empty-handed besides—"
One of his companions suddenly caught Barkoo by the arm. "Look!" he cried, pointing toward the west.
A YOUNG man, clad only in an animal skin about his middle, had leaped from a clump of grasses less than twenty yards from the fleeing herd. In one hand was a long war-spear held aloft as he swooped toward them.
Instantly the herd turned aside and with a fresh burst of speed sought to out-run this new danger.
"Look at him run!" Barkoo shouted.
With the speed of a charging lion the youth was covering the ground in mighty bounds, slanting rapidly up to the racing animals. A moment later and he had drawn abreast of a sleek young mare, her slim ears backlaid in terror.
Still running at full speed, the young man drew back his arm and sent his spear flashing across the gap between him and the mare, catching her full in the exposed side.
As though her legs had been jerked from under her, the creature turned a complete circle in mid-air before crashing to the ground, her scream of agony coming clearly to the three watching hunters.
Barkoo, when the young man knelt beside the kill, shook his head in tight-lipped tribute.
"I might have known he would do something like this," he said, exasperated. "When I asked him to come with us he refused; the sun was too hot. Now he will laugh at us—taunt us as bad hunters."
"Some day he will not come back from the hunt," predicted one of the men. "He takes too many chances. He goes out alone after Jalok, the panther, and Tarlok, the leopard, with only a knife and a rope. Why, just a sun ago, I heard him say Sadu, the lion, was to be next. Smart hunters leave Sadu alone!"
Tharn, the son of Tharn, watched the three come slowly toward him. His unbelievably sharp eyes of gray caught Barkoo's attempt at an unimpressed expression, and his own lean handsome face broke in a wide smile, the small even white teeth contrasting vividly with his sun-baked skin.
He wondered what had caused the zebra herd to bolt before the hunters could attempt their kill. He had caught sight of them an hour before from the high-flung branches of a tree, and had hidden in the grass near the probable route of the animals once Barkoo and his men had charged them.
Barkoo, seeming to ignore the son of his chief, came up to the dead zebra and nudged it with an appraising toe.
"Not much meat here," he said to Korgul. "A wise hunter would have picked a fatter one."
Tharn's lips twitched with amusement. He knew Barkoo—knew he found fault only to hide an extravagant satisfaction that the chief's son had succeeded where older heads had failed; for Barkoo had schooled him in forest lore almost from the day Tharn had first walked.
That had been a little more than twenty summers ago; today Tharn was more at home in the jungles and on the plains than any other member of his tribe. His confidence had grown with his knowledge until he know nothing of fear and little of caution. He took impossible chances for the pure love of danger, flaunting his carelessness in the face of his former teacher, jeering at the other's gloomy prophecies of disaster.
Tharn pursed his lips solemnly. "It is true," he admitted soberly, "that a wiser hunter would have made a better
