The wonder stick

by Stanton A. Coblentz

For more than an hour these activities continued without interruption save for the snorts and snarls which marked the not infrequent disagreements between tribesmen. Then suddenly, as on the preceding evening, a portentous hush, almost a paralysis, came over the people; and out of some hidden recess stalked the great glowering figure of Grumgra, his club swinging menacingly, his shrewd little eyes glittering and sparkling like an evil threat.

"Let all our people come here!" he roared, in tones that rang and echoed angrily in those narrow corridors. "Let them stop whatever they are doing, and come! Go, call those that are outside! And if anyone wants to stay away, let him do so—if he dares!"

Here Grumgra twirled the club above his head as if to acquire practice in swinging it; and his people, needing no second warning, hastily abandoned their various tasks, and scurried in all directions in loud-voiced haste. It was not fifteen minutes before the stragglers had all been called back from the river bank and the entire tribe had gathered in a semi-circle about the fire.

A weird assemblage they made, those two hundred men, women, and children, with their heavy-featured, bestial faces, their sinewy, hide-mantled bodies, and alert, staring black eyes; while the firelight cast fantastic wavering shadows about them, and in their midst, dominating them as a cock dominates a flock of hens, a great apelike figure stood with battered club uplifted in command.

With the abruptness of a thunderclap, the deep bellowing voice burst forth: "Listen with careful ears to what I say, my people! Many days ago—more days than the fingers on the hands of three men—I sent Mumlo the Trail-Finder to the country of the noonday sun. I told him, and also Grop the Tree-Climber and Wamwa the Snake-Eyed, to look for a better cave for our tribe. Now he has come back, and we will hear what he has to tell us."

While the voice of the chieftain still roared and echoed through the cave, several stout hands seized the unwilling Mumlo and thrust him toward the firelight.

Standing in front of all his tribesmen, his face illuminated fitfully by the flames, while two hundred pairs of eyes regarded him solemnly, he had no choice but to obey Grumgra's command, "Speak, Mumlo! Speak!"

"What would you have me speak of?" he pleaded, gazing with fascinated interest at the chieftain's club. "There is too much to tell! Wamwa and Grop and I traveled for days and days through dark forest, and along green river cañons and over rocky hills. Sometimes we came out upon wide meadows, and sometimes the land was covered with brush and stones and was very hard to pass. But we kept on and on, and lived mostly on roots and berries and the bark of trees, though now and then we feasted on some small creature we slew with stones or clubs. At night we lit a fire with our flints to keep the wolves away, and in the day we watched and watched for wild things, since great and terrible animals filled the forest, and often we had to climb the trees in a great hurry. And it was a huge animal that took Grop away from us, for once we came upon a herd of buffaloes in an open field, and before we could get back to the woods a mad bull had rushed upon him, and—"

Horrified exclamations interrupted the speaker; but Grumgra, apparently unaffected, brought his club down warningly upon the floor.

"We are not here to learn what happened to Grop!" he grumbled, with a foreboding scowl. "We are here to learn about the country you found. Tell us that, and nothing more!"