l greedy for fun
and antics, play with restraint. The wind from the sea has died
down, and the shadows are lengthening with the last of the
sun's descent. And then, suddenly, from Red-Eye's cave, breaks
a wild screaming and the sound of blows. He is beating his
wife.
At first an awed silence comes upon us. But as the blows
and screams continue we break out into an insane gibbering of
helpless rage. It is plain that the men resent Red-Eye's
actions, but they are too afraid of him. The blows cease, and a
low groaning dies away, while we chatter among ourselves and
the sad twilight creeps upon us.
We, to whom most happenings were jokes, never laughed
during Red-Eye's wife-beatings. We knew too well the tragedy of
them. On more than one morning, at the base of the cliff, did
we find the body of his latest wife. He had tossed her there,
after she had died, from his cave-mouth. He never buried his
dead. The task of carrying away the bodies, that else would
have polluted our abiding-place, he left to the horde. We
usually flung them into the river below the last
drinking-place.
Not alone did Red-Eye murder his wives, but he also
murdered for his wives, in order to get them. When he wanted a
new wife and selected the wife of another man, he promptly
killed that man. Two of these murders I saw myself. The whole
horde knew, but could do nothing. We had not yet developed any
government, to speak of, inside the horde. We had certain
customs and visited our wrath upon the unlucky ones who
violated those customs. Thus, for example, the individual who
defiled a drinking-place would be attacked by every onlooker,
while one who deliberately gave a false alarm was the recipient
of much rough usage at our hands. But Red-Eye walked rough-shod
over all our customs, and we so feared him that we were
incapable of the collective action necessary to punish him.
It was during the sixth winter in our cave that Lop-Ear
and I discovered that we were really growing up. From the first
it had been a squeeze to get in through the entrance-crevice.
This had had its advantages, however. It had prevented the
larger Folk from taking our cave away from us. And it was a
most desirable cave, the highest on the bluff, the safest, and
in winter the smallest and warmest.
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To show the stage of the mental development of the Folk, I
may state that it would have been a simple thing for some of
them to have driven us out and enlarged the crevice-opening.
But they never thought of it. Lop-Ear and I did not think of it
either until our increasing size compelled us to make an
enlargement. This occurred when summer was well along and we
were fat with better forage. We worked at the crevice in
spells, when the fancy struck us.
At first we dug the crumbling rocks away with our fingers,
until our nails got sore, when I accidentally stumbled upon the
idea of using a piece of wood on the rock. This worked well.
Also it worked woe. One morning early, we had scratched out of
the wall quite a heap of fragments. I gave the heap a shove
over the lip of the entrance. The next moment there came up
from below a howl of rage. There was no need to look. We knew
the voice only too well. The rubbish had descended upon
Red-Eye.
We crouched down in the cave in consternation. A minute
later he was at the entrance, peering in at us with his
inflamed eyes and raging like a demon. But he was too large. He
could not get in to us. Suddenly he went away. This was
suspicious. By all we knew of Folk nature he should have
remained and had out his rage. I crept to the entrance and
peeped down. I could see him just beginning to mount the bluff
again. In one hand he carried a long stick. Before I could
divine his plan, he was back at the entrance and savagely
jabbing the stick in at us.
His thrusts were prodigious. They could have disembowelled
us. We shrank back against the side-walls, where we were almost
out of range. But by industrious poking he got us now and
again--cruel, scraping jabs with the end of the stick that
raked off the hide and hair. When we screamed with the hurt, he
roared his satisfaction and jabbed the harder.
I began to grow angry. I had a temper of my own in those
days, and pretty considerable courage, too, albeit it was
largely the courage of the cornered rat. I caught hold of the
stick with my hands, but such was his strength that he jerked
me into the crevice. He reached for me with his long arm, and
his nails tore my flesh as I leaped back from the clutch and
gained the comparative safety of the side-wall.
He began poking again, and caught me a painful blow on the
shoulder. Beyond shivering with fright and yelling when he was
hit, Lop-Ear did nothing. I looked for a stick with which to
jab back, but found only the end of a branch, an inch through
and a foot long. I threw this at Red-Eye. It did no damage,
though he howled with a sudden increase of rage at my daring to
strike back. He began jabbing furiously. I found a fragment of
rock and threw it at him, striking him on the chest.
This emboldened me, and, besides, I was now as angry as
he, and had lost all fear. I ripped fragment of rock from the
wall. The piece must have weighed two or threepounds. With my
strength I slammed it full into Red-Eye's face. It nearly
finished him. He staggered backward, dropping his stick, and
almost fell off the cliff.
He was a ferocious sight. His face was covered with blood,
and he was snarling and gnashing his fangs like a wild boar. He
wiped the blood from his eyes, caught sight of me, and roared
with fury. His stick was gone, so he began ripping out chunks
of crumbling rock and throwing them in at me. This supplied me
with ammunition. I gave him as good as he sent, and better; for
he presented a good target, while he caught only glimpses of me
as I snuggled against the side-wall.
Suddenly he disappeared again. From the lip of the cave I
saw him descending. All the horde had gathered outside and in
awed silence was looking on. As he descended, the more timid
ones scurried for their caves. I could see old Marrow-Bone
tottering along as fast as he could. Red-Eye sprang out from
the wall and finished the last twenty feet through the air. He
landed alongside a mother who was just beginning the ascent.
She screamed with fear, and the two-year-old child that was
clinging to her released its grip and rolled at Red-Eye's feet.
Both he and the mother reached for it, and he got it. The next
moment the frail little body had whirled through the air and
shattered against the wall. The mother ran to it, caught it up
in her arms, and crouched over it crying.
Red-Eye started over to pick up the stick. Old Marrow-Bone
had tottered into his way. Red-Eye's great hand shot out and
clutched the old man by the back of the neck. I looked to see
his neck broken. His body went limp as he surrendered himself
to his fate.
Red-Eye hesitated a moment, and Marrow-Bone, shivering
terribly, bowed his head and covered his face with his crossed
arms. Then Red-Eye slammed him face-downward to the ground. Old
Marrow-Bone did not struggle. He lay there crying with the fear
of death. I saw the Hairless One, out in the open space,
beating his chest and bristling, but afraid to come forward.
And then, in obedience to some whim of his erratic spirit,
Red-Eye let the old man alone and passed on and recovered the
stick.
He returned to the wall and began to climb up. Lop-Ear,
who was shivering and peeping alongside of me, scrambled back
into the cave. It was plain that Red-Eye was bent upon murder.
I was desperate and angry and fairly cool. Running back and
forth along the neighboring ledges, I gathered a heap of rocks
at the cave-entrance. Red-Eye was now several yards beneath me,
concealed for the moment by an out-jut of the cliff. As he
climbed, his head came into view, and I banged a rock down. It
missed, striking the wall and shattering; but the flying dust
and grit filled his eyes and he drew back out of view.
A chuckling and chattering arose from the horde, that
played the part of audience. At last there was one of the Folk
who dared to face Red-Eye. As their approval and acclamation
arose on the air, Red-Eye snarled down at them, and on the
instant they were subdued to silence. Encouraged by this
evidence of his power, he thrust his head into view, and by
scowling and snarling and gnashing his fangs tried to
intimidate me. He scowled horribly, contracting the scalp
strongly over the brows and bringing the hair down from the top
of the head until each hair stood apart and pointed straight
forward.
The sight chilled me, but I mastered my fear, and, with a
stone poised in my hand, threatened him back. He still tried to
advance. I drove the stone down at him and made a sheer miss.
The next shot was a success. The stone struck him on the neck.
He slipped back out of sight, but as he disappeared I could see
him clutching for a grip on the wall with one hand, and with
the other clutching at his throat. The stick fell clattering to
the ground.
I could not see him any more, though I could hear him
choking and strangling and coughing. The audience kept a
death-like silence. I crouched on the lip of the entrance and
waited. The strangling and coughing died down, and I could hear
him now and again clearing his throat. A little later he began
to climb down. He went very quietly, pausing every moment or so
to stretch his neck or to feel it with his hand.
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At the sight of him descending, the whole horde, with wild
screams and yells, stampeded for the woods. Old Marrow-Bone,
hobbling and tottering, followed behind. Red-Eye took no notice
of the flight. When he reached the ground he skirted the base
of the bluff and climbed up and into his own cave. He did not
look around once.
I stared at Lop-Ear, and he stared back. We understood
each other. Immediately, and with great caution and quietness,
we began climbing up the cliff. When we reached the top we
looked back. The abiding-place was deserted, Red-Eye remained
in his cave, and the horde had disappeared in the depths of the
forest.
We turned and ran. We dashed across the open spaces and
down the slopes unmindful of possible snakes in the grass,
until we reached the woods. Up into the trees we went, and on
and on, swinging our arboreal flight until we had put miles
between us and the caves. And then, and not till then, in the
security of a great fork, we paused, looked at each other, and
began to laugh. We held on to each other, arms and legs, our
eyes streaming tears, our ,sides aching, and laughed and
laughed and laughed.
CHAPTER X
After we had had out our laugh, Lop-Ear and I curved back
in our flight and got breakfast in the blueberry swamp. It was
the same swamp to which I had made my first journeys in the
world, years before, accompanied by my mother. I had seen
little of her in the intervening time. Usually, when she
visited the horde at the caves, I was away in the forest. I had
once or twice caught glimpses of the Chatterer in the open
space, and had had the pleasure of making faces at him and
angering him from the mouth of my cave. Beyond such amenities I
had left my family severely alone. I was not much interested in
it, and anyway I was doing very well by myself.
After eating our fill of berries, with two nestfuls of
partly hatched quail-eggs for dessert, Lop-Ear and I wandered
circumspectly into the woods toward the river. Here was where
stood my old home-tree, out of which I had been thrown by the
Chatterer. It was still occupied. There had been increase in
the family. Clinging tight to my mother was a little baby.
Also, there was a girl, partly grown, who cautiously regarded
us from one of the lower branches. She was evidently my sister,
or half-sister, rather.
