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