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pistol is entirely inadequate against even the lesser carnivora of Caspak. In a
moment the three would charge! A futile shot would but tend more greatly to
enrage the one it chanced to hit; and then the three would drag down the little
human figure and tear it to pieces.
And maybe it was Lys! My heart stood still at the thought, but mind and muscle
responded to the quick decision I was forced to make. There was but a single
hope--a single chance--and I took it. I raised my rifle to my shoulder and took
careful aim. It was a long shot, a dangerous shot, for unless one is accustomed
to it, shooting from a considerable altitude is most deceptive work. There is,
though, something about marksmanship which is quite beyond all scientific laws.
Upon no other theory can I explain my marksmanship of that moment. Three
times my rifle spoke--three quick, short syllables of death. I did not take
conscious aim; and yet at each report a beast crumpled in its tracks!
From my ledge to the base of the cliff is a matter of several thousand feet of
dangerous climbing; yet I venture to say that the first ape from whose loins my
line has descended never could have equaled the speed with which I literally
dropped down the face of that rugged escarpment. The last two hundred feet is
over a steep incline of loose rubble to the valley bottom, and I had just reached
the top of this when there arose to my ears an agonized cry--"Bowen! Bowen!
Quick, my love, quick!"
I had been too much occupied with the dangers of the descent to glance down
toward the valley; but that cry which told me that it was indeed Lys, and that she
was again in danger, brought my eyes quickly upon her in time to see a hairy,
burly brute seize her and start off at a run toward the near-by wood. From rock
to rock, chamoislike, I leaped downward toward the valley, in pursuit of Lys and
her hideous abductor.
He was heavier than I by many pounds, and so weighted by the burden he carried
that I easily overtook him; and at last he turned, snarling, to face me. It was Kho
of the tribe of Tsa, the hatchet-men. He recognized me, and with a low growl he
threw Lys aside and came for me. "The she is mine," he cried. "I kill! I kill!"
I had had to discard my rifle before I commenced the rapid descent of the cliff, so
that now I was armed only with a hunting knife, and this I whipped from its
scabbard as Kho leaped toward me. He was a mighty beast, mightily muscled,
and the urge that has made males fight since the dawn of life on earth filled him
with the blood-lust and the thirst to slay; but not one whit less did it fill me with
the same primal passions. Two abysmal beasts sprang at each other's throats
that day beneath the shadow of earth's oldest cliffs--the man of now and the
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