My mother recognized me, but she warned me away when I
started to climb into the tree. Lop-Ear, who was more cautious
by far than I, beat a retreat, nor could I persuade him to
return. Later in the day, however, my sister came down to the
ground, and there and in neighboring trees we romped and played
all afternoon. And then came trouble. She was my sister, but
that did not prevent her from treating me abominably, for she
had inherited all the viciousness of the Chatterer. She turned
upon me suddenly, in a petty rage, and scratched me, tore my
hair, and sank her sharp little teeth deep into my forearm. I
lost my temper. I did not injure her, but it was undoubtedly
the soundest spanking she had received up to that time.
How she yelled and squalled. The Chatterer, who had been
away all day and who was only then returning, heard the noise
and rushed for the spot. My mother also rushed, but he got
there first. Lop-Ear and I did not wait his coming. We were off
and away, and the Chatterer gave us the chase of our lives
through the trees.
After the chase was over, and Lop-Ear and I had had out
our laugh, we discovered that twilight was falling. Here was
night with all its terrors upon us, and to return to the caves
was out of the question. Red-Eye made that impossible. We took
refuge in a tree that stood apart from other trees, and high up
in a fork we passed the night. It was a miserable night. For
the first few hours it rained heavily, then it turned cold and
a chill wind blew upon us. Soaked through, with shivering
bodies and chattering teeth, we huddled in each other's arms.
We missed the snug, dry cave that so quickly warmed with the
heat of our bodies.
Morning found us wretched and resolved. We would not spend
another such night. Remembering the tree-shelters of our
elders, we set to work to make one for ourselves. We built the
framework of a rough nest, and on higher forks overhead even
got in several ridge-poles for the roof. Then the sun came out,
and under its benign influence we forgot the hardships of the
night and went off in search of breakfast. After that, to show
the inconsequentiality of life in those days, we fell to
playing. It must have taken us all of a month, working
intermittently, to make our tree-house; and then, when it was
completed, we never used it again.
But I run ahead of my story. When we fell to playing,
after breakfast, on the second day away from the caves, Lop-Ear
led me a chase through the trees and down to the river. We came
out upon it where a large slough entered from the blueberry
swamp. The mouth of this slough was wide, while the slough
itself was practically without a current. In the dead water,
just inside its mouth, lay a tangled mass of tree trunks. Some
of these, what of the wear and tear of freshets and of being
stranded long summers on sand-bars, were seasoned and dry and
without branches. They floated high in the water, and bobbed up
and down or rolled over when we put our weight upon them.
Here and there between the trunks were water-cracks, and
through them we could see schools of small fish, like minnows,
darting back and forth. Lop-Ear and I became fishermen at once.
Lying flat on the logs, keeping perfectly quiet, waiting till
the minnows came close, we would make swift passes with our
hands. Our prizes we ate on the spot, wriggling and moist. We
did not notice the lack of salt.
The mouth of the slough became our favorite playground.
Here we spent many hours each day, catching fish and playing on
the logs, and here, one day, we learned our first lessons in
navigation. The log on which Lop-Ear was lying got adrift. He
was curled up on his side, asleep. A light fan of air slowly
drifted the log away from the shore, and when I noticed his
predicament the distance was already too great for him to leap.
At first the episode seemed merely funny to me. But when
one of the vagrant impulses of fear, common in that age of
perpetual insecurity, moved within me, I was struck with my own
loneliness. I was made suddenly aware of Lop-Ear's remoteness
out there on that alien element a few feet away. I called
loudly to him a warning cry. He awoke frightened, and shifted
his weight rashly on the log. It turned over, sousing him
under. Three times again it soused him under as he tried to
climb out upon it. Then he succeeded, crouching upon it and
chattering with fear.
I could do nothing. Nor could he. Swimming was something
of which we knew nothing. We were already too far removed from
the lower life-forms to have the instinct for swimming, and we
had not yet become sufficiently man-like to undertake it as the
working out of a problem. I roamed disconsolately up and down
the bank, keeping as close to him in his involuntary travels as
I could, while he wailed and cried till it was a wonder that he
did not bring down upon us every hunting animal within a mile.
The hours passed. The sun climbed overhead and began its
descent to the west. The light wind died down and left Lop-Ear
on his log floating around a hundred feet away. And then,
somehow, I know not how, Lop-Ear made the great discovery. He
began paddling with his hands. At first his progress was slow
and erratic. Then he straightened out and began laboriously to
paddle nearer and nearer. I could not understand. I sat down
and watched and waited until he gained the shore.
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But he had learned something, which was more than I had
done. Later in the afternoon, he deliberately launched out from
shore on the log. Still later he persuaded me to join him, and
I, too, learned the trick of paddling. For the next several
days we could not tear ourselves away from the slough. So
absorbed were we in our new game that we almost neglected to
eat. We even roosted in a nearby tree at night. And we forgot
that Red-Eye existed.
We were always trying new logs, and we learned that the
smaller the log the faster we could make it go. Also, we
learned that the smaller the log the more liable it was to roll
over and give us a ducking. Still another thing about small
logs we learned. One day we paddled our individual logs
alongside each other. And then, quite by accident, in the
course of play, we discovered that when each, with one hand and
foot, held on to the other's log, the logs were steadied and
did not turn over. Lying side by side in this position, our
outside hands and feet were left free for paddling. Our final
discovery was that this arrangement enabled us to use still
smaller logs and thereby gain greater speed. And there our
discoveries ended. We had invented the most primitive
catamaran, and we did not have sense enough to know it. It
never entered our heads to lash the logs together with tough
vines or stringy roots. We were content to hold the logs
together with our hands and feet.
It was not until we got over our first enthusiasm for
navigation and had begun to return to our tree-shelter to sleep
at night, that we found the Swift One. I saw her first,
gathering young acorns from the branches of a large oak near
our tree. She was very timid. At first, she kept very still;
but when she saw that she was discovered she dropped to the
ground and dashed wildly away. We caught occasional glimpses of
her from day to day, and came to look for her when we travelled
back and forth between our tree and the mouth of the slough.
And then, one day, she did not run away. She waited our
coming, and made soft peace-sounds. We could not get very near,
however. When we seemed to approach too close, she darted
suddenly away and from a safe distance uttered the soft sounds
again. This continued for some days. It took a long while to
get acquainted with her, but finally it was accomplished and
she joined us sometimes in our play.
I liked her from the first. She was of most pleasing
appearance. She was very mild. Her eyes were the mildest I had
ever seen. In this she was quite unlike the rest of the girls
and women of the Folk, who were born viragos. She never made
harsh, angry cries, and it seemed to be her nature to flee away
from trouble rather than to remain and fight.
The mildness I have mentioned seemed to emanate from her
whole being. Her bodily as well as facial appearance was the
cause of this. Her eyes were larger than most of her kind, and
they were not so deep-set, while the lashes were longer and
more regular. Nor was her nose so thick and squat. It had quite
a bridge, and the nostrils opened downward. Her incisors were
not large, nor was her upper lip long and down-hanging, nor her
lower lip protruding. She was not very hairy, except on the
outsides of arms and legs and across the shoulders; and while
she was thin-hipped, her calves were not twisted and gnarly.
I have often wondered, looking back upon her from the
twentieth century through the medium of my dreams, and it has
always occurred to me that possibly she may have been related
to the Fire People. Her father, or mother, might well have come
from that higher stock. While such things were not common,
still they did occur, and I have seen the proof of them with my
own eyes, even to the extent of members of the horde turning
renegade and going to live with the Tree People.
All of which is neither here nor there. The Swift One was
radically different from any of the females of the horde, and I
had a liking for her from the first. Her mildness and
gentleness attracted me. She was never rough, and she never
fought. She always ran away, and right here may be noted the
significance of the naming of her. She was a better climber
than Lop-Ear or I. When we played tag we could never catch her
except by accident, while she could catch us at will. She was
remarkably swift in all her movements, and she had a genius for
judging distances that was equalled only by her daring.
Excessively timid in all other matters, she was without fear
when it came to climbing or running through the trees, and
Lop-Ear and I were awkward and lumbering and cowardly in
comparison.
She was an orphan. We never saw her with any one, and
there was no telling how long she had lived alone in the world.
She must have learned early in her helpless childhood that
safety lay only in flight. She was very wise and very discreet.
It became a sort of game with Lop-Ear and me to try to find
where she lived. It was certain that she had a tree-shelter
somewhere, and not very far away; but trail her as we would, we
could never find it. She was willing enough to join with us at
play in the day-time, but the secret of her abiding-place she
guarded jealously.
CHAPTER XI
It must be remembered that the description I have just
given of the Swift One is not the description that would have
been given by Big-Tooth, my other self of my dreams, my
prehistoric ancestor. It is by the medium of my dreams that I,
the modern man, look through the eyes of Big-Tooth and see.
And so it is with much that I narrate of the events of
that far-off time. There is a duality about my impressions that
is too confusing to inflict upon my readers. I shall merely
pause here in my narrative to indicate this duality, this
perplexing mixing of personality. It is I, the modern, who look
back across the centuries and weigh and analyze the emotions
and motives of Big-Tooth, my other self. He did not bother to
weigh and analyze. He was simplicity itself. He just lived
events, without ever pondering why he lived them in his
particular and often erratic way.
As I, my real self, grew older, I entered more and more
into the substance of my dreams. One may dream, and even in the
midst of the dream be aware that he is dreaming, and if the
dream be bad, comfort himself with the thought that it is only
a dream. This is a common experience with all of us. And so it
was that I, the modern, often entered into my dreaming, and in
the consequent strange dual personality was both actor and
spectator. And right often have I, the modern, been perturbed
and vexed by the foolishness, illogic, obtuseness, and general
all-round stupendous stupidity of myself, the primitive.
And one thing more, before I end this digression. Have you
ever dreamed that you dreamed? Dogs dream, horses dream, all
animals dream. In Big-Tooth's day the half-men dreamed, and
when the dreams were bad they howled in their sleep. Now I, the
modern, have lain down with Big-Tooth and dreamed his dreams.
This is getting almost beyond the grip of the intellect, I
know; but I do know that I have done this thing. And let me
tell you that the flying and crawling dreams of Big-Tooth were
as vivid to him as the falling-through-space dream is to you.
