course I couldn't escape.'
'I don't see why not,' said Hodon. 'I don't see why the three of us couldn't escape. Don't you see that low place there? We could run up there in no time if you could find some way to get their attention somewhere else.'
'M-m-m,' murmured the old man thoughtfully. 'Sometimes many of them are asleep at the same time. It might be done, but I doubt it. Anyway, what good would it do me to escape? I'd only be killed by the first tribe that captured me if some of the beasts didn't get me before.'
'No,' said Hodon. 'I would take you to Sari. They would treat you well there. You might meet some old friends. There are two men from Hartford , Connecticut there.'
The old man became instantly alert. 'What do you know about Hartford , Connecticut ?' he demanded.
'Nothing,' said Hodon, 'but these men do. I have heard them speak of it many times.'
'How did they get down here? That must be a story like mine. I'll bet they'd like to hear my story.'
'I know they would,' said O-aa, who was nobody's fool. 'I think you ought to come with us.'
'I'll think it over,' said the old man.
David Innes made his way to the entrance to the tube. He gathered dry wood and leaves and green grass, and he piled it far into the tube, with the grass on top. Then he made fire and lighted it. As soon as he saw that it was burning freely, he ran from the tube and started up the side of the mountain as fast as he could go.
When he reached the top and looked over he saw smoke rising from the opening into the tube. Already a jabbering crowd of sabertooth men were gathering about it. Others were joining them. David was just about to risk everything by shouting to Hodon to run for the low place in the rim, when he saw O-aa, Hodon, and another walking toward it. He saw that the third member of the party was not one of the natives; so he assumed it must be another prisoner.
The diversion that Hodon had hoped for had occurred almost miraculously, and the three lost no time in taking advantage of it.
'You are sure, are you, that these men from Hartford , Connecticut , are where we are going?' demanded the old man. 'Dod-burn you, if they ain't, I'll eat you the first chance I get.'
'Oh, they're there all right,' said O-aa. 'I saw them just before we left.'
Hodon looked at her in amazement not unmixed with admiration. 'We may see one of them before we get to Sari,' he said. 'He was with me just before we were captured.'
'I hope so,' said the old man. 'I'd sure like to see some one from Hartford . By gum, I'd even like to see some one from Kansas .'
'Oh,' said O-aa with a shrug. 'We know lots of people from Kansas . You can see all you want.'
Hodon's expression turned to one of awe, but now they were at the base of the shelving rubble. He looked back. Every single sabertooth was gathered around the smoking vent; not an eye was turned in their direction. 'Start up slowly,' he cautioned. 'Do not start to hurry unless they discover what we are doing; then you'll really have to climb. Once on the outside you and I, O-aa, can outdistance any of them, but I don't know about the old man.'
'Listen, son,' said that worthy. 'I can run circles around you and all your family. Why, when I was a young man they used to race me against race horses. I'd give 'em two lengths start and beat 'em in a mile.'
Hodon didn't know what a horse was; but he had an idea that whatever it was the old man was lying; so he said nothing. He was thinking that between O-aa and the old man it was a toss-up.
They reached the summit without being detected; and as they started down, Hodon saw David coming toward him. He hurried forward to meet him, 'It was you who started the fire that made the smoke, wasn't it? But how did you know we were in the crater?'
'Is this one of the men from Hartford ?' demanded the little old man.
'Yes,' said Hodon, 'but don't start telling him the story of your life now. Wait until we get out of reach of your friends.'
XI
DIAN WAS SURPRISED to discover that the nearer the sun she got the colder she was. She was also mystified by the noises she heard in her ears and the difficulty she had in breathing; but even so, she gave little thought to her own danger. She could think only of David. David whom she would never see again.
The balloon was drifting now at an even altitude. It would rise no higher. Eventually it would commence to drop lower; but before it came to earth, Dian the Beautiful might be dead of hunger and exhaustion. Being practically naked, except for a most sketchy loin cloth she was already chilled through and shivering.
A hunting party far below saw the strange thing floating toward them; and they ran and hid beneath trees, thinking it some new and terrible reptile. Dacor the Strong One, Dian's brother, was in the party. Little did he dream that his sister floated there high above him. He and his companions would tell of the awful creature they had seen; and the story would grow in the telling, but nothing which they could fabricate could equal the truth, if they could have known it.
XII
THE SABERTOOTH PEOPLE are not very bright, but they do know what a volcano is; because there is an intermittently active one in the mountains not far from their own crater; so, putting two and two together, they assumed that their own volcano was about to become active. Had they been just a little bit more intelligent, they would have reasoned that wood smoke does not come from a volcano; but all they knew was that it was smoke and smoke meant fire; and they were afraid.
The best thing to do, then, was to get out of the crater; so they turned to the low point in the crater's rim. It was then that they discovered that their prisoners had escaped.
As they swarmed out of the crater, they were not only frightened but angry. No prisoner had ever escaped before, and they didn't purpose letting these prisoners get away with it. Being good trackers capable of moving with great speed, they had no doubt but that they would soon overhaul the fugitives. The latter however, were also fleet of foot; and they had two advantages: they did not have to watch for spoor to follow, and they were fleeing for their lives. There is no greater spur to honest and concentrated effort than this. Even the old man revealed amazing possibilities as he scampered in the wake of the others.
David and Hodon, being congenitally opposed to flight, hated the position in which they found themselves, but what were they to do? David alone was armed. He carried his crude bow and arrow and a stone knife but these were not enough to repel an attack by a numerically greater force of savage beasts such as the sabertooth men.
While they did not yet know that they were being followed, they assumed that they would be; and the old man had assured them that they would.
'I been there since before my teeth began falling out,' he said, 'an' you can lay to it that they'll follow us all the way to hell an' gone, for they ain't no prisoner ever escaped from 'em in my time.'
Hodon, who was leading, guided them toward the little canyon where he and David had found sanctuary; and they succeeded in reaching its mouth before the first of the pursuers came within sight. It was just after they entered it that a chorus of savage roars told them that the sabertooth men had overtaken them.
David glanced back. Racing toward him were, three or four of the swiftest males and strung out behind them were other bucks and shes and young—the whole tribe was on their heels!
'Get the others into the cave, Hodon!' he called. 'I'll hold them up until you're all in.'
Hodon hesitated. He wanted to come back and fight at David's side.
'Go on!' shouted the latter. 'We'll all be lost if you don't.' Then Hodon raced on toward the cave with O-aa and the old man.
David wheeled about and sent an arrow into the breast of the leading savage. The fellow screamed and
