On the way down the mountain side, Kutnar had an excellent opportunity to
gain a better knowledge of his new acquaintances. His first impressions
were far from flattering. A more squalid, beast-like lot of men he had
never seen. He mistrusted them at sight. On his long journey to the
southland he had anticipated much pleasure in meeting them and learning
about their superior flint industry. The latter was as disappointing
as the men themselves. Fine weapons? Never had he gazed upon worse. He
saw not a single flint ax-head or poniard; in fact, no stone implements
with the exception of a few badly-hewn quartzite flakes. Apparently the
Castillans relied almost entirely upon wood. Their clubs, javelins and
fling-sticks were all made of this material. Even it was badly chosen
and shaped. Kutnar made a wry face as he looked at his companions and
their miserable equipment. “These cannot be Gonch’s people,” he finally
consoled himself. “Soon we will pass on to the country of the southrons
and the sooner, the better.”
Deep down in his heart, Kutnar knew that it was not a sight of the
southrons nor their flint workmanship that he really craved. A quick
turnabout and a trip homeward would have pleased him more than anything
on earth. He was terribly homesick. It seemed ages since he had run away
from father and friends. The knowledge that he had so recently slain
a fellow-being, added to his depression. He thought of Totan and that
reminded him of Pic. Both were strong men but there the resemblance
ended. His father had a heart; the Castillan hetman appeared to possess
none. “I have at least one good friend near me,” the boy remembered.
Gonch was there and that gave him great comfort. “I am no longer a baby,”
he thought, so he determined to bear up patiently until the time came for
the long journey homeward.
Meanwhile the party had reached the end of their descent and were making
their way across the lowland to the River Pas. Suddenly one of the men
grunted and all stopped short. He who had signalled said to Kutnar in a
low voice, “A hare! Quick boy; now is your chance to show what you can
do.” The sling was loaded and ready before the man had ceased speaking.
Kutnar moved noiselessly ahead of his companions to within throwing
range. Whizz, sped the stone and a big snow-white hare leaped from a
clump of bushes and bounded away. “A miss,” one of the hunters sneered
as the boy glided forward like a cat. They saw him reach down among the
bushes and then stand erect holding some animal by its long ears—a hare.
There had been two. The one first seen had escaped but Kutnar had bagged
the second.
[Illustration: KUTNAR BAGS A HARE]
The cave-men were astounded. This was indeed fine shooting but there was
more to follow. The lad flung his quarry to them and then went speeding
across the snow-plain after hare Number One. The cave-men followed
closely and were treated to a lesson in stalking which opened their eyes.
Hare Number One had not fled far. His tracks were easily seen in the snow
and it was not long before Kutnar saw him lying in a ball and trusting in
his protective coloring to escape unseen. But this availed him nothing.
He waited too long for his next jump, thinking he had but a fling-stick
to deal with. He too was bagged and the boy found himself the center of
the most thoroughly surprised lot of men that one would hope to see.
“He is not of this world,” said one of the band.
“Nor is his fling-string,” said another. “He has but to wave it and
animals drop to the ground dead.”
These and other remarks, Kutnar listened to and they pleased him, for he
was but a boy and relished the compliments of men. They made him feel as
though he were a man too. Another hare was sighted and bagged and thus
the hunt went merrily on. Kutnar even tried his skill on a young boar.
He did not kill the animal but he disabled it so that the hunters could
easily complete the work he had begun. When the party turned homeward,
they took with them four hares, three grouse and the boar; and Kutnar had
killed them all. A wonderful bag; all were agreed on that; and they were
agreed too that as a hunter and provider, Kutnar was worth his weight
in the finest flints ever shaped by mortal man. When they arrived at
Castillo and Totan learned of Kutnar’s success, he was mightily pleased.
“If the boy can thus shame our best hunters, what could not the grown
men of his tribe do?” he thought. This reminded him of the Lion Man and
he revelled in the thought of what would happen if the latter would only
come within his reach.
The Muskman’s star was again in the ascendancy. The boy had been tried
and found all that any hunter could wish. Were these men jealous of
his prowess? Certainly not. No half-starved beast or human being looks
askance at the hand that feeds it. One and all praised his skill with
the fling-string. Boy or no boy, he was certainly a godsend to these
half-famished men and they were not backward in saying so. Some of them
went so far as to volunteer their services to keep him supplied with
the finest pebbles. They were not the ones to permit his ammunition
to run low. They even gave him the hide of the boar he had killed. A
chilled body might result in a stiff arm which would prevent accurate
shooting and of course that would never do. In fact they were anxious to
do anything for the lad that promised to improve their own health and
comfort.
There was some satisfaction in finding himself welcome even among these
savage men but in spite of that, Kutnar felt homesick and uneasy. “Why do
we continue to stay here?” he asked the Muskman, but the latter merely
answered: “Be patient. It is for a short time only. When the snow melts,
we will be on our way again.” Kutnar forced himself to be content with
this. He was but a boy who respected men and revered his friends. Gonch
was his man-friend and it never occurred to him that the Muskman was
playing him false; and so he did his part, which was no small task for
now that his skill was known, he did more than half the hunting for the
whole band. In addition to his skill with the sling, he possessed no mean
knowledge of woodcraft, showing his companions many things about tracking
and trapping game that they knew nothing of. Kutnar became leader of the
hunters; that is, he did most of the work. The pebbles flew straight and
far from his sling and there was both speed and force behind them. For
their part, the cave-men who accompanied him on his hunting trips, did
little more than watch him open-mouthed and retrieve the game he killed,
like a pack of dogs. Kutnar deep down in his heart, despised these men
as he did their weapons. Of them he had more to learn and also something
that greatly changed his opinion of his good friend Gonch.