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For Big-Tooth also had an other-self, and when he slept
that other-self dreamed back into the past, back to the winged
reptiles and the clash and the onset of dragons, and beyond
that to the scurrying, rodent-like life of the tiny mammals,
and far remoter still, to the shore-slime of the primeval sea.
I cannot, I dare not, say more. It is all too vague and
complicated and awful. I can only hint of those vast and
terrific vistas through which I have peered hazily at the
progression of life, not upward from the ape to man, but upward
from the worm.
And now to return to my tale. I, Big-Tooth, knew not the
Swift One as a creature of finer facial and bodily symmetry,
with long-lashed eyes and a bridge to her nose and down-opening
nostrils that made toward beauty. I knew her only as the
mild-eyed young female who made soft sounds and did not fight.
I liked to play with her, I knew not why, to seek food in her
company, and to go bird-nesting with her. And I must confess
she taught me things about tree-climbing. She was very wise,
very strong, and no clinging skirts impeded her movements.
It was about this time that a slight defection arose on
the part of Lop-Ear. He got into the habit of wandering off in
the direction of the tree where my mother lived. He had taken a
liking to my vicious sister, and the Chatterer had come to
tolerate him. Also, there were several other young people,
progeny of the monogamic couples that lived in the
neighborhood, and Lop-Ear played with these young people.
I could never get the Swift One to join with them.
Whenever I visited them she dropped behind and disappeared. I
remember once making a strong effort to persuade her. But she
cast backward, anxious glances, then retreated, calling to me
from a tree. So it was that I did not make a practice of
accompanying Lop-Ear when he went to visit his new friends. The
Swift One and I were good comrades, but, try as I would, I
could never find her tree-shelter. Undoubtedly, had nothing
happened, we would have soon mated, for our liking was mutual;
but the something did happen.
One morning, the Swift One not having put in an
appearance, Lop-Ear and I were down at the mouth of the slough
playing on the logs. We had scarcely got out on the water, when
we were startled by a roar of rage. It was Red-Eye. He was
crouching on the edge of the timber jam and glowering his
hatred at us. We were badly frightened, for here was no
narrow-mouthed cave for refuge. But the twenty feet of water
that intervened gave us temporary safety, and we plucked up
courage.
Red-Eye stood up erect and began beating his hairy chest
with his fist. Our two logs were side by side, and we sat on
them and laughed at him. At first our laughter was
half-hearted, tinged with fear, but as we became convinced of
his impotence we waxed uproarious. He raged and raged at us,
and ground his teeth in helpless fury. And in our fancied
security we mocked and mocked him. We were ever short-sighted,
we Folk.
Red-Eye abruptly ceased his breast-beating and
tooth-grinding, and ran across the timber-jam to the shore. And
just as abruptly our merriment gave way to consternation. It
was not Red-Eye's way to forego revenge so easily. We waited in
fear and trembling for whatever was to happen. It never struck
us to paddle away. He came back with great leaps across the
jam, one huge hand filled with round, water-washed pebbles. I
am glad that he was unable to find larger missiles, say stones
weighing two or three pounds, for we were no more than a score
of feet away, and he surely would have killed us.
As it was, we were in no small danger. Zip! A tiny pebble
whirred past with the force almost of a bullet. Lop-Ear and I
began paddling frantically. Whiz-zip-bang ! Lop-Ear screamed
with sudden anguish. The pebble had struck him between the
shoulders. Then I got one and yelled. The only thing that saved
us was the exhausting of Red-Eye's ammunition. He dashed back
to the gravel-bed for more, while Lop-Ear and I paddled away.
Gradually we drew out of range, though Red-Eye continued
making trips for more ammunition and the pebbles continued to
whiz about us. Out in the centre of the slough there was a
slight current, and in our excitement we failed to notice that
it was drifting us into the river. We paddled, and Red-Eye kept
as close as he could to us by following along the shore. Then
he discovered larger rocks. Such ammunition increased his
range. One fragment, fully five pounds in weight, crashed on
the log
alongside of me, and such was its impact that it drove a
score of splinters, like fiery needles, into my leg. Had it
struck me it would have killed me.
And then the river current caught us. So wildly were we
paddling that Red-Eye was the first to notice it, and our first
warning was his yell of triumph. Where the edge of the current
struck the slough-water was a series of eddies or small
whirlpools. These caught our clumsy logs and whirled them end
for end, back and forth and around. We quit paddling and
devoted our whole energy to holding the logs together alongside
each other. In the meanwhile Red-Eye continued to bombard us,
the rock fragments falling about us, splashing water on us, and
menacing our lives. At the same time he gloated over us, wildly
and vociferously.
It happened that there was a sharp turn in the river at
the point where the slough entered, and the whole main current
of the river was deflected to the other bank. And toward that
bank, which was the north bank, we drifted rapidly, at the same
time going down-stream. This quickly took us out of range of
Red-Eye, and the last we saw of him was far out on a point of
land, where he was jumping up and down and chanting a paean of
victory.
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Beyond holding the two logs together, Lop-Ear and I did
nothing. We were resigned to our fate, and we remained resigned
until we aroused to the fact that we were drifting along the
north shore not a hundred feet away. We began to paddle for it.
Here the main force of the current was flung back toward the
south shore, and the result of our paddling was that we crossed
the current where it was swiftest and narrowest. Before we were
aware, we were out of it and in a quiet eddy.
Our logs drifted slowly and at last grounded gently on the
bank. Lop-Ear and I crept ashore.The logs drifted on out of the
eddy and swept away down the stream. We looked at each other,
but we did not laugh. We were in a strange land, and it did not
enter our minds that we could return to our own land in the
same manner that we had come.
We had learned how to cross a river, though we did not
know it. And this was something that no one else of the Folk
had ever done. We were the first of the Folk to set foot on the
north bank of the river, and, for that matter, I believe the
last. That they would have done so in the time to come is
undoubted; but the migration of the Fire People, and the
consequent migration of the survivors of the Folk, set back our
evolution for centuries.
Indeed, there is no telling how disastrous was to be the
outcome of the Fire People's migration. Personally, I am prone
to believe that it brought about the destruction of the Folk;
that we, a branch of lower life budding toward the human, were
nipped short off and perished down by the roaring surf where
the river entered the sea. Of course, in such an eventuality, I
remain to be accounted for; but I outrun my story, and such
accounting will be made before I am done.
CHAPTER XII
I have no idea how long Lop-Ear and I wandered in the land
north of the river. We were like mariners wrecked on a desert
isle, so far as concerned the likelihood of our getting home
again. We turned our backs upon the river, and for weeks and
months adventured in that wilderness where there were no Folk.
It is very difficult for me to reconstruct our journeying, and
impossible to do it from day to day. Most of it is hazy and
indistinct, though here and there I have vivid recollections of
things that happened.
Especially do I remember the hunger we endured on the
mountains between Long Lake and Far Lake, and the calf we
caught sleeping in the thicket. Also, there are the Tree People
who dwelt in the forest between Long Lake and the mountains. It
was they who chased us into the mountains and compelled us to
travel on to Far Lake.
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First, after we left the river, we worked toward the west
till we came to a small stream that flowed through marshlands.
Here we turned away toward the north, skirting the marshes and
after several days arriving at what I have called Long Lake. We
spent some time around its upper end, where we found food in
plenty; and then, one day, in the forest, we ran foul of the
Tree People. These creatures were ferocious apes, nothing more.
And yet they were not so different from us. They were more
hairy, it is true; their legs were a trifle more twisted and
gnarly, their eyes a bit smaller, their necks a bit thicker and
shorter, and their nostrils slightly more like orifices in a
sunken surface; but they had no hair on their faces and
on the palms of their hands and the soles of their feet, and
they made sounds similar to ours with somewhat similar
meanings. After all, the Tree People and the Folk were not so
unlike.
I found him first, a little withered, dried-up old fellow,
wrinkled-faced and bleary-eyed and tottery. He was legitimate
prey. In our world there was no sympathy between the kinds, and
he was not our kind. He was a Tree-Man, and he was very old. He
was sitting at the foot of a tree--evidently his tree, for we
could see the tattered nest in the branches, in which he slept
at night.
I pointed him out to Lop-Ear, and we made a rush for him.
He started to climb, but was too slow. I caught him by the leg
and dragged him back. Then we had fun. We pinched him, pulled
his hair, tweaked his ears, and poked twigs into him, and all
the while we laughed with streaming eyes. His futile anger was
most absurd. He was a comical sight, striving to fan into flame
the cold ashes of his youth, to resurrect his strength dead and
gone through the oozing of the years--making woful faces in
place of the ferocious ones he intended, grinding his worn
teeth together, beating his meagre chest with feeble fists.
Also, he had a cough, and he gasped and hacked and
spluttered prodigiously. Every time he tried to climb the tree
we pulled him back, until at last he surrendered to his
weakness and did no more than sit and weep. And Lop-Ear and I
sat with him, our arms around each other, and laughed at his
wretchedness.
From weeping he went to whining, and from whining to
wailing, until at last he achieved a scream. This alarmed us,
but the more we tried to make him cease, the louder he
screamed. And then, from not far away in the forest, came a
"Goek! Goek!" to our ears. To this there were answering cries,
several of them, and from very far off we could hear a big,
bass "Goek! Goek! Goek!" Also, the "Whoo-whoo !" call was
rising in the forest all around us.
Then came the chase. It seemed it never would end. They
raced us through the trees, the whole tribe of them, and nearly
caught us. We were forced to take to the ground, and here we
had the advantage, for they were truly the Tree People, and
while they out-climbed us we out-footed them on the ground. We
broke away toward the north, the tribe howling on our track.
Across the open spaces we gained, and in the brush they caught
up with us, and more than once it was nip and tuck. And as the
chase continued, we realized that we were not their kind,
either, and that the bonds between us were anything but
sympathetic.
They ran us for hours. The forest seemed interminable. We
kept to the glades as much as possible, but they always ended
in more thick forest. Sometimes we thought we had escaped, and
sat down to rest; but always, before we could recover our
breath, we would hear the hateful "Whoo-whoo!" cries and the
terrible "Goek! Goek! Goek!" This latter sometimes terminated
in a savage "Ha ha ha ha haaaaa!!!"
