Page:The Cave Girl - Edgar Rice Burroughs.pdf/151

 bring you,” he said, handing the package to Nadara.

The girl took it and examined it as though it was entirely unfamiliar.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Your father did not say, other than that it contained articles that your mother wore when she died,” he said tenderly, for a great pity had welled up in his heart for this poor, motherless girl.

“That my mother wore!” Nadara repeated, her brows contracted in a puzzled frown. “When my mother died she wore nothing but a single garment of many small skins—very old and worn—and that was buried with her. I do not understand.”

She made no effort to open the package, but sat gazing far off toward the ocean which was just visible through the trees, entirely absorbed in the reverie which Waldo’s words had engendered.

“Could the thing that the old woman told me have been true?” the girl mused half aloud. “Could it have been because it was true that my mother fell upon her with tooth and nail until she had nearly killed her? I wonder if”

But here she stopped, her eyes riveted in sudden fear and hopelessness upon a thing that she had just espied in the distance.

A great lump rose in her throat, tears came to her eyes, and with them the full measure of realization