best kids percussion sets for 14 year olds under 30 dollarsThe Project Gutenberg eBook of Before Adam, by Jack London
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Before Adam
by Jack London
1906
“These are magnetic construction sets for 9 year olds under 100 dollarsour ancestors, and their history is our history. Remember thatas surely as we one day swung down out of the trees and walked upright, just assurely, on a far earlier day, did we crawl up out of the sea and achieve ourfirst adventure on land.”
Contents
| CHAPTER I. |
| CHAPTER II. |
| CHAPTER III. |
| CHAPTER IV. |
| CHAPTER V. |
| CHAPTER VI. |
| CHAPTER VII. |
| CHAPTER VIII. |
| CHAPTER IX. |
| CHAPTER X. |
| CHAPTER XI. |
| CHAPTER XII. |
| CHAPTER XIII. |
| CHAPTER XIV. |
| CHAPTER XV. |
| CHAPTER XVI. |
| CHAPTER XVII. |
| CHAPTER XVIII. |
CHAPTER I
Pictures! Pictures! Pictures! Often, before I learned, did I wonder whence camethe multitudes of pictures that thronged my dreams; for they were pictures thelike of which I had never seen in real wake-a-day life. They tormented mychildhood, making of my dreams a procession of nightmares and a little laterconvincing me that I was different from my kind, a creature unnatural andaccursed.
In my days only did I attain any measure of happiness. My nights marked thereign of fear—and such fear! I make bold to state that no man of all themen who walk the earth with me ever suffer fear of like kind and degree. For myfear is the fear of long ago, the fear that was rampant in the Younger World,and in the youth of the Younger World. In short, the fear that reigned supremein that period known as the Mid-Pleistocene.
What do I mean? I see explanation is necessary before I can tell you of thesubstance of my dreams. Otherwise, little could you know of the meaning of thethings I know so well. As I write this, all the beings and happenings of thatother world rise up before me in vast phantasmagoria, and I know that to youthey would be rhymeless and reasonless.
What to you the friendship of Lop-Ear, the warm lure of the Swift One, the lustand the atavism of Red-Eye? A screaming incoherence and no more. And ascreaming incoherence, likewise, the doings of the Fire People and the TreePeople, and the gibbering councils of the horde. For you know not the peace ofthe cool caves in the cliffs, the circus of the drinking-places at the end ofthe day. You have never felt the bite of the morning wind in the tree-tops, noris the taste of young bark sweet in your mouth.
It would be better, I dare say, for you to make your approach, as I made mine,through my childhood. As a boy I was very like other boys—in my wakinghours. It was in my sleep that I was different. From my earliest recollectionmy sleep was a period of terror. Rarely were my dreams tinctured withhappiness. As a rule, they were stuffed with fear—and with a fear sostrange and alien that it had no ponderable quality. No fear that I experiencedin my waking life resembled the fear that possessed me in my sleep. It was of aquality and kind that transcended all my experiences.
For instance, I was a city boy, a city child, rather, to whom the country wasan unexplored domain. Yet I never dreamed of cities; nor did a house ever occurin any of my dreams. Nor, for that matter, did any of my human kind ever breakthrough the wall of my sleep. I, who had seen trees only in parks andillustrated books, wandered in my sleep through interminable forests. Andfurther, these dream trees were not a mere blur on my vision. They were sharpand distinct. I was on terms of practised intimacy with them. I saw everybranch and twig; I saw and knew every different leaf.
Well do I remember the first time in my waking life that I saw an oak tree. AsI looked at the leaves and branches and gnarls, it came to me with distressingvividness that I had seen that same kind of tree many and countless times in mysleep. So I was not surprised, still later on in my life, to recognizeinstantly, the first time I saw them, trees such as the spruce, the yew, thebirch, and the laurel. I had seen them all before, and was seeing them eventhen, every night, in my sleep.
This, as you have already discerned, violates the first law of dreaming,namely, that in one’s dreams one sees only what he has seen in his wakinglife, or combinations of the things he has seen in his waking life. But all mydreams violated this law. In my dreams I never saw anythingof which Ihad knowledge in my waking life. My dream life and my waking life were livesapart, with not one thing in common save myself. I was the connecting link thatsomehow lived both lives.
Early in my childhood I learned that nuts came from the grocer, berries fromthe fruit man; but before ever that knowledge was mine, in my dreams I pickednuts from trees, or gathered them and ate them from the ground underneathtrees, and in the same way I ate berries from vines and bushes. This was beyondany experience of mine.
