"Gr-r-ranga!" he growled. It was the sound he had made before when he had seen or had tried to tell them of the ape-men. "Gr-r-ranga! Gr-r-ranga!" He pointed about him as if to say: "There!--and there!--and there!" "Yes, yes!" Chet assured him. "We understand: you met up with a pack of them." Whereupon Towahg, with his monkey mimicry, gave a convincing demonstration of himself being seized and beaten: and the tooth-marks on nearly every inch of his body gave proof of the rough reception he had encountered. Then he showed himself escaping, running, swinging through trees, till he came to the camp. And now he raised his bruised body to a standing position and motioned them toward the forest. "Gr-r-ranga come!" he warned them, and repeated it over again, while his face wrinkled in fear that told plainly of the danger he had seen. Chet glanced at Harkness and knew his own gaze was as disconsolate as his companion's. "He's met up with them," he admitted, "though, for the life of me, I can't see how he ever got away if it was a crowd of messenger-apes who could petrify him with one look. There's something strange about that, but whatever it is, here's our guide in no shape to travel." * * * * * Towahg was growling and grimacing in an earnest effort to communicate some idea. His few words and the full power of his mimicry had been used to urge them on, to warn them that they must flee for their lives, but it seemed he had something else to tell. Suddenly he leaped into his grotesque dance, though his wounds must have made it an agonizing effort, but his joy in the thought that had come to him was too great to take quietly. He knew how to tell Chet! And with a protruded stomach he marched before them as a well-fed German might walk, and he stroked at an imaginary beard in reproduction of an act that was habitual with one they had known. "Schwartzmann?" asked Chet. He had used the name before when he and Towahg had led their enemy's "army" off the trail. "You have seen Schwartzmann?" And Towahg leaped and capered with delight. "Szhwarr!" he growled in an effort to pronounce the name; "Szhwarr come!" Chet made a wild leap for their bows and supplies. "Come on!" he shouted. "That's the answer. It isn't the ones from the pyramid; they're coming later. It's Schwartzmann and his bunch of apes. They've followed the messenger, they're on their way, and, in spite of his being all chewed up, Towahg can travel faster than that crowd. He'll guide us out of this yet!" * * * * * He was thrusting bundles of supplies--food, arrows, bows--into the eager hands of the others, while Towahg alternately licked his wounds and danced about with excitement. Diane's voice broke in upon the tense haste and bustle of the moment. She spoke quietly--her tone was flat, almost emotionless--yet there was a quality that made Chet drop what he was holding and reach for a bow.