He
uncoiled his grass rope--it was the latest addition to his armament,
yet he was proficient with it. Often he traveled with nothing more
than his knife and his rope--they were light and easy to carry.
His spear and bow and arrows were cumbersome and he usually kept
one or all of them hidden away in a private cache.
Now he held a single coil of the long rope in his right hand, and
the balance in his left. The antelope was but a few paces from
him. Silently Korak leaped from his hiding place swinging the rope
free from the entangling shrubbery. The antelope sprang away almost
instantly; but instantly, too, the coiled rope, with its sliding
noose, flew through the air above him. With unerring precision it
settled about the creature's neck. There was a quick wrist movement
of the thrower, the noose tightened. The Killer braced himself with
the rope across his hip, and as the antelope tautened the singing
strands in a last frantic bound for liberty he was thrown over upon
his back.
Then, instead of approaching the fallen animal as a roper of the
western plains might do, Korak dragged his captive to himself,
pulling him in hand over hand, and when he was within reach leaping
upon him even as Sheeta the panther might have done, and burying his
teeth in the animal's neck while he found its heart with the point
of his hunting knife.
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