The wonder stick

by Stanton A. Coblentz

From time to time, as he glided beneath the trees and through the tangle of bushes and shrubs, he paused to listen for the sound of possible pursuit. At first he heard no more than the heavy pounding of his own heart; a moment afterwards, he could make out only the fussing and chattering of some gossipy bird; but not much later he detected a suspicious crackling and rustling in the brush.

Was it only the noise of some browsing beast? Ru did not take time to find out. Forgetting all caution in his panic, he darted down the long meandering twilight aisles at the speed of the hounded wild thing, while the squirrels leaped from his path with startled eyes, and frightened flocks of wood-doves made way for him with a heavy flapping of wings.

Somewhat to his surprise, he came out suddenly at the shores of the lake. For a moment he halted in confusion; then recognized the long sandy beach that he had passed only yesterday afternoon.

Straining every muscle, he began to dash along the shore toward the mouth of the Harr-Sizz River. Several minutes passed; he had covered hundreds of yards; all was silent again, and there was no sign of approaching peril. He was just beginning to believe that he would elude his pursuers, when a sudden shrill shouting broke the stillness of the woods....

At that crisis his heart gave a terrific thump. His brain worked with lightning rapidity. If he took once more to the forest, his tracks would be found, the pursuit would be renewed, and, driven to exhaustion, he would probably be overtaken. His only refuge therefore lay in the waters. Not in swimming, for he could not swim far enough or fast enough; the one hope was in his new-found means of propulsion.

And good fortune favored him, for a little distance down the beach lay a fair-sized drifted tree trunk, resting more than half in the water. With an effort, he set the huge mass afloat; then waded in after it and pushed it as far as possible from shore; and finally, equipped with his club as paddle, he climbed to a precarious seat astride the log, and shoved and shoved until he was well out in the lake.

He was perhaps a hundred paces from land, when an enormous shambling shape shouldered out of the woods and halted on the beach. At this distance Ru could hardly be sure that it was not one of his own people; like them, it was thick-set and stocky, with monstrously developed shaggy black limbs. But it was even more hairy than his tribesmen; it wore no clothes at all; and its great form was unusually bent and stooped, while its long arms slid down in front of it almost to its knees.

For an instant the creature paused on the beach, peering about it in all directions as if bewildered. Then, sighting Ru where he was struggling with his unwieldy craft, it let out a long-drawn ferocious bellow of rage; in response to which half a dozen of its fellows, all likewise stooping and unclad, came plunging and snorting out of the woods.

There followed a moment's silence, during which they all stared at Ru in obvious amazement, meanwhile pointing to him significantly with their hairy arms. Then all at once there rang forth a chorus of shrieks and howls such as Ru had rarely heard before. In it was a peculiar blood-curdling note not to be described, except that it had something of the growling menace of the cave-bear, and something of the yelping fierceness of the sabertooth—and Ru knew that it was this cry that had so terrified him last night among the tree tops.

But now the only effect of those screams was to make Ru push even more desperately away from shore. Such was his haste that once or twice he lost his balance and slipped into the water, and several times struck his own legs painfully with the paddle.