Page:The Cave Girl - Edgar Rice Burroughs.pdf/148

 There was an injured air in his last words which did not escape the girl. She wondered if he really deserved the harsh attitude she had maintained.

They found a cave a half-mile down the valley, where they took up their quarters against the time that Waldo should be rested, for the girl insisted that she was fully able to commence the return journey at once.

The man knew better, and so he let her have it that the delay was on his account rather than hers, for he doubted her ability to cope with the hardships of the long journey without an interval for recuperation.

The next morning found them both rested and in better spirits, so that there was no return to their acrimonious encounter of the previous day.

As they walked out toward the forest that lay down the valley in the direction of the ocean Waldo dropped a few paces behind the girl in polite deference to her expressed wish of the day before.

As he walked he watched the graceful movements of her lithe figure and the lines of her clear-cut profile as she turned her head this way and that in search of food.

How beautiful she was! It was incredible that this wild cave girl should have greater beauty and a more regal carriage than the queens and beauties of civilization, and yet Waldo was forced to admit