Part 8

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.’”

XIX

It was not many days before Gonch found himself subjected to increased pressure. The grim hetman fretted and chafed incessantly simply because the Lion Man failed to appear. With all his sharpness, Gonch had merely relieved one bad situation by creating another. He was congratulating himself for his shrewdness in diverting Totan’s channel of wrath to someone other than himself, but now that the Lion Man had become rooted in the hetman’s mind, Gonch found himself worse off than ever. Pic did not appear. There were no others worth while to soothe Totan’s pugnacious spirit, so he centered the burden of his rancor upon Gonch.

“Time passes and still your Lion Man does not come,” he fumed. “I believe you lie when you say he will.”

“And I still say so,” replied the Muskman although in a less cocksure manner than formerly, for he was beginning to feel grave doubts. “But the lad; does he not please you? Never have we fared so well as since he came here.”

Totan gave his henchman a sour look. “Lad? Ugh; he does better than all the rest of you put together. But bah! why speak of him? I want none but his father the Lion Man, Weapon Maker or whatever else you choose to call him. I hunger to crush his bones.”

Gonch sensed the approaching storm. He grasped desperately at a straw. “Weapon Maker?” he whispered looking carefully around him as though he were about to impart some deep-dyed mystery. “You ask for him who makes the fine blades? Pst! he is here.”

“The Lion Man?” roared Totan, leaping to his feet and snatching at his club. “Where?”

“Son of the Lion Man, you mean,” corrected Gonch. “It is my little secret. He makes the fine weapons even better than his father. What a prize; a hunter and flint-worker, all in one.”

“Agh! the boy again,” howled the hetman in a great rage and then his curiosity got the better of him as Gonch hoped and half expected it would. “The boy a flint-worker?” he sneered. “This is another of your lies; but you have said it and I will know the truth, even if I have to eat it out of you.”

“Try him,” said the Muskman much relieved that he had so neatly turned the trend of conversation. “I said and proved that he was the equal of our best hunters. I say and will prove that he is a skilled flint-worker. To-morrow he will begin making the fine blades.”

“And a sorry day it will be for you if he fails,” snarled the giant enraged at being so easily diverted from the main idea and yet not having wit enough to stick to it.

And so the storm-clouds lifted temporarily, giving Gonch a chance to keep his hide on him and him in it. He sought Kutnar and said, “Those who do nothing, shall eat nothing. You idle too much. Now is the time for you to hammer and finish the fine flint weapons. You know how the work is done. We must have blades. Make them.”

And so more was required of him. Kutnar’s eyes glittered as he answered, “But there is no flint here. Blades cannot be made from nothing. Find me flint-lumps if you must have the tools.”

“Find them yourself,” snapped the Muskman irritated by the boy’s reply. “If you fail, I will see that you get no food.”

So Kutnar did as he was bidden or tried to at least. It was past mid-day and he would have welcomed a rest after his morning’s hunting trip. The blood was surging to his temples but the boy-mind still ruled and so he went down to the river bank to search the gravels for material on which to work. But he found only disappointment, for the waters were ice-bound, and even if flint-lumps were there, he could not reach them. He returned to Castillo just before nightfall, and of course he returned empty-handed. Gonch scolded him soundly, even as he trembled for his own safety at thought of what the morrow might bring when Totan learned of his failure. He jerked the boar-hide loose that Kutnar wore about his body and hissed, “No food nor warmth either for him who does nothing. You shall pay by taking a turn at fire-watching to-night. To-morrow will be your last chance. The blades we will and must have.” He would have said more but as he looked about him, he saw the giant hetman watching and beckoning him to come that way. Gonch went reluctantly, for he had a fair idea of what was in the chieftain’s mind.

“The boy pays small attention to your orders,” Totan said grimly when the two were together. “I believe that you have grown careless. He is a flint-worker but he works no flints. No doubt you lie when you say he does.”

“Blades cannot be made from nothing,” was the answer. “The lad cannot find the flint on which to work.”

This was in part, repeating Kutnar’s own words and the hetman’s reply was curiously enough word for word the same as Gonch had given the boy.

“Find them yourself,” was his gruff response. “I will have no excuses. The blades must be made or no one knows whom we will be eating next.” He leered so affectionately at Gonch that the latter felt cold chills creeping up his spine. He determined for his own health he would accompany Kutnar on the morrow and help him find the flint-lumps. He could not hold Totan off forever, for the latter was already nearing the limit of his patience. “If Pic would only come, my troubles would be ended,” he thought. “These two giants would destroy each other, leaving me master beyond dispute.”