I shall never forget the first time I saw blueberries served on the table. Ihad never seen blueberries before, and yet, at the sight of them, there leapedup in my mind memories of dreams wherein I had wandered through swampy landeating my fill of them. My mother set before me a dish of the berries. I filledmy spoon, but before I raised it to my mouth I knew just how they would taste.Nor was I disappointed. It was the same tang that I had tasted a thousand timesin my sleep.
Snakes? Long before I had heard of the existence of snakes, I was tormented bythem in my sleep. They lurked for me in the forest glades; leaped up, striking,under my feet; squirmed off through the dry grass or across naked patches ofrock; or pursued me into the tree-tops, encircling the trunks with their greatshining bodies, driving me higher and higher or farther and farther out onswaying and crackling branches, the ground a dizzy distance beneath me.Snakes!—with their forked tongues, their beady eyes and glitteringscales, their hissing and their rattling—did I not already know them fartoo well on that day of my first circus when I saw the snake-charmer lift themup?
They were old friends of mine, enemies rather, that peopled my nights withfear.
Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternitieshave I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the leastsound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready onthe instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of allmanner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fearthat I fled before the hunting monsters.
When I was five years old I went to my first circus. I came home from itsick—but not from peanuts and pink lemonade. Let me tell you. As weentered the animal tent, a hoarse roaring shook the air. I tore my hand loosefrom my father’s and dashed wildly back through the entrance. I collidedwith people, fell down; and all the time I was screaming with terror. My fathercaught me and soothed me. He pointed to the crowd of people, all careless ofthe roaring, and cheered me with assurances of safety.
Nevertheless, it was in fear and trembling, and with much encouragement on hispart, that I at last approached the lion’s cage. Ah, I knew him on theinstant. The beast! The terrible one! And on my inner vision flashed thememories of my dreams,—the midday sun shining on tall grass, the wildbull grazing quietly, the sudden parting of the grass before the swift rush ofthe tawny one, his leap to the bull’s back, the crashing and thebellowing, and the crunch crunch of bones; or again, the cool quiet of thewater-hole, the wild horse up to his knees and drinking softly, and then thetawny one—always the tawny one!—the leap, the screaming and thesplashing of the horse, and the crunch crunch of bones; and yet again, thesombre twilight and the sad silence of the end of day, and then the greatfull-throated roar, sudden, like a trump of doom, and swift upon it the insaneshrieking and chattering among the trees, and I, too, am trembling with fearand am one of the many shrieking and chattering among the trees.
At the sight of him, helpless, within the bars of his cage, I became enraged. Igritted my teeth at him, danced up and down, screaming an incoherent mockeryand making antic faces. He responded, rushing against the bars and roaring backat me his impotent wrath. Ah, he knew me, too, and the sounds I made were thesounds of old time and intelligible to him.
My parents were frightened. “The child is ill,” said my mother.“He is hysterical,” said my father. I never told them, and theynever knew. Already had I developed reticence concerning this quality of mine,this semi-disassociation of personality as I think I am justified in callingit.
I saw the snake-charmer, and no more of the circus did I see that night. I wastaken home, nervous and overwrought, sick with the invasion of my real life bythat other life of my dreams.
I have mentioned my reticence. Only once did I confide the strangeness of itall to another. He was a boy—my chum; and we were eight years old. Frommy dreams I reconstructed for him pictures of that vanished world in which I dobelieve I once lived. I told him of the terrors of that early time, of Lop-Earand the pranks we played, of the gibbering councils, and of the Fire People andtheir squatting places.
He laughed at me, and jeered, and told me tales of ghosts and of the dead thatwalk at night. But mostly did he laugh at my feeble fancy. I told him more, andhe laughed the harder. I swore in all earnestness that these things were so,and he began to look upon me queerly. Also, he gave amazing garblings of mytales to our playmates, until all began to look upon me queerly.
It was a bitter experience, but I learned my lesson. I was different from mykind. I was abnormal with something they could not understand, and the tellingof which would cause only misunderstanding. When the stories of ghosts andgoblins went around, I kept quiet. I smiled grimly to myself. I thought of mynights of fear, and knew that mine were the real things—real as lifeitself, not attenuated vapors and surmised shadows.
For me no terrors resided in the thought of bugaboos and wicked ogres. The fallthrough leafy branches and the dizzy heights; the snakes that struck at me as Idodged and leaped away in chattering flight; the wild dogs that hunted meacross the open spaces to the timber—these were terrors concrete andactual, happenings and not imaginings, things of the living flesh and of sweatand blood. Ogres and bugaboos and I had been happy bed-fellows, compared withthese terrors that made their bed with me throughout my childhood, and thatstill bed with me, now, as I write this, full of years.
