Page:The Cave Girl - Edgar Rice Burroughs.pdf/132

 scene which would, at another time, have chained his attention with its quiet and alluring beauty.

It was as he swept a backward glance in the direction of Flatfoot that his eye was arrested by the hint of something far out across the valley, a little behind his own position.

To the Waldo of a few months previous it would not have been visible, but the new woodcraft of the man scented the abnormal in the vague suggestion of movement out among the long-waving grasses of the plain.

And now, with every sense alert and riveted upon the spot, he was quick to perceive that it was an animal moving slowly toward the cliffs at the upper end of the valley. Presently a little rise of ground, less thickly grassed, brought the creature into full view for an instant; but in that instant Waldo saw that the thing he watched was a woman.

As he turned to hurry after her he saw Flatfoot top another hill a half mile nearer than he had before been, and as the cave man came into view he turned his eyes in the direction that Waldo had been looking. A second later and he had abandoned the pursuit of Waldo and was running rapidly toward the woman.

Nadara had apparently circled back once more, this time from the sea, and coming up the valley had passed Waldo and come opposite Flatfoot