Page:The Cave Girl - Edgar Rice Burroughs.pdf/102

 gone down to the sea for the last time.

It came as readily and as glibly from these primitive men as “good morning” falls from the lips of the civilized races, yet among the latter he realized that it had its counterpart in the stony stares which Anglo Saxon strangers vouchsafe one another.

“I have no quarrel with you,” replied Waldo. “Let us be friends.”

“You are afraid,” taunted the hairy one.

Waldo pointed to his sable garment.

“Ask Nagoola,” he said.

The man looked at the trophy. There could be no mightier argument for a man’s valor than that. He came a step closer that he might scrutinize it more carefully.

“Full-grown and in perfect health,” he grunted to himself. “This is no worn and mangy hide peeled from the rotting carcass of one dead of sickness.

“How did you slay Nagoola?” he asked suddenly.

Waldo indicated his spear, then he drew his garment aside and pointed to the vivid, new-healed scars that striped his body.

“We met at dusk at a cliff-top. He was above, I below. When we reached the bottom of the ravine Nagoola was dead. But it was nothing for Thandar. I am Thandar.”