But Pic had not yet arrived and there seemed small chance of his doing so in time to improve the situation. “To-morrow I will help the boy find the flint-lumps,” he assured his chief. “He dare not fail me this time. I will not let him out of my sight until he secures the material and begins to make the blades.”

Before curling up in his hide-wrapping, he gave Kutnar his parting instructions: “Watch the fire to-night. In the morning, you will join the hunters in search of game. This done, we will go forth together and find the flint-lumps. Before sunset you must be at work making blades. Then, if you have done well, another shall have a turn at fire-watching and you may rest.” With that, he went his way.

Kutnar listened but said nothing. When he could sit alone and gaze into the firelight, it was the nascent man-mind that now whispered to him: “Drudgery and death will be yours if you stay here. Why serve them you despise and him you loathe? Up, boy, and prove yourself a worthy son of the Mammoth Man. Your friends are rushing to your aid. Far in the distance behind the screening haze, I see the form of a huge beast with long, gleaming tusks, ploughing toward you through the drifts. A mighty man sits astride his neck and a stout shaggy animal trots by his side. Awake and bite back at these yapping wolves or remain a slave and see no more of father and people and your friends the Hairy Elephant and Woolly Rhinoceros.”

XX

When Gonch arose next morning, he found Kutnar piling fresh wood upon the cave-hearth fire. The boy had been awake all night, nevertheless he appeared in good spirits. For some reason or other this angered the Muskman and he curtly ordered Kutnar to make ready for the morning hunt. This in itself was a flagrant violation of the Castillan code. Night fire-tenders were always permitted a rest after their labors while others attended to the next morning’s food-gathering. But this was an exceptional case. Gonch found the hetman’s brow-beating too much to bear and so he passed the burden with his spite added, on to the boy.

And still Kutnar did not complain but made ready as he was told. It would appear that he had resigned himself to the position of menial and camp drudge and would perform any work allotted him. So it seemed, judging by his actions; but Gonch was keen enough to see that the boy’s manner was not quite the same. He appeared to have changed over night. The change was in the look of his eyes. Gonch recalled that same look in the eyes of a wounded wolf he had once cornered. The beast had sprung upon him and bitten him severely as he approached to club it to death. The comparison might be a product of his imagination, but Gonch deemed it wise to take no chances. He would watch the boy and be on his guard, for there was no knowing what Kutnar might do if he once made up his mind to do it. The main thing to guard against was the sling. If the boy ever took a notion in his head to attack anyone with it, no doubt he would prove a dangerous customer. “A deadly toy,” was Gonch’s opinion of it. “I will keep an eye on the lad and see that he does not get a chance to use it.”

Kutnar took his place as usual in the morning hunt and Gonch accompanied him. No matter where they tramped; through snowdrifts and over hill and dale, whenever the boy looked behind him, there was the Muskman standing close at his elbow.

It was past mid-day when the party returned to Castillo. Kutnar had no sooner thrown himself down by the fire to rest than the Muskman curtly informed him it was time to descend to the bank of the River Pas and search for flint-lumps. Without a word, the boy rose obediently to his feet. Gonch again observed the strange hunted look of those eyes; also the jaws were set tightly together. It was on his mind to take several of the cave-men along too, for there was greater safety in numbers, but he put this notion scornfully aside. “What a fool I am to fear him and his fling-string,” he reflected. “A mere lad who knows better than to pit himself against a man”; but he was careful just the same and kept his ax in readiness to strike down the lad if he made a move to use the sling girt about his loins.

In this manner they descended to the river bank. Then began the search for flint-lumps, but in spite of their diligence, they had no success. With the passing of time, Gonch grew more and more desperate as he thought of the trip back to Castillo where he must face the hetman empty-handed. “Look closer, boy,” he snarled. “If you fail, there will be neither food nor rest for you to-night when we return.”

Kutnar looked furtively about him, not toward the ground but at the distant mountain of Castillo, the snow-covered lowlands and up and down the ice-bound stream. His hands fumbled with the rawhide thong tied about his waist. In an instant the Muskman’s ax flashed threateningly above his head.

“And so the little boy would play with his fling-string,” sounded Gonch’s taunting voice followed by a fierce command: “Quick, give it to me or I will kill you.” Kutnar’s nostrils swelled and his face reddened but there seemed no help for him. He loosened the sling from his body and cast it at the Muskman’s feet. At sight of the youth now completely disarmed and at his mercy, Gonch laughed a loud brutal laugh charged with cruelty and malice. “You hate me,” he hissed; “but your hatred is a mere pebble beside yonder mountain compared with what I feel toward you. Do you know why?”