And in this fashion were we hunted through the forest by
the exasperated Tree People. At last, by mid-afternoon, the
slopes began rising higher and higher and the trees were
becoming smaller. Then we came out on the grassy flanks of the
mountains. Here was where we could make time, and here the Tree
People gave up and returned to their forest.
The mountains were bleak and inhospitable, and three times
that afternoon we tried to regain the woods. But the Tree
People were lying in wait, and they drove us back. Lop-Ear and
I slept that night in a dwarf tree, no larger than a bush. Here
was no security, and we would have been easy prey for any
hunting animal that chanced along.
In the morning, what of our new-gained respect for the
Tree People, we faced into the mountains. That we had no
definite plan, or even idea, I am confident. We were merely
driven on by the danger we had escaped. Of our wanderings
through the mountains I have only misty memories. We were in
that bleak region many days, and we suffered much, especially
from fear, it was all so new and strange. Also, we suffered
from the cold, and later from hunger.
It--was a desolate land of rocks and foaming streams and
clattering cataracts. We climbed and descended mighty canyons
and gorges; and ever, from every view point, there spread out
before us, in all directions, range upon range, the unceasing
mountains. We slept at night in holes and crevices, and on one
cold night we perched on top a slender pinnacle of rock that
was almost like a tree.
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And then, at last, one hot midday, dizzy with hunger, we
gained the divide. From this high backbone of earth, to the
north, across the diminishing, down-falling ranges, we caught a
glimpse of a far lake. The sun shone upon it, and about it were
open, level grass-lands, while to the eastward we saw the dark
line of a wide-stretching forest.
We were two days in gaining the lake, and we were weak
with hunger; but on its shore, sleeping snugly in a thicket, we
found a part-grown calf. It gave us much trouble, for we knew
no other way to kill than with our hands. When we had gorged
our fill, we carried the remainder of the meat to the eastward
forest and hid it in a tree. We never returned to that tree,
for the shore of the stream that drained Far Lake was packed
thick with salmon that had come up from the sea to spawn.
Westward from the lake stretched the grass-lands, and here
were multitudes of bison and wild cattle. Also were there many
packs of wild dogs, and as there were no trees it was not a
safe place for us. We followed north along the stream for days.
Then, and for what reason I do not know, we abruptly left the
stream and swung to the east, and then to the southeast,
through a great forest. I shall not bore you with our journey.
I but indicate it to show how we finally arrived at the Fire
People's country.
We came out upon the river, but we did not know it for our
river. We had been lost so long that we had come to accept the
condition of being lost as habitual. As I look back I see
clearly how our lives and destinies are shaped by the merest
chance. We did not know it was our river--there was no way of
telling; and if we had never crossed it we would most probably
have never returned to the horde; and I, the modern, the
thousand centuries yet to be born, would never have been born .
And yet Lop-Ear and I wanted greatly to return. We had
experienced homesickness on our journey, the yearning for our
own kind and land; and often had I had recollections of the
Swift One, the young female who made soft sounds, whom it was
good to be with, and who lived by herself nobody knew where. My
recollections of her were accompanied by sensations of hunger,
and these I felt when I was not hungry and when I had just
eaten.
But to come back to the river. Food was plentiful,
principally berries and succulent roots, and on the river bank
we played and lingered for days. And then the idea came to
Lop-Ear. It was a visible process, the coming of the idea. I
saw it. The expression in his eyes became plaintive and
querulous, and he was greatly perturbed. Then his eyes went
muddy, as if he had lost his grip on the inchoate thought. This
was followed by the plaintive, querulous expression as the idea
persisted and he clutched it anew. He looked at me, and at the
river and the far shore. He tried to speak, but had no sounds
with which to express the idea. The result was a gibberish that
made me laugh. This angered him, and he grabbed me suddenly and
threw me on my back. Of course we fought, and in the end I
chased him up a tree, where he secured a long branch and poked
me every time I tried to get at him.
And the idea had gone glimmering. I did not know, and he
had forgotten. But the next morning it awoke in him again.
Perhaps it was the homing instinct in him asserting itself that
made the idea persist. At any rate it was there, and clearer
than before. He led me down to the water, where a log had
grounded in an eddy. I thought he was minded to play, as we had
played in the mouth of the slough. Nor did I change my mind as
I watched him tow up a second log from farther down the shore.
It was not until we were on the logs, side by side and
holding them together, and had paddled out into the current,
that I learned his intention. He paused to point at the far
shore, and resumed his paddling, at the same time uttering loud
and encouraging cries. I understood, and we paddled
energetically. The swift current caught us, flung us toward the
south shore, but before we could make a landing flung us back
toward the north shore.
Here arose dissension. Seeing the north shore so near, I
began to paddle for it. Lop-Ear tried to paddle for the south
shore. The logs swung around in circles, and we got nowhere,
and all the time the forest was flashing past as we drifted
down the stream. We could not fight. We knew better than to let
go the grips of hands and feet that held the logs together. But
we chattered and abused each other with our tongues until the
current flung us toward the south bank again. That was now the
nearest goal, and together and amicably we paddled for it. We
landed in an eddy, and climbed directly into the trees to
reconnoitre.
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CHAPTER XIII
It was not until the night of our first day on the south
bank of the river that we discovered the Fire People. What must
have been a band of wandering hunters went into camp not far
from the tree in which Lop-Ear and I had elected to roost for
the night. The voices of the Fire People at first alarmed us,
but later, when darkness had come, we were attracted by the
fire. We crept cautiously and silently from tree to tree till
we got a good view of the scene.
In an open space among the trees, near to the river, the
fire was burning. About it were half a dozen Fire-Men. Lop-Ear
clutched me suddenly, and I could feel him tremble. I looked
more closely, and saw the wizened little old hunter who had
shot Broken-Tooth out of the tree years before. When he got up
and walked about, throwing fresh wood upon the fire, I saw that
he limped with his crippled leg. Whatever it was, it was a
permanent injury. He seemed more dried up and wizened than
ever, and the hair on his face was quite gray.
The other hunters were young men. I noted, lying near them
on the ground, their bows and arrows, and I knew the weapons
for what they were. The Fire-Men wore animal skins around their
waists and across their shoulders. Their arms and legs,
however, were bare, and they wore no footgear. As I have said
before, they were not quite so hairy as we of the Folk. They
did not have large heads, and between them and the Folk there
was very little difference in the degree of the slant of the
head back from the eyes.
They were less stooped than we, less springy in their
movements. Their backbones and hips and knee-joints seemed more
rigid. Their arms were not so long as ours either, and I did
not notice that they ever balanced themselves when they walked,
by touching the ground on either side with their hands. Also,
their muscles were more rounded and symmetrical than ours, and
their faces were more pleasing. Their nose orifices opened
downward; likewise the bridges of their noses were more
developed, did not look so squat nor crushed as ours. Their
lips were less flabby and pendent, and their eye-teeth did not
look so much like fangs. However, they were quite as
thin-hipped as we, and did not weigh much more. Take it all in
all, they were less different from us than were we from the
Tree People. Certainly, all three kinds were related, and not
so remotely related at that.
The fire around which they sat was especially attractive.
Lop-Ear and I sat for hours, watching the flames and smoke. It
was most fascinating when fresh fuel was thrown on and showers
of sparks went flying upward. I wanted to come closer and look
at the fire, but there was no way. We were crouching in the
forks of a tree on the edge of the open space, and we did not
dare run the risk of being discovered.
The Fire-Men squatted around the fire and slept with their
heads bowed forward on their knees. They did not sleep soundly.
Their ears twitched in their sleep, and they were restless.
Every little while one or another got up and threw more wood
upon the fire. About the circle of light in the forest, in the
darkness beyond, roamed hunting animals. Lop-Ear and I could
tell them by their sounds. There were wild dogs and a hyena,
and for a time there was a great yelping and snarling that
awakened on the instant the whole circle of sleeping Fire-Men.
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Once a lion and a lioness stood beneath our tree and gazed
out with bristling hair and blinking eyes. The lion licked his
chops and was nervous with eagerness, as if he wanted to go
forward and make a meal. But the lioness was more cautious. It
was she that discovered us, and the pair stood and looked up at
us, silently, with twitching, scenting nostrils. Then they
growled, looked once again at the fire, and turned away into
the forest.
For a much longer time Lop-Ear and I remained and watched.
Now and again we could hear the crashing of heavy bodies in the
thickets and underbrush, and from the darkness of the other
side, across the circle, we could see eyes gleaming in the
firelight. In the distance we heard a lion roar, and from far
off came the scream of some stricken animal, splashing and
floundering in a drinking-place. Also, from the river, came a
great grunting of rhinoceroses.
In the morning, after having had our sleep, we crept back
to the fire. It was still smouldering, and the Fire-Men were
gone. We made a circle through the forest to make sure, and
then we ran to the fire. I wanted to see what it was like, and
between thumb and finger I picked up a glowing coal. My cry of
pain and fear, as I dropped it, stampeded Lop-Ear into the
trees, and his flight frightened me after him.
The next time we came back more cautiously, and we avoided
the glowing coals. We fell to imitating the Fire-Men. We
squatted down by the fire, and with heads bent forward on our
knees, made believe to sleep. Then we mimicked their speech,
talking to each other in their fashion and making a great
gibberish. I remembered seeing the wizened old hunter poke the
fire with a stick. I poked the fire with a stick, turning up
masses of live coals and clouds of white ashes. This was great
sport, and soon we were coated white with the ashes.
It was inevitable that we should imitate the Fire-Men in
replenishing the fire. We tried it first with small pieces of
wood. It was a success. The wood flamed up and crackled, and we
danced and gibbered with delight. Then we began to throw on
larger pieces of wood. We put on more and more, until we had a
mighty fire. We dashed excitedly back and forth, dragging dead
limbs and branches from out the forest. The flames soared
higher and higher, and the smoke-column out-towered the trees.
There was a tremendous snapping and crackling and roaring. It
was the most monumental work we had ever effected with our
hands, and we were proud of it. We, too, were Fire-Men, we
thought, as we danced there, white gnomes in the conflagration.