CHAPTER II
I have said that in my dreams I never saw a human being. Of this fact I becameaware very early, and felt poignantly the lack of my own kind. As a very littlechild, even, I had a feeling, in the midst of the horror of my dreaming, thatif I could find but one man, only one human, I should be saved from mydreaming, that I should be surrounded no more by haunting terrors. This thoughtobsessed me every night of my life for years—if only I could find thatone human and be saved!
I must iterate that I had this thought in the midst of my dreaming, and I takeit as an evidence of the merging of my two personalities, as evidence of apoint of contact between the two disassociated parts of me. My dreampersonality lived in the long ago, before ever man, as we know him, came to be;and my other and wake-a-day personality projected itself, to the extent of theknowledge of man’s existence, into the substance of my dreams.
Perhaps the psychologists of the book will find fault with my way of using thephrase, “disassociation of personality.” I know their use of it,yet am compelled to use it in my own way in default of a better phrase. I takeshelter behind the inadequacy of the English language. And now to theexplanation of my use, or misuse, of the phrase.
It was not till I was a young man, at college, that I got any clew to thesignificance of my dreams, and to the cause of them. Up to that time they hadbeen meaningless and without apparent causation. But at college I discoveredevolution and psychology, and learned the explanation of various strange mentalstates and experiences. For instance, there was the falling-through-spacedream—the commonest dream experience, one practically known, byfirst-hand experience, to all men.
This, my professor told me, was a racial memory. It dated back to our remoteancestors who lived in trees. With them, being tree-dwellers, the liability offalling was an ever-present menace. Many lost their lives that way; all of themexperienced terrible falls, saving themselves by clutching branches as theyfell toward the ground.
Now a terrible fall, averted in such fashion, was productive of shock. Suchshock was productive of molecular changes in the cerebral cells. Thesemolecular changes were transmitted to the cerebral cells of progeny, became, inshort, racial memories. Thus, when you and I, asleep or dozing off to sleep,fall through space and awake to sickening consciousness just before we strike,we are merely remembering what happened to our arboreal ancestors, and whichhas been stamped by cerebral changes into the heredity of the race.
There is nothing strange in this, any more than there is anything strange in aninstinct. An instinct is merely a habit that is stamped into the stuff of ourheredity, that is all. It will be noted, in passing, that in this falling dreamwhich is so familiar to you and me and all of us, we never strike bottom. Tostrike bottom would be destruction. Those of our arboreal ancestors who struckbottom died forthwith. True, the shock of their fall was communicated to thecerebral cells, but they died immediately, before they could have progeny. Youand I are descended from those that did not strike bottom; that is why you andI, in our dreams, never strike bottom.
And now we come to disassociation of personality. We never have this sense offalling when we are wide awake. Our wake-a-day personality has no experience ofit. Then—and here the argument is irresistible—it must be anotherand distinct personality that falls when we are asleep, and that has hadexperience of such falling—that has, in short, a memory of past-day raceexperiences, just as our wake-a-day personality has a memory of our wake-a-dayexperiences.
It was at this stage in my reasoning that I began to see the light. And quicklythe light burst upon me with dazzling brightness, illuminating and explainingall that had been weird and uncanny and unnaturally impossible in my dreamexperiences. In my sleep it was not my wake-a-day personality that took chargeof me; it was another and distinct personality, possessing a new and totallydifferent fund of experiences, and, to the point of my dreaming, possessingmemories of those totally different experiences.
What was this personality? When had it itself lived a wake-a-day life on thisplanet in order to collect this fund of strange experiences? These werequestions that my dreams themselves answered. He lived in the long ago, whenthe world was young, in that period that we call the Mid-Pleistocene. He fellfrom the trees but did not strike bottom. He gibbered with fear at the roaringof the lions. He was pursued by beasts of prey, struck at by deadly snakes. Hechattered with his kind in council, and he received rough usage at the hands ofthe Fire People in the day that he fled before them.
But, I hear you objecting, why is it that these racial memories are not ours aswell, seeing that we have a vague other-personality that falls through spacewhile we sleep?
And I may answer with another question. Why is a two-headed calf? And my ownanswer to this is that it is a freak. And so I answer your question. I havethis other-personality and these complete racial memories because I am a freak.
But let me be more explicit.
The commonest race memory we have is the falling-through-space dream. Thisother-personality is very vague. About the only memory it has is that offalling. But many of us have sharper, more distinct other-personalities. Manyof us have the flying dream, the pursuing-monster dream, color dreams,suffocation dreams, and the reptile and vermin dreams. In short, while thisother-personality is vestigial in all of us, in some of us it is almostobliterated, while in others of us it is more pronounced. Some of us havestronger and completer race memories than others.