The latter was present one morning on one of the hunting-trips. It
chanced that on this same morning a mighty hunter had descended from the
foot-hills and was engaged in stalking a boar, grubbing about in the
snow on the left bank of the River Pas. Kutnar and his band of cave-men
had observed this boar but not the mighty hunter of the foot-hills.
Both sets of stalkers closed in upon their intended victim, who finding
himself too much hunted, ran squealing away leaving his persecutors to
face each other. A tawny body shot from the bushes and in a flash, one of
the cave-men lay upon the ground beneath the paw of a huge lion. Kutnar
was in the van of those who by much shouting and waving, so bewildered
the big cat that it relinquished its victim and crawled away. The man was
still alive although badly mauled. “Friends should ever help each other,”
ran through Kutnar’s brain as he bent over the unfortunate and wiped
the blood from his face with a bunch of leaves. Not that the man was
his particular friend, but his heart was filled with pity at sight of a
fellow-being in distress. Suddenly he was dragged to his feet and thrust
roughly aside. He turned and faced Gonch.
“Stand back, boy; do not meddle,” cried the Muskman and then before
Kutnar knew what his friend was about, the latter despatched the wounded
man with a blow of his ax. Then as though this were not enough, he was
the first of the hunters to spring upon the body with teeth and hands. As
the boy looked on in horror at the man-pack snarling and devouring their
dead comrade, the cobwebs fell from his eyes and he saw the Muskman in
his true colors, a hyena-man unfit for the friendship of human being or
beast. It was a terrible blow. He felt his life robbed of its last sweet
essence. By that one act, Gonch had in a flash lost the right to trust
and friendship and now in Kutnar’s eyes he was a loathsome, detestable
thing, more so than the meanest of his fellows.
Gonch was quick to see the change in the youth’s feelings toward him but
he was growing careless with rising fortune and felt no need of making
further effort to mask his true nature. “Flesh is flesh,” he leered in
the boy’s face when the horrible orgie was over. “You will soon learn
that man’s flesh is as good or better than any other.”
Kutnar spat in disgust. “When am I to leave here?” he cried. “I hate
these men and—and now I hate you.”
“Leave here?” sneered Gonch. “Impossible. I could not bear such a
calamity. My people dote upon you. I am quite sure that they could not
live without their youthful hunter.”
This last sentence contained much truth. The Muskman felt its humor and
he chuckled at his own wit; but the boy only glared.
“Your people? Then this is what you have brought me to. These wretches
are the fine people of the southland. Tell me, filthy beast-man, why am I
here?”
Kutnar held his sling threateningly. He was furious. The cave-men were
now gathering around the pair. “Be quiet, boy,” the Muskman warned in a
low voice. “A word from me and the flesh will be torn from your body. You
hate me. Good; but take care.”
That was all but in that short time, the boy in some ways had become a
man. He said no more, only hung his head, crushed and humiliated with
disappointment and revulsion of feeling. It was the sudden shattering
of an ideal. Now he had no friends, for the one man whom he had trusted
and befriended was a cannibal and traitor doubly vile. He returned to
Castillo with the others and chose a spot by the fire as far removed from
Gonch as possible and sat there staring vacantly into the blaze. The
shades of night settled over the mountain and still he sat motionless,
oblivious to what was going on about him. One by one the cave-men retired
to Castillo’s yawning entrance and curled up in their hide-wrappings to
secure their night’s rest. All were gone but two—the boy and Gonch.
“You who perform one task so well, can bear another,” the Muskman
sneered. “Watch the fire, and watch it well until the light returns. Do
not fall asleep or it will be the worse for you.”
These were Gonch’s parting instructions and then he too lay down in
the cave-entrance. Kutnar smiled bitterly. Another task was now added
to his already overburdened shoulders; one that no man dared neglect.
Without fire, life would have been impossible during the cold season.
The roaring blaze warmed and cheered many a body which without it would
have succumbed sooner or later to rheumatism, influenza or other virulent
disease. Fire, a most difficult thing to create, was rarely permitted to
die out. The Castillans took turns watching and feeding it day and night.
Woe to him who neglected his all-important task, a task that Kutnar was
now obliged to assume.
But he neither rebelled nor complained. He was but a boy long accustomed
to obey and respect his elders; and ingrained habits are slow to
change. And yet as he gazed silently at the lashing flames and curling
smoke-wreaths, his mind was experiencing one of those tremendous
upheavals that, like the volcano or hurricane, preface their fury with
outward calm. Kutnar was deadly calm. His thoughts surging one upon
another were those of a sane and sober mind. But with all his illusions
shattered, the child was become a man. He now knew that all of the
southland wonders were the Muskman’s lies. There were no fine flints,
no weapon-making; the men might have been wolves except for their human
forms which however made their wretchedness and cannibalism even more
beast-like in his eyes. So low had they fallen that they must needs
depend upon himself, a mere boy, to feed them; but most dreadful of all
was the knowledge that his best friend had sunken lower than any of them
and had betrayed him from first to last.
As he watched the dancing firelight, bestirring himself at intervals to
pile on fresh wood, the boy’s mind was saying, “I must do my best to be
useful and earn the right to live. Brighter days are in store for me
if only I will be patient and wait for them” and beneath this rumbled
the voice of the man-mind, low and distant but ever coming nearer and
nearer: “I despise these men; but he who has deceived me, I hate and
loathe. Filthy beast-man whom I once called friend, the time will come
when you must pay the penalty. When the sling sends you my message;
listen to the stone-hiss, ‘Greetings from my master, son of the Mammoth
Man. He bids me fly straight and fast, bearing to you his traitor-friend
the reward that you have so nobly earned—death.’”