The People the Time forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs (best free ereader .TXT) 📖

middle of the afternoon, I saw something that brought
me to a sudden stop. Calling Nobs in a whisper, I cautioned him to
silence and kept him at heel while I threw myself flat and watched,
from behind a sheltering shrub, a body of warriors approaching
the cliff from the south. I could see that they were Galus, and I
guessed that Du-seen led them. They had taken a shorter route to
the pass and so had overhauled me. I could see them plainly, for
they were no great distance away, and saw with relief that Ajor
was not with them.

The cliffs before them were broken and ragged, those coming from
the east overlapping the cliffs from the west. Into the defile
formed by this overlapping the party filed. I could see them
climbing upward for a few minutes, and then they disappeared from
view. When the last of them had passed from sight, I rose and bent
my steps in the direction of the pass--the same pass toward which
Nobs had evidently been leading me. I went warily as I approached
it, for fear the party might have halted to rest. If they hadn't
halted, I had no fear of being discovered, for I had seen that
the Galus marched without point, flankers or rear guard; and when
I reached the pass and saw a narrow, one-man trail leading upward
at a stiff angle, I wished that I were chief of the Galus for a
few weeks. A dozen men could hold off forever in that narrow pass
all the hordes which might be brought up from the south; yet there
it lay entirely unguarded.

The Galus might be a great people in Caspak; but they were pitifully
inefficient in even the simpler forms of military tactics. I was
surprised that even a man of the Stone Age should be so lacking
in military perspicacity. Du-seen dropped far below par in my
estimation as I saw the slovenly formation of his troop as it passed
through an enemy country and entered the domain of the chief against
whom he had risen in revolt; but Du-seen must have known Jor the
chief and known that Jor would not be waiting for him at the pass.
Nevertheless he took unwarranted chances. With one squad of a
home-guard company I could have conquered Caspak.

Nobs and I followed to the summit of the pass, and there we saw the
party defiling into the Galu country, the level of which was not,
on an average, over fifty feet below the summit of the cliffs and
about a hundred and fifty feet above the adjacent Kro-lu domain.
Immediately the landscape changed. The trees, the flowers and the
shrubs were of a hardier type, and I realized that at night the
Galu blanket might be almost a necessity. Acacia and eucalyptus
predominated among the trees; yet there were ash and oak and even
pine and fir and hemlock. The tree-life was riotous. The forests
were dense and peopled by enormous trees. From the summit of the
cliff I could see forests rising hundreds of feet above the level
upon which I stood, and even at the distance they were from me I
realized that the boles were of gigantic size.

At last I had come to the Galu country. Though not conceived in
Caspak, I had indeed come up _cor-sva-jo_--from the beginning I had
come up through the hideous horrors of the lower Caspakian spheres
of evolution, and I could not but feel something of the elation and
pride which had filled To-mar and So-al when they realized that the
call had come to them and they were about to rise from the estate
of Band-lus to that of Kro-lus. I was glad that I was not _batu_.

But where was Ajor? Though my eyes searched the wide landscape
before me, I saw nothing other than the warriors of Du-seen and
the beasts of the fields and the forests. Surrounded by forests,
I could see wide plains dotting the country as far as the eye could
reach; but nowhere was a sign of a small Galu she--the beloved she
whom I would have given my right hand to see.

Nobs and I were hungry; we had not eaten since the preceding night,
and below us was game-deer, sheep, anything that a hungry hunter
might crave; so down the steep trail we made our way, and then
upon my belly with Nobs crouching low behind me, I crawled toward a
small herd of red deer feeding at the edge of a plain close beside
a forest. There was ample cover, what with solitary trees and
dotting bushes so that I found no difficulty in stalking up wind
to within fifty feet of my quarry--a large, sleek doe unaccompanied
by a fawn. Greatly then did I regret my rifle. Never in my life
had I shot an arrow, but I knew how it was done, and fitting the
shaft to my string, I aimed carefully and let drive. At the same
instant I called to Nobs and leaped to me feet.

The arrow caught the doe full in the side, and in the same moment
Nobs was after her. She turned to flee with the two of us pursuing
her, Nobs with his great fangs bared and I with my short spear
poised for a cast. The balance of the herd sprang quickly away;
but the hurt doe lagged, and in a moment Nobs was beside her and
had leaped at her throat. He had her down when I came up, and I
finished her with my spear. It didn't take me long to have a fire
going and a steak broiling, and while I was preparing for my own
feast, Nobs was filling himself with raw venison. Never have I
enjoyed a meal so heartily.