It is all a question of varying degree of possession of the other-personality.In myself, the degree of possession is enormous. My other-personality is almostequal in power with my own personality. And in this matter I am, as I said, afreak—a freak of heredity.
I do believe that it is the possession of this other-personality—but notso strong a one as mine—that has in some few others given rise to beliefin personal reincarnation experiences. It is very plausible to such people, amost convincing hypothesis. When they have visions of scenes they have neverseen in the flesh, memories of acts and events dating back in time, thesimplest explanation is that they have lived before.
But they make the mistake of ignoring their own duality. They do not recognizetheir other-personality. They think it is their own personality, that they haveonly one personality; and from such a premise they can conclude only that theyhave lived previous lives.
But they are wrong. It is not reincarnation. I have visions of myself roamingthrough the forests of the Younger World; and yet it is not myself that I seebut one that is only remotely a part of me, as my father and my grandfather areparts of me less remote. This other-self of mine is an ancestor, a progenitorof my progenitors in the early line of my race, himself the progeny of a linethat long before his time developed fingers and toes and climbed up into thetrees.
I must again, at the risk of boring, repeat that I am, in this one thing, to beconsidered a freak. Not alone do I possess racial memory to an enormous extent,but I possess the memories of one particular and far-removed progenitor. Andyet, while this is most unusual, there is nothing over-remarkable about it.
Follow my reasoning. An instinct is a racial memory. Very good. Then you and Iand all of us receive these memories from our fathers and mothers, as theyreceived them from their fathers and mothers. Therefore there must be a mediumwhereby these memories are transmitted from generation to generation. Thismedium is what Weismann terms the “germplasm.” It carries thememories of the whole evolution of the race. These memories are dim andconfused, and many of them are lost. But some strains of germplasm carry anexcessive freightage of memories—are, to be scientific, more atavisticthan other strains; and such a strain is mine. I am a freak of heredity, anatavistic nightmare—call me what you will; but here I am, real and alive,eating three hearty meals a day, and what are you going to do about it?
And now, before I take up my tale, I want to anticipate the doubting Thomasesof psychology, who are prone to scoff, and who would otherwise surely say thatthe coherence of my dreams is due to overstudy and the subconscious projectionof my knowledge of evolution into my dreams. In the first place, I have neverbeen a zealous student. I graduated last of my class. I cared more forathletics, and—there is no reason I should not confess it—more forbilliards.
Further, I had no knowledge of evolution until I was at college, whereas in mychildhood and youth I had already lived in my dreams all the details of thatother, long-ago life. I will say, however, that these details were mixed andincoherent until I came to know the science of evolution. Evolution was thekey. It gave the explanation, gave sanity to the pranks of this atavistic brainof mine that, modern and normal, harked back to a past so remote as to becontemporaneous with the raw beginnings of mankind.
For in this past I know of, man, as we to-day know him, did not exist. It wasin the period of his becoming that I must have lived and had my being.
CHAPTER III
The commonest dream of my early childhood was something like this: It seemedthat I was very small and that I lay curled up in a sort of nest of twigs andboughs. Sometimes I was lying on my back. In this position it seemed that Ispent many hours, watching the play of sunlight on the foliage and the stirringof the leaves by the wind. Often the nest itself moved back and forth when thewind was strong.
But always, while so lying in the nest, I was mastered as of tremendous spacebeneath me. I never saw it, I never peered over the edge of the nest to see;but I knewand feared that space that lurked just beneath me and thatever threatened me like a maw of some all-devouring monster.
This dream, in which I was quiescent and which was more like a condition thanan experience of action, I dreamed very often in my early childhood. Butsuddenly, there would rush into the very midst of it strange forms andferocious happenings, the thunder and crashing of storm, or unfamiliarlandscapes such as in my wake-a-day life I had never seen. The result wasconfusion and nightmare. I could comprehend nothing of it. There was no logicof sequence.
You see, I did not dream consecutively. One moment I was a wee babe of theYounger World lying in my tree nest; the next moment I was a grown man of theYounger World locked in combat with the hideous Red-Eye; and the next moment Iwas creeping carefully down to the water-hole in the heat of the day. Events,years apart in their occurrence in the Younger World, occurred with me withinthe space of several minutes, or seconds.
It was all a jumble, but this jumble I shall not inflict upon you. It was notuntil I was a young man and had dreamed many thousand times, that everythingstraightened out and became clear and plain. Then it was that I got the clew oftime, and was able to piece together events and actions in their proper order.Thus was I able to reconstruct the vanished Younger World as it was at the timeI lived in it—or at the time my other-self lived in it. The distinctiondoes not matter; for I, too, the modern man, have gone back and lived thatearly life in the company of my other-self.
