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The next blow blinded the right side and called forth a roar, this time
of pain. Eudena saw the huge, flat feet slipping and sliding, and
suddenly the bear gave a clumsy leap sideways, as if for the ledge. Then
everything vanished, and the hazels smashed, and a roar of pain and a
tumult of shouts and growls came up from far below.
Eudena screamed and ran to the edge and peered over. For a moment, man
and bears were a heap together, Ugh-lomi uppermost; and then he had
sprung clear and was scaling the gully again, with the bears rolling and
striking at one another among the hazels. But he had left his axe below,
and three knob-ended streaks of carmine were shooting down his thigh.
"Up!" he cried, and in a moment Eudena was leading the way to the top of
the cliff.
In half a minute they were at the crest, their hearts pumping noisily,
with Andoo and his wife far and safe below them. Andoo was sitting on
his haunches, both paws at work, trying with quick exasperated movements
to wipe the blindness out of his eyes, and the she-bear stood on
all-fours a little way off, ruffled in appearance and growling angrily.
Ugh-lomi flung himself flat on the grass, and lay panting and bleeding
with his face on his arms.
For a second Eudena regarded the bears, then she came and sat beside
him, looking at him....
Presently she put forth her hand timidly and touched him, and made the
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