The dried grass and underbrush caught fire, but we did not
notice it. Suddenly a great tree on the edge of the open space
burst into flames.
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We looked at it with startled eyes. The heat of it drove
us back. Another tree caught, and another, and then half a
dozen. We were frightened. The monster had broken loose. We
crouched down in fear, while the fire ate around the circle and
hemmed us in. Into Lop-Ear's eyes came the plaintive look that
always accompanied incomprehension, and I know that in my eyes
must have been the same look. We huddled, with our arms around
each other, until the heat began to reach us and the odor of
burning hair was in our nostrils. Then we made a dash of it,
and fled away westward through the forest, looking back and
laughing as we ran.
By the middle of the day we came to a neck of land, made,
as we afterward discovered, by a great curve of the river that
almost completed a circle. Right across the neck lay bunched
several low and partly wooded hills. Over these we climbed,
looking backward at the forest which had become a sea of flame
that swept eastward before a rising wind. We continued to the
west, following the river bank, and before we knew it we were
in the midst of the abiding-place of the Fire People.
This abiding-place was a splendid strategic selection. It
was a peninsula, protected on three sides by the curving river.
On only one side was it accessible by land. This was the narrow
neck of the peninsula, and here the several low hills were a
natural obstacle. Practically isolated from the rest of the
world, the Fire People must have here lived and prospered for a
long time. In fact, I think it was their prosperity that was
responsible for the subsequent migration that worked such
calamity upon the Folk. The Fire People must have increased in
numbers until they pressed uncomfortably against the bounds of
their habitat. They were expanding, and in the course of their
expanding they drove the Folk before them, and settled down
themselves in the caves and occupied the territory that we had
occupied.
But Lop-Ear and I little dreamed of all this when we found
ourselves in the Fire People's stronghold. We had but one idea,
and that was to get away, though we could not forbear humoring
our curiosity by peeping out upon the village. For the first
time we saw the women and children of the Fire People. The
latter ran for the most part naked, though the former wore
skins of wild animals.
The Fire People, like ourselves, lived in caves. The open
space in front of the caves sloped down to the river, and in
the open space burned many small fires. But whether or not the
Fire People cooked their food, I do not know. Lop-Ear and I did
not see them cook. Yet it is my opinion that they surely must
have performed some sort of rude cookery. Like us, they carried
water in gourds from the river. There was much coming and
going, and loud cries made by the women and children. The
latter played about and cut up antics quite in the same way as
did the children of the Folk, and they more nearly resembled
the children of the Folk than did the grown Fire People
resemble the grown Folk.
Lop-Ear and I did not linger long. We saw some of the
part-grown boys shooting with bow and arrow, and we sneaked
back into the thicker forest and made our way to the river. And
there we found a catamaran, a real catamaran, one evidently
made by some Fire-Man. The two logs were small and straight,
and were lashed together by means of tough roots and
crosspieces of wood.
This time the idea occurred simultaneously to us. We were
trying to escape out of the Fire People's territory. What
better way than by crossing the river on these logs? We climbed
on board and shoved off. A sudden something gripped the
catamaran and flung it downstream violently against the bank.
The abrupt stoppage almost whipped us off into the water. The
catamaran was tied to a tree by a rope of twisted roots. This
we untied before shoving off again.
By the time we had paddled well out into the current, we
had drifted so far downstream that we were in full view of the
Fire People's abiding-place. So occupied were we with our
paddling, our eyes fixed upon the other bank, that we knew
nothing until aroused by a yell from the shore. We looked
around. There were the Fire People, many of them, looking at us
and pointing at us, and more were crawling out of the caves. We
sat up to watch, and forgot all about paddling. There was a
great hullabaloo on the shore. Some of the Fire-Men discharged
their bows at us, and a few of the arrows fell near us, but the
range was too great.
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It was a great day for Lop-Ear and me. To the east the
conflagration we had started was filling half the sky with
smoke. And here we were, perfectly safe in the middle of the
river, encircling the Fire People's stronghold. We sat and
laughed at them as we dashed by, swinging south, and southeast
to east, and even to northeast, and then east again, southeast
and south and on around to the west, a great double curve where
the river nearly tied a knot in itself.
As we swept on to the west, the Fire People far behind, a
familiar scene flashed upon our eyes. It was the great
drinking-place, where we had wandered once or twice to watch
the circus of the animals when they came down to drink. Beyond
it, we knew, was the carrot patch, and beyond that the caves
and the abiding-place of the horde. We began to paddle for the
bank that slid swiftly past, and before we knew it we were down
upon the drinking-places used by the horde. There were the
women and children, the water carriers, a number of them,
filling their gourds. At sight of us they stampeded madly up
the run-ways, leaving behind them a trail of gourds they had
dropped.
We landed, and of course we neglected to tie up the
catamaran, which floated off down the river. Right cautiously
we crept up a run-way. The Folk had all disappeared into their
holes, though here and there we could see a face peering out at
us. There was no sign of Red-Eye. We were home again. And that
night we slept in our own little cave high up on the cliff,
though first we had to evict a couple of pugnacious youngsters
who had taken possession.
CHAPTER XIV
The months came and went. The drama and tragedy of the
future were yet to come upon the stage, and in the meantime we
pounded nuts and lived. It--vas a good year, I remember, for
nuts. We used to fill gourds with nuts and carry them to the
pounding-places. We placed them in depressions in the rock,
and, with a piece of rock in our hands, we cracked them and ate
them as we cracked.
It was the fall of the year when Lop-Ear and I returned
from our long adventure-journey, and the winter that followed
was mild. I made frequent trips to the neighborhood of my old
home-tree, and frequently I searched the whole territory that
lay between the blueberry swamp and the mouth of the slough
where Lop-Ear and I had learned navigation, but no clew could I
get of the Swift One. She had disappeared. And I wanted her. I
was impelled by that hunger which I have mentioned, and which
was akin to physical hunger, albeit it came often upon me when
my stomach was full. But all my search was vain.
Life was not monotonous at the caves, however. There was
Red-Eye to be considered. Lop-Ear and I never knew a moment's
peace except when we were in our own little cave. In spite of
the enlargement of the entrance we had made, it was still a
tight squeeze for us to get in. And though from time to time we
continued to enlarge, it was still too small for Red-Eye's
monstrous body. But he never stormed our cave again. He had
learned the lesson well, and he carried on his neck a bulging
lump to show where I had hit him with the rock. This lump never
went away, and it was prominent enough to be seen at a
distance. I often took great delight in watching that evidence
of my handiwork; and sometimes, when I was myself assuredly
safe, the sight of it caused me to laugh.
While the other Folk would not have come to our rescue had
Red-Eye proceeded to tear Lop-Ear and me to pieces before their
eyes, nevertheless they sympathized with us. Possibly it was
not sympathy but the way they expressed their hatred for
Red-Eye; at any rate they always warned us of his approach.
Whether in the forest, at the drinking-places, or in the open
space before the caves, they were always quick to warn us. Thus
we had the advantage of many eyes in our feud with Red-Eye, the
atavism.
Once he nearly got me. It was early in the morning, and
the Folk were not yet up. The surprise was complete. I was cut
off from the way up the cliff to my cave. Before I knew it I
had dashed into the double-cave,--the cave where Lop-Ear had
first eluded me long years before, and where old Saber-Tooth
had come to discomfiture when he pursued the two Folk. By the
time I had got through the connecting passage between the two
caves, I discovered that Red-Eye was not following me. The next
moment he charged into the cave from the outside. I slipped
back through the passage, and he charged out and around and in
upon me again. I merely repeated my performance of slipping
through the passage.
He kept me there half a day before he gave up. After that,
when Lop-Ear and I were reasonably sure of gaining the
double-cave, we did not retreat up the cliff to our own cave
when Red-Eye came upon the scene. All we did was to keep an eye
on him and see that he did not cut across our line of retreat.
It was during this winter that Red-Eye killed his latest
wife with abuse and repeated beatings. I have called him an
atavism, but in this he was worse than an atavism, for the
males of the lower animals do not maltreat and murder their
mates. In this I take it that Red-Eye, in spite of his
tremendous atavistic tendencies, foreshadowed the coming of
man, for it is the males of the human species only that murder
their mates.
As was to be expected, with the doing away of one wife
Red-Eye proceeded to get another. He decided upon the Singing
One. She was the granddaughter of old Marrow-Bone, and the
daughter of the Hairless One. She was a young thing, greatly
given to singing at the mouth of her cave in the twilight, and
she had but recently mated with Crooked-Leg. He was a quiet
individual, molesting no one and not given to bickering with
his fellows. He was no fighter anyway. He was small and lean,
and not so active on his legs as the rest of us.
Red-Eye never committed a more outrageous deed. It was in
the quiet at the end of the day, when we began to congregate in
the open space before climbing into our caves. Suddenly the
Singing One dashed up a run-way from a drinking-place, pursued
by Red-Eye. She ran to her husband. Poor little Crooked-Leg was
terribly scared. But he was a hero. He knew that death was upon
him, yet he did not run away. He stood up, and chattered,
bristled, and showed his teeth.
Red-Eye roared with rage. It was an offence to him that
any of the Folk should dare to withstand him. His hand shot out
and clutched Crooked-Leg by the neck. The latter sank his teeth
into Red-Eye's arm; but the next moment, with a broken neck,
Crooked-Leg was floundering and squirming on the ground. The
Singing One screeched and gibbered. Red-Eye seized her by the
hair of her head and dragged her toward his cave. He handled
her roughly when the climb began, and he dragged and hauled her
up into the cave.
We were very angry, insanely, vociferously angry. Beating
our chests, bristling, and gnashing our teeth, we gathered
together in our rage. We felt the prod of gregarious instinct,
the drawing together as though for united action, the impulse
toward cooperation. In dim ways this need for united action was
impressed upon us. But there was no way to achieve it because
there was no way to express it. We did not turn to, all of us,
and destroy Red-Eye, because we lacked a vocabulary. We were
vaguely thinking thoughts for which there were no
thought-symbols. These thought-symbols were yet to be slowly
and painfully invented.
