My ruse was successful,
and the entire party of man-hunters raced headlong after me up one
canyon while Ghak bore Perry to safety up the other.
Running has never been my particular athletic forte, and now when
my very life depended upon fleetness of foot I cannot say that I
ran any better than on the occasions when my pitiful base running
had called down upon my head the rooter's raucous and reproachful
cries of "Ice Wagon," and "Call a cab."
The Sagoths were gaining on me rapidly. There was one in particular,
fleeter than his fellows, who was perilously close. The canyon had
become a rocky slit, rising roughly at a steep angle toward what
seemed a pass between two abutting peaks. What lay beyond I could
not even guess--possibly a sheer drop of hundreds of feet into the
corresponding valley upon the other side. Could it be that I had
plunged into a cul-de-sac?
Realizing that I could not hope to outdistance the Sagoths to the
top of the canyon I had determined to risk all in an attempt to
check them temporarily, and to this end had unslung my rudely made
bow and plucked an arrow from the skin quiver which hung behind my
shoulder. As I fitted the shaft with my right hand I stopped and
wheeled toward the gorilla-man.
In the world of my birth I never had drawn a shaft, but since our
escape from Phutra I had kept the party supplied with small game
by means of my arrows, and so, through necessity, had developed
a fair degree of accuracy.
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