For two days I searched fruitlessly back and forth from the inland
sea almost to the barrier cliffs for some trace of Ajor, and always
I trended northward; but I saw no sign of any human being, not even
the band of Galu warriors under Du-seen; and then I commenced to
have misgivings. Had Chal-az spoken the truth to me when he said
that Ajor had quit the village of the Kro-lu? Might he not have
been acting upon the orders of Al-tan, in whose savage bosom might
have lurked some small spark of shame that he had attempted to do
to death one who had befriended a Kro-lu warrior--a guest who had
brought no harm upon the Kro-lu race--and thus have sent me out
upon a fruitless mission in the hope that the wild beasts would do
what Al-tan hesitated to do? I did not know; but the more I thought
upon it, the more convinced I became that Ajor had not quitted the
Kro-lu village; but if not, what had brought Du-seen forth without
her? There was a puzzler, and once again I was all at sea.

On the second day of my experience of the Galu country I came upon a
bunch of as magnificent horses as it has ever been my lot to see.
They were dark bays with blazed faces and perfect surcingles of
white about their barrels. Their forelegs were white to the knees.
In height they stood almost sixteen hands, the mares being a trifle
smaller than the stallions, of which there were three or four in
this band of a hundred, which comprised many colts and half-grown
horses. Their markings were almost identical, indicating a purity
of strain that might have persisted since long ages ago. If I had
coveted one of the little ponies of the Kro-lu country, imagine
my state of mind when I came upon these magnificent creatures! No
sooner had I espied them than I determined to possess one of them;
nor did it take me long to select a beautiful young stallion--a
four-year-old, I guessed him.

The horses were grazing close to the edge of the forest in which
Nobs and I were concealed, while the ground between us and them
was dotted with clumps of flowering brush which offered perfect
concealment. The stallion of my choice grazed with a filly and two
yearlings a little apart from the balance of the herd and nearest
to the forest and to me. At my whispered "Charge!" Nobs flattened
himself to the ground, and I knew that he would not again move until
I called him, unless danger threatened me from the rear. Carefully
I crept forward toward my unsuspecting quarry, coming undetected
to the concealment of a bush not more than twenty feet from him.
Here I quietly arranged my noose, spreading it flat and open upon
the ground.

To step to one side of the bush and throw directly from the ground,
which is the style I am best in, would take but an instant, and
in that instant the stallion would doubtless be under way at top
speed in the opposite direction. Then he would have to wheel about
when I surprised him, and in doing so, he would most certainly
rise slightly upon his hind feet and throw up his head, presenting
a perfect target for my noose as he pivoted.

Yes, I had it beautifully worked out, and I waited until he should
turn in my direction. At last it became evident that he was doing
so, when apparently without cause, the filly raised her head, neighed
and started off at a trot in the opposite direction, immediately
followed, of course, by the colts and my stallion. It looked for
a moment as though my last hope was blasted; but presently their
fright, if fright it was, passed, and they resumed grazing again
a hundred yards farther on. This time there was no bush within
fifty feet of them, and I was at a loss as to how to get within
safe roping-distance. Anywhere under forty feet I am an excellent
roper, at fifty feet I am fair; but over that I knew it would
be a matter of luck if I succeeded in getting my noose about that
beautiful arched neck.

As I stood debating the question in my mind, I was almost upon the
point of making the attempt at the long throw. I had plenty of
rope, this Galu weapon being fully sixty feet long. How I wished
for the collies from the ranch! At a word they would have circled
this little bunch and driven it straight down to me; and then it
flashed into my mind that Nobs had run with those collies all one
summer, that he had gone down to the pasture with them after the
cows every evening and done his part in driving them back to the
milking-barn, and had done it intelligently; but Nobs had never
done the thing alone, and it had been a year since he had done it
at all. However, the chances were more in favor of my foozling
the long throw than that Nobs would fall down in his part if I gave
him the chance.

Having come to a decision, I had to creep back to Nobs and get him,
and then with him at my heels return to a large bush near the four
horses. Here we could see directly through the bush, and pointing
the animals out to Nobs I whispered: "Fetch 'em, boy!"

In an instant he was gone, circling wide toward the rear of the
quarry. They caught sight of him almost immediately and