The wonder stick

by Stanton A. Coblentz

It was at about this point that Grumgra arrived. "Let me see! Let me see! Let me see!" he bawled, shoving his way to the front; and only by the exercise of rare agility were two tribesmen saved from toppling over the precipice at the chieftain's heedless approach.

Long and severely did Grumgra stare into the wooded wilderness, while his people watched expectantly, as though confident that his eyes would see that which none of them had been able to discern.

But apparently even his vision had its limitations. "There are no beast-men!" he growled, as he turned angrily back toward the cave. "Where is Mumlo the Trail-Finder? Why is it that he tells us lies?" And his little ferret eyes gleamed with a vengeful fire.

"If Mumlo had not told us lies," his kinsmen heard him mutter, ruefully, "I would have tasted the Sparrow-Hearted's blood!" There were none who wished to be in the Trail-Finder's place just then.

But as Grumgra went slouching back into the cave, low cries of surprise and fear burst from the watchers on the ledge. And before the chieftain had had time to wheel about and return, there rang forth from below a yell so blood-curdling and ferocious that the people could only shiver, and stare in blind consternation. At first Grumgra thought it was the call of some wild animal, so shrill and cat-like and altogether unearthly did it sound; but in a moment he had learned his mistake; for once more, as the people pressed close to the precipice, a terrorized chorus shook the air, "The beast-men! The beast-men! The beast-men!"

Now, as Grumgra strode again to the verge of the precipice, he forgot his anger against Mumlo. Certainly, here were the beast-men after all! At the edge of the woods, almost directly below, he could see them screaming: two or three huge thick-set stooping shapes, taller than his own people by nearly half a foot, and mantled—in place of clothes—in shaggy black hair as thick as the fur of a wolf.

As he watched, those two or three were increased to six or eight, then to dozens, then to scores, then to a rabble that seemed innumerable. Screeching and shouting with a fierceness that made even Grumgra shudder, they came pouring out of the woods: brawny club-wielding men whom Grumgra himself would not lightly have opposed; women borne down by great bundles of fagots and the limbs of slaughtered beasts; children of all sizes, rushing about like frenzied animals, and shrieking insanely. As if nature had not made them hideous enough, with their baboon-like furry faces dominated by bony eye-ridges, many of the men wore crowns of bears' teeth or of eagles' feathers, of the skulls of wolves or the horns of the aurochs; and, across their ox-like chests, not a few of the males had painted stripes and patches of a bloody red.

Directly beneath the cave entrance the multitude halted, while their howls and yells rose to a pitch of frenzy surpassing that of a chorus of hyenas. Meanwhile, with agitated, angry gestures, many of them were pointing upward, pointing significantly and menacingly upward.

At this evidence of the beast-men's wrath, terrified murmurs trembled from the lips of the watchers on the cliff.

"This is the beast-men's cave!" they whispered, confusedly, in excitement that was a compound of astonishment, fear, and rage. "This is the beast-men's cave! They come back from the hunt—see the meat they carry! They want their cave back! But we will not give it to them! It is ours! We took it! They cannot get it now! We will fight for it! We will fight for it!"