We tried to freight sound with the vague thoughts that
flitted like shadows through our consciousness. The Hairless
One began to chatter loudly. By his noises he expressed anger
against Red-Eye and desire to hurt Red-Eye. Thus far he got,
and thus far we understood. But when he tried to express the
cooperative impulse that stirred within him, his noises became
gibberish. Then Big-Face, with brow-bristling and
chest-pounding, began to chatter. One after another of us
joined in the orgy of rage, until even old Marrow-Bone was
mumbling and spluttering with his cracked voice and withered
lips. Some one seized a stick and began pounding a log. In a
moment he had struck a rhythm. Unconsciously, our yells and
exclamations yielded to this rhythm. It had a soothing effect
upon us; and before we knew it, our rage forgotten, we were in
the full swing of a hee-hee council.
These hee-hee councils splendidly illustrate the
inconsecutiveness and inconsequentiality of the Folk. Here were
we, drawn together by mutual rage and the impulse toward
cooperation, led off into forgetfulness by the establishment of
a rude rhythm. We were sociable and gregarious, and these
singing and laughing councils satisfied us. In ways the hee-hee
council was an adumbration of the councils of primitive man,
and of the great national assemblies and international
conventions of latter-day man. But we Folk of the Younger World
lacked speech, and whenever we were so drawn together we
precipitated babel, out of which arose a unanimity of rhythm
that contained within itself the essentials of art yet to come.
It was art nascent.
There was nothing long-continued about these rhythms that
we struck. A rhythm was soon lost, and pandemonium reigned
until we could find the rhythm again or start a new one.
Sometimes half a dozen rhythms would be swinging
simultaneously, each rhythm backed by a group that strove
ardently to drown out the other rhythms.
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In the intervals of pandemonium, each chattered, cut up,
hooted, screeched, and danced, himself sufficient unto himself,
filled with his own ideas and volitions to the exclusion of all
others, a veritable centre of the universe, divorced for the
time being from any unanimity with the other universe-centres
leaping and yelling around him. Then would come the rhythm--a
clapping of hands; the beating of a stick upon a log; the
example of one that leaped with repetitions; or the chanting of
one that uttered, explosively and regularly, with inflection
that rose and fell, "A-bang, a-bang! A-bang, a-bang!" One after
another of the self-centred Folk would yield to it, and soon
all would be dancing or chanting in chorus. "Ha-ah, ha-ah,
ha-ah-ha!" was one of our favorite choruses, and another was,
"Eh-wah, eh-wah, eh-wah-hah!"
And so, with mad antics, leaping, reeling, and
over-balancing, we danced and sang in the sombre twilight of
the primeval world, inducing forgetfulness, achieving
unanimity, and working ourselves up into sensuous frenzy. And
so it was that our rage against Red-Eye was soothed away by
art, and we screamed the wild choruses of the hee-hee council
until the night warned us of its terrors, and we crept away to
our holes in the rocks, calling softly to one another, while
the stars came out and darkness settled down.
We were afraid only of the dark. We had no germs of
religion, no conceptions of an unseen world. We knew only the
real world, and the things we feared were the real things, the
concrete dangers, the flesh-and-blood animals that preyed. It
was they that made us afraid of the dark, for darkness was the
time of the hunting animals. It was then that they came out of
their lairs and pounced upon one from the dark wherein they
lurked invisible.
Possibly it was out of this fear of the real denizens of
the dark that the fear of the unreal denizens was later to
develop and to culminate in a whole and mighty unseen world. As
imagination grew it is likely that the fear of death increased
until the Folk that were to come projected this fear into the
dark and peopled it with spirits. I think the Fire People had
already begun to be afraid of the dark in this fashion; but the
reasons we Folk had for breaking up our hee-hee councils and
fleeing to our holes were old Saber-Tooth, the lions and the
jackals, the wild dogs and the wolves, and all the hungry,
meat-eating breeds.
CHAPTER XV
Lop-Ear got married. It was the second winter after our
adventure-journey, and it was most unexpected. He gave me no
warning. The first I knew was one twilight when I climbed the
cliff to our cave. I squeezed into the entrance and there I
stopped. There was no room for me. Lop-Ear and his mate were in
possession, and she was none other than my sister, the daughter
of my step-father, the Chatterer.
I tried to force my way in. There was space only for two,
and that space was already occupied. Also, they had me at a
disadvantage, and, what of the scratching and hair-pulling I
received, I was glad to retreat. I slept that night, and for
many nights, in the connecting passage of the double-cave. From
my experience it seemed reasonably safe. As the two Folk had
dodged old Saber-Tooth, and as I had dodged Red-Eye, so it
seemed to me that I could dodge the hunting animals by going
back and forth between the two caves.
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I had forgotten the wild dogs. They were small enough to
go through any passage that I could squeeze through. One night
they nosed me out. Had they entered both caves at the same time
they would have got me. As it was, followed by some of them
through the passage, I dashed out the mouth of the other cave.
Outside were the rest of the wild dogs. They sprang for me as I
sprang for the cliff-wall and began to climb. One of them, a
lean and hungry brute, caught me in mid-leap. His teeth sank
into my thigh-muscles, and he nearly dragged me back. He held
on, but I made no effort to dislodge him, devoting my whole
effort to climbing out of reach of the rest of the brutes.
Not until I was safe from them did I turn my attention to
that live agony on my thigh. And then, a dozen feet above the
snapping pack that leaped and scrambled against the wall and
fell back, I got the dog by the throat and slowly throttled
him. I was a long time doing it. He clawed and ripped my hair
and hide with his hind-paws, and ever he jerked and lunged with
his weight to drag me from the wall.
At last his teeth opened and released my torn flesh. I
carried his body up the cliff with me, and perched out the
night in the entrance of my old cave, wherein were Lop-Ear and
my sister. But first I had to endure a storm of abuse from the
aroused horde for being the cause of the disturbance. I had my
revenge. From time to time, as the noise of the pack below
eased down, I dropped a rock and started it up again.
Whereupon, from all around, the abuse of the exasperated Folk
began afresh. In the morning I shared the dog with Lop-Ear and
his wife, and for several days the three of us were neither
vegetarians nor fruitarians.
Lop-Ear's marriage was not a happy one, and the
consolation about it is that it did not last very long. Neither
he nor I was happy during that period. I was lonely. I suffered
the inconvenience of being cast out of my safe little cave, and
somehow I did not make it up with any other of the young males.
I suppose my long-continued chumming with Lop-Ear had become a
habit.
I might have married, it is true; and most likely I should
have married had it not been for the dearth of females in the
horde. This dearth, it is fair to assume, was caused by the
exorbitance of Red-Eye, and it illustrates the menace he was to
the existence of the horde. Then there was the Swift One, whom
I had not forgotten.
At any rate, during the period of Lop-Ear's marriage I
knocked about from pillar to post, in danger every night that I
slept, and never comfortable. One of the Folk died, and his
widow was taken into the cave of another one of the Folk. I
took possession of the abandoned cave, but it was wide-mouthed,
and after Red-Eye nearly trapped me in it one day, I returned
to sleeping in the passage of the double-cave. During the
summer, however, I used to stay away from the caves for weeks,
sleeping in a tree-shelter I made near the mouth of the slough.
I have said that Lop-Ear was not happy. My sister was the
daughter of the Chatterer, and she made Lop-Ear's life
miserable for him. In no other cave was there so much
squabbling and bickering. If Red-Eye was a Bluebeard, Lop-Ear
was hen-pecked; and I imagine that Red-Eye was too shrewd ever
to covet Lop-Ear's wife.
Fortunately for Lop-Ear, she died. An unusual thing
happened that summer. Late, almost at the end of it, a second
crop of the stringy-rooted carrots sprang up. These unexpected
second-crop roots were young and juicy and tender, and for some
time the carrot-patch was the favorite feeding-place of the
horde. One morning, early, several score of us were there
making our breakfast. On one side of me was the Hairless One.
Beyond him were his father and son, old Marrow-Bone and
Long-Lip. On the other side of me were my sister and Lop-Ear,
she being next to me.
There was no warning. On the sudden, both the Hairless One
and my sister sprang and screamed. At the same instant I heard
the thud of the arrows that transfixed them. The next instant
they were down on the ground, floundering and gasping, and the
rest of us were stampeding for the trees. An arrow drove past
me and entered the ground, its feathered shaft vibrating and
oscillating from the impact of its arrested flight. I remember
clearly how I swerved as I ran, to go past it, and that I gave
it a needlessly wide berth. I must have shied at it as a horse
shies at an object it fears.
Lop-Ear took a smashing fall as he ran beside me. An arrow
had driven through the calf of his leg and tripped him. He
tried to run, but was tripped and thrown by it a second time.
He sat up, crouching, trembling with fear, and called to me
pleadingly. I dashed back. He showed me the arrow. I caught
hold of it to pull it out, but the consequent hurt made him
seize my hand and stop me. A flying arrow passed between us.
Another struck a rock, splintered, and fell to the ground. This
was too much. I pulled, suddenly, with all my might. Lop-Ear
screamed as the arrow came out, and struck at me angrily. But
the next moment we were in full flight again.
I looked back. Old Marrow-Bone, deserted and far behind,
was tottering silently along in his handicapped race with
death. Sometimes he almost fell, and once he did fall; but no
more arrows were coming. He scrambled weakly to his feet. Age
burdened him heavily, but he did not want to die. The three
Fire-Men, who were now running forward from their forest
ambush, could easily have got him, but they did not try.
Perhaps he was too old and tough. But they did want the
Hairless One and my sister, for as I looked back from the trees
I could see the Fire-Men beating in their heads with rocks. One
of the Fire-Men was the wizened old hunter who limped.
We went on through the trees toward the caves--an excited
and disorderly mob that drove before it to their holes all the
small life of the forest, and that set the blue-jays screaming
impudently. Now that there was no immediate danger, Long-Lip
waited for his grand-father, Marrow-Bone; and with the gap of a
generation between them, the old fellow and the youth brought
up our rear.
And so it was that Lop-Ear became a bachelor once more.
