Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 1 (1925-01).djvu/167

166 were falling. He would return to his people and there he would count noses. Soon he would know who had stolen his mate away. Then, on the morrow, he would set out upon the trail, and by the antlers of the great reindeer, one of the two would not return alive!

The hunters were nearly all returned, and already the circle fires had been lighted when Wagh reached the camping grounds. The others straggled in by ones and twos until only one remained unaccounted for—Zurd, the Coward.

AGH awoke in the morning as the first rays of the sun were streaking the eastern sky. He selected from the pile of crude weapons in the corner of the cave his favorite lance, the head carved with a likeness of the cave-bear that it might be more effective against him; a stone hatchet which had put the finishing touches to more than one four-footed antagonist; and a long, sharp dagger of stone, with an edge as keen as the finest tempered steel.

Thus armed, the man set out upon his quest. With these simple weapons he would face all the dangers that beset him and make his way to where he knew his Arhl-a must be waiting, an unwilling captive at the mercy of Zurd. With unerring accuracy he read the trail of the fleeing man. Every broken twig or crushed blade of grass bore a message for this man who had learned to interpret their significance. On, and still on, he followed the path so plainly marked for his eyes. At times, when the spoor would not be so clear, he would go along on all fours, his nose close to the ground, sniffing, more like one of the animals of the jungle than man.

He wondered how far the two had gone. He knew that their progress would be slow, for Zurd would be hampered with the burden of the girl—and he knew that Arhl-a would never have gone with him of her own volition.

Well on toward midday he stopped short in his tracks and listened, for the wind had brought to his quivering nostrils the scent of the reindeer, and Wagh realized that he was hungry. Cautiously, silently, he made his way in the direction where he knew the herd must be grazing. He pushed on through the underbrush without making a sound, for man could, if he chose, move more silently than any of the animals that roamed at the edge of a clearing.

The herd were making their way directly toward his hiding place. It could not have been better if he had planned it out for himself. He swung into the overhanging branches of a big tree and waited, until the last of the reindeer passed beneath the tree. Then, swinging lightly from the branches, he dropped to the back of the hindmost animal and plunged his lance clean to the shaft into its shoulder.

The startled animal plunged into the underbrush with its human freight, and Wagh clung to its spreading antlers for support, lest he be brushed off by the branch of some tree and crushed by the flying feet of his wounded steed. The now frantic animal crashed heedlessly on, trying in vain to shake off its unaccustomed burden. Of a sudden, one foot stepped into a deep hole, and the reindeer stumbled and tottered to its knees. With the agility of a monkey, Wagh sprang clean over its antlers, and before the frightened animal could regain its feet he sank his stone dagger deep into its heart. A last convulsive effort to rise, and the reindeer collapsed and rolled over upon its side, dead!

Regaining his weapons, Wagh proceeded to strip the animal of its pelt. Next he gathered a head of dry leaves and twigs. With a sharp bit of hard