushes; or else to gather certain familiar roots, which he washed in the lake waters and then devoured without further preparation, masticating their tough fibers long and vigorously with his huge grinding teeth. Even so, he had difficulty to find sufficient nourishment; and though he lost nearly half his time in the search for food, he was conscious of an increasing hunger as the long hours of the day dragged wearily past.

So many were the delays, and so circuitous the route he had to follow, that twilight was descending by the time he had reached the Harr-Sizz River. To arrive before dark at the crossing-place of his tribe was now out of the question; and so, with renewed forebodings, he began to look about him for a suitable tree for the night's lodging.

But it did not take him long to decide. While he was peering contemplatively at the serene blue lake and the plunging river and the long graceful lines of the forest, he was startled by a cry that suddenly broke from the depths of the wood.... Long-drawn and shrill, it shrieked and screamed with a savagery as of some challenging beast, an utter ferocity that made his blood run cold. Yet it was not the call of a beast; despite its demoniac fierceness, it was unmistakably and horribly human; and it rang and echoed at first with a fiendish menace, then with a note almost of triumph, of exultation, as of a devil rejoicing.

Following the cry, and blending with its final tones, there burst forth another and even more blood-curdling yell—a howl as of extreme terror, of hatred, of agony. Swiftly rising in a crescendo, it ended abruptly in a half-stifled moan; then came a series of moans and dreadful gasps, as of some creature writhing in torment; then once more the shrill challenging voice, followed by other voices screeching in wild glee or still wilder terror; then the sounds of scuffing and heavy blows mingled with a clamorous confusion of voices that chorused like a din of demons, but gradually and slowly died down, until the silence of the vast solitudes once more covered all things.

Long before those cries had ended, Ru was perched among the tree tops. Clinging to the upper branches, well out of sight of the ground, he sat as still as though he were a man of wood; yet his wide-open eyes were alert with wonder and fear, and his ears missed not one note or tremor of the mysterious tumult. Who might those strange combatants be? he inquired of himself; and he trembled merely at the knowledge that they were human. For a moment it came to him that—ferocious as they were—they were perhaps his own people; but he dismissed the thought instantly, for the voices had in them a savagery surpassing even that of the Umbaddu. But, if not his own people, who could they be? He had never been told that there was any tribe in the world except his own; but there were old legends—legends ridiculed by the wiser tribesmen—that other peoples existed, and that some of these were brutal and fierce as wolves.

While remembrance of these discredited legends was troubling Ru's mind, the twilight was gradually deepening, and utter darkness was stealing down about him. And through the gathering night, in the direction whence the voices proceeded, he was amazed to observe a faint glow—so dim at first that he could not be sure whether he had not merely imagined it, then by slow degrees brightening into unmistakable reality: a ruddy luminance that seemed to issue from beyond the tree tops, filling the spaces just above the black rim of the foliage with a flickering ghostly light, which wavered and rose and wavered and rose with uncanny fitfulness. And in the midst of that appalling radiance, whose pale red was of an indescribable ghastliness, there shot forth from time to time little yellow sparks, which leaped up brightly against the sultry background and instantly vanished.