That night I slept with him in the old cave, and our old life
of chumming began again. The loss of his mate seemed to cause
him no grief. At least he showed no signs of it, nor of need
for her. It was the wound in his leg that seemed to bother him,
and it was all of a week before he got back again to his old
spryness.
Marrow-Bone was the only old member in the horde.
Sometimes, on looking back upon him, when the vision of him is
most clear, I note a striking resemblance between him and the
father of my father's gardener. The gardener's father was very
old, very wrinkled and withered; and for all the world, when he
peered through his tiny, bleary eyes and mumbled with his
toothless gums, he looked and acted like old Marrow-Bone. This
resemblance, as a child, used to frighten me. I always ran when
I saw the old man tottering along on his two canes. Old
Marrow-Bone even had a bit of sparse and straggly white beard
that seemed identical with the whiskers of the old man.
As I have said, Marrow-Bone was the only old member of the
horde. He was an exception. The Folk never lived to old age.
Middle age was fairly rare. Death by violence was the common
way of death. They died as my father had died, as Broken-Tooth
had died, as my sister and the Hairless One had just
died--abruptly and brutally, in the full possession of their
faculties, in the full swing and rush of life. Natural death?
To die violently was the natural way of dying in those days.
No one died of old age among the Folk. I never knew of a
case. Even Marrow-Bone did not die that way, and he was the
only one in my generation who had the chance. A bad rippling,
any serious accidental or temporary impairment of the
faculties, meant swift death. As a rule, these deaths were not
witnessed.
Members of the horde simply dropped out of sight. They
left the caves in the morning, and they never came back. They
disappeared--into the ravenous maws of the hunting creatures.
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This inroad of the Fire People on the carrot-patch was the
beginning of the end, though we did not know it. The hunters of
the Fire People began to appear more frequently as the time
went by. They came in twos and threes, creeping silently
through the forest, with their flying arrows able to annihilate
distance and bring down prey from the top of the loftiest tree
without themselves climbing into it. The bow and arrow was like
an enormous extension of their leaping and striking muscles, so
that, virtually, they could leap and kill at a hundred feet and
more. This made them far more terrible than Saber-Tooth
himself. And then they were very wise. They had speech that
enabled them more effectively to reason, and in addition they
understood cooperation.
We Folk came to be very circumspect when we were in the
forest. We were more alert and vigilant and timid. No longer
were the trees a protection to be relied upon. No longer could
we perch on a branch and laugh down at our carnivorous enemies
on the ground. The Fire People were carnivorous, with claws and
fangs a hundred feet long, the most terrible of all the hunting
animals that ranged the primeval world.
One morning, before the Folk had dispersed to the forest,
there was a panic among the water-carriers and those who had
gone down to the river to drink. The whole horde fled to the
caves. It was our habit, at such times, to flee first and
investigate afterward. We waited in the mouths of our caves and
watched. After some time a Fire-Man stepped cautiously into the
open space. It was the little wizened old hunter. He stood for
a long time and watched us, looking our caves and the
cliff-wall up and down. He descended one of the run-ways to a
drinking-place, returning a few minutes later by another
run-way. Again he stood and watched us carefully, for a long
time. Then he turned on his heel and limped into the forest,
leaving us calling querulously and plaintively to one another
from the cave-mouths.
CHAPTER XVI
I found her down in the old neighborhood near the
blueberry swamp, where my mother lived and where Lop-Ear and I
had built our first tree-shelter. It was unexpected. As I came
under the tree I heard the familiar soft sound and looked up.
There she was, the Swift One, sitting on a limb and swinging
her legs back and forth as she looked at me.
I stood still for some time. The sight of her had made me
very happy. And then an unrest and a pain began to creep in on
this happiness. I started to climb the tree after her, and she
retreated slowly out the limb. Just as I reached for her, she
sprang through the air and landed in the branches of the next
tree. From amid the rustling leaves she peeped out at me and
made soft sounds. I leaped straight for her, and after an
exciting chase the situation was duplicated, for there she was,
making soft sounds and peeping out from the leaves of a third
tree.
It was borne in upon me that somehow it was different now
from the old days before Lop-Ear and I had gone on our
adventure-journey. I wanted her, and I knew that I wanted her.
And she knew it, too. That was why she would not let me come
near her. I forgot that she was truly the Swift One, and that
in the art of climbing she had been my teacher. I pursued her
from tree to tree, and ever she eluded me, peeping back at me
with kindly eyes, making soft sounds, and dancing and leaping
and teetering before me just out of reach. The more she eluded
me, the more I wanted to catch her, and the lengthening shadows
of the afternoon bore witness to the futility of my effort.
As I pursued her, or sometimes rested in an adjoining tree
and watched her, I noticed the change in her. She was larger,
heavier, more grown-up. Her lines were rounder, her muscles
fuller, and there was about her that indefinite something of
maturity that was new to her and that incited me on. Three
years she had been gone--three years at the very least, and the
change in her was marked. I say three years; it is as near as I
can measure the time. A fourth year may have elapsed, which I
have confused with the happenings of the other three years. The
more I think of it, the more confident I am that it must be
four years that she was away.
Where she went, why she went, and what happened to her
during that time, I do not know. There was no way for her to
tell me, any more than there was a way for Lop-Ear and me to
tell the Folk what we had seen when we were away. Like us, the
chance is she had gone off on an adventure-journey, and by
herself. On the other hand, it is possible that Red-Eye may
have been the cause of her going. It is quite certain that he
must have come upon her from time to time, wandering in the
woods; and if he had pursued her there is no question but that
it would have been sufficient to drive her away. From
subsequent events, I am led to believe that she must have
travelled far to the south, across a range of mountains and
down to the banks of a strange river, away from any of her
kind. Many Tree People lived down there, and I think it must
have been they who finally drove her back to the horde and to
me. My reasons for this I shall explain later.
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The shadows grew longer, and I pursued more ardently than
ever, and still I could not catch her. She made believe that
she was trying desperately to escape me, and all the time she
managed to keep just beyond reach. I forgot everything--time,
the oncoming of night, and my meat-eating enemies. I was insane
with love of her, and with--anger, too, because she would not
let me come up with her. It was strange how this anger against
her seemed to be part of my desire for her.
As I have said, I forgot everything. In racing across an
open space I ran full tilt upon a colony of snakes. They did
not deter me. I was mad. They struck at me, but I ducked and
dodged and ran on. Then there was a python that ordinarily
would have sent me screeching to a tree-top. He did run me into
a tree; but the Swift One was going out of sight, and I sprang
back to the ground and went on. It was a close shave. Then
there was my old enemy, the hyena. From my conduct he was sure
something was going to happen, and he followed me for an hour.
Once we exasperated a band of wild pigs, and they took after
us. The Swift One dared a wide leap between trees that was too
much for me. I had to take to the ground. There were the pigs.
I didn't care. I struck the earth within a yard of the nearest
one. They flanked me as I ran, and chased me into two different
trees out of the line of my pursuit of the Swift One. I
ventured the ground again, doubled back, and crossed a wide
open space, with the whole band grunting, bristling, and
tusk-gnashing at my heels.
If I had tripped or stumbled in that open space, there
would have been no chance for me. But I didn't. And I didn't
care whether I did or not. I was in such mood that I would have
faced old Saber-Tooth himself, or a score of arrow-shooting
Fire People. Such was the madness of love...with me. With the
Swift One it was different. She was very wise. She did not take
any real risks, and I remember, on looking back across the
centuries to that wild love-chase, that when the pigs delayed
me she did not run away very fast, but waited, rather, for me
to take up the pursuit again. Also, she directed her retreat
before me, going always in the direction she wanted to go.
At last came the dark. She led me around the mossy
shoulder of a canyon wall that out-jutted among the trees.
After that we penetrated a dense mass of underbrush that
scraped and ripped me in passing. But she never ruffled a hair.
She knew the way. In the midst of the thicket was a large oak.
I was very close to her when she climbed it; and in the forks,
in the nest-shelter I had sought so long and vainly, I caught
her.
The hyena had taken our trail again, and he now sat down
on the ground and made hungry noises. But we did not mind, and
we laughed at him when he snarled and went away through the
thicket. It was the spring-time, and the night noises were many
and varied. As was the custom at that time of the year, there
was much fighting among the animals. From the nest we could
hear the squealing and neighing of wild horses, the trumpeting
of elephants, and the roaring of lions. But the moon came out,
and the air was warm, and we laughed and were unafraid.
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I remember, next morning, that we came upon two ruffled
cock-birds that fought so ardently that I went right up to them
and caught them by their necks. Thus did the Swift One and I
get our wedding breakfast. They were delicious. It was easy to
catch birds in the spring of the year. There was one night that
year when two elk fought in the moonlight, while the Swift One
and I watched from the trees; and we saw a lion and lioness
crawl up to them unheeded, and kill them as they fought.
There is no telling how long we might have lived in the
Swift One's tree-shelter. But one day, while we were away, the
tree was struck by lightning. Great limbs were riven, and the
nest was demolished. I started to rebuild, but the Swift One
would have nothing to do with it. As I was to learn, she was
greatly afraid of lightning, and I could not persuade her back
into the tree. So it came about, our honeymoon over, that we
went to the caves to live. As Lop-Ear had evicted me from the
cave when he got married, I now evicted him; and the Swift One
and I settled down in it, while he slept at night in the
connecting passage of the double cave.
And with our coming to live with the horde came trouble.
Red-Eye had had I don't know how many wives since the Singing
One. She had gone the way of the rest. At present he had a
little, soft, spiritless thing that whimpered and wept all the
time, whether he beat her or not; and her passing was a
question of very little time. Before she passed, even, Red-Eye
set his eyes on the Swift One; and when she passed, the
persecution of the Swift One began.
Well for her that she was the Swift One, that she had that
amazing aptitude for swift flight through the trees. She needed
all her wisdom and daring in order to keep out of the clutches
of Red-Eye. I could not help her. He was so powerful a monster
that he could have torn me limb from limb. As it was, to my
death I carried an injured shoulder that ached and went lame in
rainy weather and that was a mark of is handiwork.
The Swift One was sick at the time I received this injury.
