Page:The Cave Girl - Edgar Rice Burroughs.pdf/194

 The girl touched his strong brown hand caressingly, looking proudly into his eyes.

“To me you are very wonderful, Thandar,” she said. “With your own hands you slew Nagoola, the most terrible beast in the world, and Korth, and Flatfoot, and Big Fist lie dead beneath the vultures because of your might—single-handed you killed them all; three awesome men. No, my Thandar is greater than all other men.”

Nor could Waldo Emerson repress the swelling tide of pride that surged through him as the girl he loved recounted his exploits. No longer did he think of his achievements as “vulgar physical prowess.” The old Waldo Emerson, whose temperature had risen regularly at three o’clock each afternoon, whose pitifully skinny body had been racked by coughing continually, whose eyes had been terror filled by day and by night at the rustling of dry leaves, was dead.

In his place stood a great, full blooded man, brown skinned and steel thewed; fearless, self-reliant, almost brutal in his pride of power—Thandar, the cave man.

The months that passed as Thandar led his people from one honeycombed cliff to another as he sought a fitting place for a permanent village were filled with happiness for Nadara and the king.

The girl’s happiness was slightly alloyed by the