"AB STOOD THERE WEAPONLESS, A CREATURE WANDERING OF MIND"

"WITH A GREAT LEAP HE WENT AT AND THROUGH THE CURLING CREST OF THE YELLOW
FLAME!"

"THE GIRL COWERED BEHIND A REFUGE OF LEAVES AND BRANCHES"

"UPON THE STRONG SHAFT OF ASH THE MONSTER WAS IMPALED"




THE STORY OF AB.




CHAPTER I.


THE BABE IN THE WOODS.

Drifted beech leaves had made a soft, clean bed in a little hollow in a
wood. The wood was beside a river, the trend of which was toward the
east. There was an almost precipitous slope, perhaps a hundred and fifty
feet from the wood, downward to the river. The wood itself, a sort of
peninsula, was mall in extent and partly isolated from the greater forest
back of it by a slight clearing. Just below the wood, or, in fact, almost
in it and near the crest of the rugged bank, the mouth of a small cave