It must have been a touch of the malaria from which we
sometimes suffered; but whatever it was, it made her dull and
heavy. She did not have the accustomed spring to her muscles,
and was indeed in poor shape for flight when Red-Eye cornered
her near the lair of the wild dogs, several miles south from
the caves. Usually, she would have circled around him, beaten
him in the straight-away, and gained the protection of our
small-mouthed cave. But she could not circle him. She was too
dull and slow. Each time he headed her off, until she gave over
the attempt and devoted her energies wholly to keeping out of
his clutches.
Had she not been sick it would have been child's play for
her to elude him; but as it was, it required all her caution
and cunning. It was to her advantage that she could travel on
thinner branches than he, and make wider leaps. Also, she was
an unerring judge of distance, and she had an instinct for
knowing the strength of twigs, branches, and rotten limbs.
It was an interminable chase. Round and round and back and
forth for long stretches through the forest they dashed. There
was great excitement among the other Folk. They set up a wild
chattering, that was loudest when Red-Eye was at a distance,
and that hushed when the chase led him near. They were impotent
onlookers. The females screeched and gibbered, and the males
beat their chests in helpless rage. Big Face was especially
angry, and though he hushed his racket when Red-Eye drew near,
he did not hush it to the extent the others did.
As for me, I played no brave part. I know I was anything
but a hero. Besides, of what use would it have been for me to
encounter Red-Eye? He was the mighty monster, the abysmal
brute, and there was no hope for me in a conflict of strength.
He would have killed me, and the situation would have remained
unchanged. He would have caught the Swift One before she could
have gained the cave. As it was, I could only look on in
helpless fury, and dodge out of the way and cease my raging
when he came too near.
The hours passed. It was late afternoon. And still the
chase went on. Red-Eye was bent upon exhausting the Swift One.
He deliberately ran her down. After a long time she began to
tire and could no longer maintain her headlong flight. Then it
was that she began going far out on the thinnest branches,
where he could not follow. Thus she might have got a breathing
spell, but Red-Eye was fiendish. Unable to follow her, he
dislodged her by shaking her off. With all his strength and
weight, he would shake the branch back and forth until he
snapped her off as one would snap a fly from a whip-lash. The
first time, she saved herself by falling into branches lower
down. Another time, though they did not save her from the
ground, they broke her fall. Still another time, so fiercely
did he snap her from the branch, she was flung clear across a
gap into another tree. It was remarkable, the way she gripped
and saved herself. Only when driven to it did she seek the
temporary safety of the thin branches. But she was so tired
that she could not otherwise avoid him, and time after time she
was compelled to take to the thin branches.
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Still the chase went on, and still the Folk screeched,
beat their chests, and gnashed their teeth. Then came the end.
It was almost twilight. Trembling, panting, struggling for
breath, the Swift One clung pitiably to a high thin branch. It
was thirty feet to the ground, and nothing intervened. Red-Eye
swung back and forth on the branch farther down. It became a
pendulum, swinging wider and wider with every lunge of his
weight. Then he reversed suddenly, just before the downward
swing was completed. Her grips were torn loose, and, screaming,
she was hurled toward the ground.
But she righted herself in mid-air and descended feet
first. Ordinarily, from such a height, the spring in her legs
would have eased the shock of impact with the ground. But she
was exhausted. She could not exercise this spring. Her legs
gave under her, having only partly met the shock, and she
crashed on over on her side. This, as it turned out, did not
injure her, but it did knock the breath from her lungs. She lay
helpless and struggling for air.
Red-Eye rushed upon her and seized her. With his gnarly
fingers twisted into the hair of her head, he stood up and
roared in triumph and defiance at the awed Folk that watched
from the trees. Then it was that I went mad. Caution was thrown
to the winds; forgotten was the will to live of my flesh. Even
as Red-Eye roared, from behind I dashed upon him. So unexpected
was my charge that I knocked him off his feet. I twined my arms
and legs around him and strove to hold him down. This would
have been impossible to accomplish had he not held tightly with
one hand to the Swift One's hair.
Encouraged by my conduct, Big-Face became a sudden ally.
He charged in, sank his teeth in Red-Eye's arm, and ripped and
tore at his face. This was the time for the rest of the Folk to
have joined in. It was the chance to do for Red-Eye for all
time. But they remained afraid in the trees.
It was inevitable that Red-Eye should win in the struggle
against the two of us. The reason he did not finish us off
immediately was that the Swift One clogged his movements. She
had regained her breath and was beginning to resist. He would
not release his clutch on her hair, and this handicapped him.
He got a grip on my arm. It was the beginning of the end for
me. He began to draw me toward him into a position where he
could sink his teeth into my throat. His mouth was open, and he
was grinning. And yet, though he had just begun to exert his
strength, in that moment he wrenched my shoulder so that I
suffered from it for the remainder of my life.
And in that moment something happened. There was no
warning. A great body smashed down upon the four of us locked
together. We were driven violently apart and rolled over and
over, and in the suddenness of surprise we released our holds
on one another. At the moment of the shock, Big-Face screamed
terribly. I did not know what had happened, though I smelled
tiger and caught a glimpse of striped fur as I sprang for a
tree.
It was old Saber-Tooth. Aroused in his lair by the noise
we had made, he had crept upon us unnoticed. The Swift One
gained the next tree to mine, and I immediately joined her. I
put my arms around her and held her close to me while she
whimpered and cried softly. From the ground came a snarling,
and crunching of bones. It was Saber-Tooth making his supper
off of what had been Big-Face. From beyond, with inflamed rims
and eyes, Red-Eye peered down. Here was a monster mightier than
he. The Swift One and I turned and went away quietly through
the trees toward the cave, while the Folk gathered overhead and
showered down abuse and twigs and branches upon their ancient
enemy. He lashed his tail and snarled, but went on eating.
And in such fashion were we saved. It was a mere
accident--the sheerest accident. Else would I have died, there
in Red-Eye's clutch, and there would have been no bridging of
time to the tune of a thousand centuries down to a progeny that
reads newspapers and rides on electric cars--ay, and that
writes narratives of bygone happenings even as this is written.
CHAPTER XVII
It was in the early fall of the following year that it
happened. After his failure to get the Swift One, Red-Eye had
taken another wife; and, strange to relate, she was still
alive. Stranger still, they had a baby several months
old--Red-Eye's first child. His previous wives had never lived
long enough to bear him children. The year had gone well for
all of us. The weather had been exceptionally mild and food
plentiful. I remember especially the turnips of that year. The
nut crop was also very heavy, and the wild plums were larger
and sweeter than usual.
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In short, it was a golden year. And then it happened. It
was in the early morning, and we were surprised in our caves.
In the chill gray light we awoke from sleep, most of us, to
encounter death. The Swift One and I were aroused by a
pandemonium of screeching and gibbering. Our cave was the
highest of all on the cliff, and we crept to the mouth and
peered down. The open space was filled with the Fire People.
Their cries and yells were added to the clamor, but they had
order and plan, while we Folk had none. Each one of us fought
and acted for himself, and no one of us knew the extent of the
calamity that was befalling us.
By the time we got to stone-throwing, the Fire People had
massed thick at the base of the cliff. Our first volley must
have mashed some heads, for when they swerved back from the
cliff three of their number were left upon the ground. These
were struggling and floundering, and one was trying to crawl
away. But we fixed them. By this time we males
were roaring with rage, and we rained rocks upon the
three men that were down. Several of the Fire-Men returned to
drag them into safety, but our rocks drove the rescuers back.
The Fire People became enraged. Also, they became
cautious. In spite of their angry yells, they kept at a
distance and sent flights of arrows against us. This put an end
to the rock-throwing. By the time half a dozen of us had been
killed and a score injured, the rest of us
retreated inside our caves. I was not out of range in my
lofty cave, but the distance was great enough to spoil
effective shooting, and the Fire People did not waste many
arrows on me. Furthermore, I was curious. I wanted to see.
While the Swift One remained well inside the cave, trembling
with fear and making low wailing sounds because I would not
come in, I crouched at the entrance and watched.
The fighting had now become intermittent. It was a sort of
deadlock. We were in the caves, and the question with the Fire
People was how to get us out. They did not dare come in after
us, and in general we would not expose ourselves to their
arrows. Occasionally, when one of them drew in close to the
base of the cliff, one or another of the Folk would smash a
rock down. In return, he would be transfixed by half a dozen
arrows. This ruse worked well for some time, but finally the
Folk no longer were inveigled into showing themselves. The
deadlock was complete.
Behind the Fire People I could see the little wizened old
hunter directing it all. They obeyed him, and went here and
there at his commands. Some of them went into the forest and
returned with loads of dry wood, leaves, and grass. All the
Fire People drew in closer. While most of them stood by with
bows and arrows, ready to shoot any of the Folk that exposed
themselves, several of the Fire-Men heaped the dry grass and
wood at the mouths of the lower tier of caves. Out of these
heaps they conjured the monster we feared--FIRE. At first,
wisps of smoke arose and curled up the cliff. Then I could see
the red-tongued flames darting in and out through the wood like
tiny snakes. The smoke grew thicker and thicker, at times
shrouding the whole face of the cliff. But I was high up and it
did not bother me much, though it stung my eyes and I rubbed
them with my knuckles.
Old Marrow-Bone was the first to be smoked out. A light
fan of air drifted the smoke away at the time so that I saw
clearly. He broke out through the smoke, stepping on a burning
coal and screaming with the sudden hurt of it, and essayed to
climb up the cliff. The arrows showered about him. He came to a
pause on a ledge, clutching a knob of rock for support, gasping
and sneezing and shaking his head. He swayed back and forth.
The feathered ends of a dozen arrows were sticking out of him.
He was an old man, and he did not want to die. He swayed wider
and wider, his knees giving under him, and as he swayed he
wailed most plaintively. His hand released its grip and he
lurched outward to the fall. His old bones must have been sadly
broken. He groaned and strove feebly to rise, but a Fire-Man
rushed in upon him and brained him with a club.
And as it happened with Marrow-Bone, so it happened with
many of the Folk. Unable to endure the smoke-suffocation, they
rushed out to fall beneath the arrows. Some of the women and
children remai