At sight of them Waldo did not flee in dismay, as most certainly would have been the case a few months earlier. Instead, he walked confidently toward them.
As he approached they ceased whatever work they were engaged upon and eyed him suspiciously. Then several burly males approached him warily.
At a hundred yards they halted.
“What do you want?” they cried. “If you come to our village we can kill you.”
Before Waldo could reply an old man crawled from a cave near the base of the cliff, and as his eyes fell upon the stranger he hurried as rapidly as his ancient limbs would carry him to the little knot of ruffians who composed the reception committee.
He spoke to them for a moment in a low tone, and as he was talking Waldo recognized him as the old man who had accompanied Nadara on the previous day at the battle in the glade. When he had finished speaking one of the cave men assented to whatever proposal the decrepit one had made, and Waldo saw that each of the others nodded his head in approval.
Then the old man advanced slowly toward Waldo. When he had come quite close he spoke.
“I am an old man,” he said. “Thandar would not kill an old man?”
“Of course not; but how know you that my name is Thandar?” replied Waldo.
“Nadara, she who is my daughter, has spoken of you often. Yesterday we saw you as you battled with that son of Nagoola—Nadara told me then that it was you. What would Thandar among the people of Flatfoot?”
“I come as a friend,” replied Waldo, “among the friends of Nadara. For Flatfoot I care nothing. He is no friend of Nadara, whose friends are Thandar’s friends, and whose enemies are Thandar’s enemies. Where is Nadara—but first, where is Flatfoot? I have come to kill him.”
The words and the savage challenge slipped as easily from the cultured tongue of Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones as though he had been born and reared in the most rocky and barren cave of this savage island, nor did they sound strange or unusual to him. It seemed that he had said the most natural and proper thing under the circumstances that there was to say.
“Flatfoot is not here,” said the old man, “nor is Nadara. She—” but here Waldo interrupted him.
“Korth, then,” he demanded. “Where is Korth? I can kill him first and Flatfoot when he returns.”
The old man looked at the speaker in unfeigned surprise.
“Korth!” he exclaimed. “Korth is dead. Can it be that you do not know that he, whom you killed yesterday, was Korth?”
Waldo’s eyes opened as wide in surprise as had the old man’s.
Korth! He had killed the redoubtable Korth with his bare hands—Korth, who could crush the skull of a full-grown man with a single blow from his open palm.
Clearly he recollected the very words in which Nadara had described this horrible brute that time she had harrowed his poor, coward nerves, as they approached the village of Flatfoot. And now he, Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones, had met and killed the creature from whom he had so fearfully fled a few months ago!
And, wonder of wonders, he had not even thought to use the weapons upon which he had spent so many hours of handicraft and months of practise in preparation for just this occasion. Of a sudden he recalled the old man’s statement that Nadara was not there.
“Where is she—Nadara?” he cried, turning so suddenly upon the ancient one that the old fellow drew back in alarm.
“I have done nothing to harm her,” he cried. “I followed and would have brought her back, but I am old and could not find her. Once, when I was young, there was no better trailer or mighty warrior among my people than I, but—”
“Yes, yes,” exclaimed Waldo impatiently; “but Nadara! Where is she?”
“I do not know,” replied the old man. “She has gone, and I could not find her. Well do I remember how, years ago, when the trail of an enemy was faint or the signs of game hard to find, men would come to ask me to help them, but now—”
“Of course,” interrupted Waldo; “but Nadara. Do you not even know in what direction she has gone?”
“No; but since Flatfoot has set forth upon her trail it should be easy to track the two of them.”
“Flatfoot set out after Nadara!” cried, Waldo. “Why?”
“For many moons he has craved her for his mate, as has Korth,” explained Nadara’s father; “but I think that each feared the other, and because of that fact Nadara was saved from both; but at last Korth came upon us alone and away from the village, and then he grasped Nadara and would have taken her away, for Flatfoot was not about to prevent.
“You came then, and the rest you know. If I had been younger neither Flatfoot nor Korth would have dared menace Nadara, for when I was a young man I was very terrible and the record of my kills was a—”
“How long since did Flatfoot set out after Nadara?” Waldo broke in.
“But a few hours since,” replied the old man. “It would be an easy thing for me to overtake him by night had I the speed of my youth, for I well remember—”
“From where did Flatfoot start upon the trail?” cried the young man. “Lead me to the place.”
“This way then, Thandar,” said the other, starting off toward the forest. “I will show you if you will save Nadara from Flatfoot. I love her. She has been very kind and good to me. She is unlike the rest of our people.
“I should die happy if I knew that you have saved her from Flatfoot, but I am an old man and may not live until Nadara returns. Ah, that reminds me; there is that in my cave which belongs to Nadara, and were I to
