Gor, the man-animal of that pre-glacial day, stared wondering, stupidly, into the storm with eyes like those of the wild pig. His arms were long, almost to his knees; his hair, coarse and matted, hung in greasy locks about his savage face. Behind his low, retreating forehead was place for little of thought or reason. Yet Gor was a man, and he met the threat of disaster by something better than blind, terrified, animal flight. A scant hundred in the tribe--men and women and little pot-bellied brown children--Gor gathered them together in the cave far back from the mouth. "For many moons," he told them by words and signs, "the fear has been upon us. There have been signs for us to see and for all the Four-feet--for Hathor, the great, and for little Wahti in his hole in the sand-hill. Hathor has swung his long snout above his curved tusks and has cried his fear, and the Eaters of the Dead have circled above him and cried _their_ cry. "And now the Sun-god does not warm us. He has gone to hide behind the clouds. He is afraid--afraid of the cold monster that blows white stinging things in his breath. "The Sun-god is gone--now, when he should be making hot summer! The Four-feet are going. Even Gwanga, the long-toothed, puts his tail between his legs and runs from the cold." * * * * * The naked bodies shivered in the chill that struck in from the storm-wrapped world; they drew closer their coverings of fur and hides. The light of their flickering fires played strange tricks with their savage faces to make them still uglier and to show the dull terror that gripped them. "Run--we must run--run away--the breath of the beast is on us--he follows close--run...." Through the mutterings and growls a sick child whimpered once, then was still. Gor was speaking again: "Run! Run away!" he mocked them. "And where shall the tribe of Zoran go? With Gwanga, to make food for his cat belly or to be hammered to death with the stones of the great tribes of the south?" There was none to reply--only a despairing moan from ugly lips. Gor waited, then answered his own question. "No!" he shouted, and beat upon his hairy chest that was round as the trunk of a tree. "Gor will save you--Gor, the wanderer! You named me well: my feet have traveled far. Beyond the red-topped mountains of the north I have gone; I have seen the tribes of the south, and I brought you a head for proof. I have followed the sun, and I have gone where it rises." In the half light, coarse strands of hair waved as hideous heads were nodded in confirmation of the boast, though many still drooped despairingly. "If Gor leads, where will he go?" a voice demanded. Another growled: "Gor's feet have gone far: where have they gone where the Beast cannot follow our scent?"