Kutnar made no answer; merely glared at his tormentor with hunted eyes.

“Because you are the whelp of the Mammoth Man,” snarled Gonch. “He, your father, I hate even worse than I hate you. You do not know why.”

Again no answer; Kutnar only glared.

“Because he has the heart of a woman in his great lion body,” Gonch raved on vindictively. “Because he is a friend of beasts and would withhold them from the paunches of hungry men; because he would make weaklings of hunters and warriors; and because of the strength in his lion body which prevented my bringing him here a slave.”

Kutnar’s chest rose and fell with his hard breathing. He bit his lips until the blood came; but still he said nothing.

“I was but a wolf running amuck in his flock,” the Muskman sneered. “A rock fell from the cliff and nearly destroyed the Mammoth and Rhinoceros. Who pushed it down? I. A man set upon the Mammoth caught fast in the mire and would have destroyed him, had it not been for the meddling Rhinoceros. Who was that man? I. Who stole the Lion Man’s cub when all chance of securing the Lion Man himself was gone? I. Do you hear me, whelp? It was I.”

The boy’s eyes were now blazing like coals of fire. His face had become livid. Gonch noted the effect of his cruel mockery and he gloated over it even as he gloried in the boy’s helplessness.

“We were such dear good friends,” he scoffed. “I loved you, my comrade, as a hyena loves a bone. We fled to the southland together; you and I. Your father pursued us. He rode upon the Mammoth and soon we were overtaken. I thought it unwise for you to know who was pursuing us, for your father was angry and would have spoiled all. We lay hidden in the bushes. Another moment and you would have learned the truth, had not someone struck you from behind. Who struck that blow? A lion? No. It was——”

“You!” screamed Kutnar, and like a flash, he launched himself at his tormentor’s throat.

So sudden and unexpected was the attack that Gonch’s weapon was stricken from his hand. Now he too was unarmed. Over and over they rolled in the snow; first the man, then the boy uppermost, clawing and biting like wildcats and without apparent advantage to either. Gonch was howling with fury but Kutnar fought silently like a weasel and his hands ever worked for a weasel hold on his foeman’s throat. Rough and tumble, kick, strike, gouge; they struggled with all the strength and fury of madmen. For an instant they separated and each stood upon his feet. Gonch sprang to recover his ax but Kutnar frustrated this attempt with a quick leap that bore his detested enemy to the ground. The Muskman’s guard was open and Kutnar found the opportunity which he had long sought. Both hands clutched the Castillan’s throat and clung there like death.

Over and over they rolled again. Gonch’s cries were now screams of pain and rapidly losing force, even as his struggles to free his neck from that tearing, strangling clutch, became feebler and feebler. Kutnar felt his foe weakening; he gripped the tighter. Gonch’s body jerked convulsively, the blood trickled from his nostrils, then he relaxed and lay still. Kutnar released his hold and stood erect. The Muskman never moved. “Men will soon know of this,” the boy muttered; but there was no need of their knowing it too soon, so he seized the body by the shoulders and dragged it out of sight among some neighboring bushes. This done, he recovered his sling, also not forgetting to appropriate the Muskman’s fine flint-ax for his own use; then he was ready to proceed.

The die was cast and now there could be no turning back. Sooner or later, the man-pack would be after him. “To be caught is to be killed and to be killed is to be eaten,” he thought and so he made ready to escape with all speed. Which way? There was the broad highway eastward across the windswept snow-plain. It was the shortest route back to home and friends. He gazed longingly in that direction then shook his head. An endless journey in the dead of winter; the attempt would be madness. He could do it after the first spring thaw but not now. There was no help for it; the path pointing to the east meant cold, sickness and death. He turned to the south. There lay the mountains full of hiding places and caves no doubt where he might live protected from the elements. Food? His sling had killed for many; now it could surely kill for one. Yes, he would flee southward and take refuge among the mountains until such time as the return of mild weather would permit the long journey home.

He was making off along the line of the Pas when he thought of the Muskman. Something prompted him to look once more upon the body of his enemy and for the last time. He retraced his steps and entered the bushes. Gonch lay there upon his back. As Kutnar gazed down at him, he said in a melancholy voice: “The rogue has met his just deserts; and yet—it is hard to forget that I once looked upon him as a friend.”

He kneeled over the body and laid one ear against the chest. “Can it be that he is still alive?” he asked himself. “The heart still beats; the flesh is warm.” The thought disturbed him. He raised his ax. One blow and all doubts would be removed; then for some reason he hesitated. “He will die anyway,” the boy reasoned. “It would be but striking a corpse.”