SOURCE: The Moon Maid (Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 5 1923) by Edgar Rice Burroughs

DESCRIPTION: " When we were tired we usually managed to find a cave in which we could rest in comparative security, and when it was possible to do so Nah-ee-lah always insisted upon barricading the entrance with rocks, since there was always the danger, she told me, of our being attacked by tor-hos. These blood-thirsty creatures while rare, were nevertheless very much to be feared, since not only were they voracious meat eaters and of such a savage disposition that they attacked nearly everything they saw in wanton ferocity, but even a minor wound inflicted by their fangs or talons often proved fatal, because of the fact that their principal diet was the poisonous flesh of the rympth and the flying toad: I tried to get Nah-ee-lah to describe the creature to me, but inasmuch as there was no creature with which we were both familiar that she might compare it with, I learned little more from her than that it stood between eighteen inches and two feet in height, had long, sharp fangs, four legs and was hairless...As we came abreast of the spot, upon which I kept my eye, there broke upon our ears the most hideous scream that I have ever heard, and simultaneously there leaped from the concealment of the bushes a creature about the size of a North American mountain lion, though quite evidently a reptile and probably a tor-ho, as such it proved to be. There was something about the head and face which suggested the cat family to me, yet there was really no resemblance between it and any of the earthly felines. It came at me with those terrible curved fangs bared and bristling and as it came it emitted the most terrifying sounds -- I have called them screams, because that word more nearly describes them than any other, and yet they were a combination of shrieks and moans -- the most blood-curdling that I have ever heard." (The Moon Maid by Edgar Rice Burroughs)

NOTES: The Tor-ho is the only predator in the Moon's interior world of Van-ah, preying upon both the Va-gas and the U-ga (humans). This creature is singular minded when it attacks, coming again and again until finally killed. Julian kills one with a club made from a tree branch. Its bite is posionous because the creature feeds on the poisonous rympth, the walking snake of Van-ah.

HISTORY: The Tor-ho is an extremely rare creature in Van-ah (The Inner of the Moon), so, of course, they run into one.