For your convenience, since this is to be no sociological screed, I shall frametogether the different events into a comprehensive story. For there is acertain thread of continuity and happening that runs through all the dreams.There is my friendship with Lop-Ear, for instance. Also, there is the enmity ofRed-Eye, and the love of the Swift One. Taking it all in all, a fairly coherentand interesting story I am sure you will agree.
I do not remember much of my mother. Possibly the earliest recollection I haveof her—and certainly the sharpest—is the following: It seemed I waslying on the ground. I was somewhat older than during the nest days, but stillhelpless. I rolled about in the dry leaves, playing with them and makingcrooning, rasping noises in my throat. The sun shone warmly and I was happy,and comfortable. I was in a little open space. Around me, on all sides, werebushes and fern-like growths, and overhead and all about were the trunks andbranches of forest trees.
Suddenly I heard a sound. I sat upright and listened. I made no movement. Thelittle noises died down in my throat, and I sat as one petrified. The sounddrew closer. It was like the grunt of a pig. Then I began to hear the soundscaused by the moving of a body through the brush. Next I saw the ferns agitatedby the passage of the body. Then the ferns parted, and I saw gleaming eyes, along snout, and white tusks.
It was a wild boar. He peered at me curiously. He grunted once or twice andshifted his weight from one foreleg to the other, at the same time moving hishead from side to side and swaying the ferns. Still I sat as one petrified, myeyes unblinking as I stared at him, fear eating at my heart.
It seemed that this movelessness and silence on my part was what was expectedof me. I was not to cry out in the face of fear. It was a dictate of instinct.And so I sat there and waited for I knew not what. The boar thrust the fernsaside and stepped into the open. The curiosity went out of his eyes, and theygleamed cruelly. He tossed his head at me threateningly and advanced a step.This he did again, and yet again.
Then I screamed...or shrieked—I cannot describe it, but it was a shrilland terrible cry. And it seems that it, too, at this stage of the proceedings,was the thing expected of me. From not far away came an answering cry. Mysounds seemed momentarily to disconcert the boar, and while he halted andshifted his weight with indecision, an apparition burst upon us.
She was like a large orangutan, my mother, or like a chimpanzee, and yet, insharp and definite ways, quite different. She was heavier of build than they,and had less hair. Her arms were not so long, and her legs were stouter. Shewore no clothes—only her natural hair. And I can tell you she was a furywhen she was excited.
And like a fury she dashed upon the scene. She was gritting her teeth, makingfrightful grimaces, snarling, uttering sharp and continuous cries that soundedlike “kh-ah! kh-ah!” So sudden and formidable was her appearancethat the boar involuntarily bunched himself together on the defensive andbristled as she swerved toward him. Then she swerved toward me. She had quitetaken the breath out of him. I knew just what to do in that moment of time shehad gained. I leaped to meet her, catching her about the waist and holding onhand and foot—yes, by my feet; I could hold on by them as readily as bymy hands. I could feel in my tense grip the pull of the hair as her skin andher muscles moved beneath with her efforts.
As I say, I leaped to meet her, and on the instant she leaped straight up intothe air, catching an overhanging branch with her hands. The next instant, withclashing tusks, the boar drove past underneath. He had recovered from hissurprise and sprung forward, emitting a squeal that was almost a trumpeting. Atany rate it was a call, for it was followed by the rushing of bodies throughthe ferns and brush from all directions.
From every side wild hogs dashed into the open space—a score of them. Butmy mother swung over the top of a thick limb, a dozen feet from the ground,and, still holding on to her, we perched there in safety. She was very excited.She chattered and screamed, and scolded down at the bristling, tooth-gnashingcircle that had gathered beneath. I, too, trembling, peered down at the angrybeasts and did my best to imitate my mother’s cries.
From the distance came similar cries, only pitched deeper, into a sort ofroaring bass. These grew momentarily louder, and soon I saw him approaching, myfather—at least, by all the evidence of the times, I am driven toconclude that he was my father.
He was not an extremely prepossessing father, as fathers go. He seemed halfman, and half ape, and yet not ape, and not yet man. I fail to describe him.There is nothing like him to-day on the earth, under the earth, nor in theearth. He was a large man in his day, and he must have weighed all of a hundredand thirty pounds. His face was broad and flat, and the eyebrows over-hung theeyes. The eyes themselves were small, deep-set, and close together. He hadpractically no nose at all. It was squat and broad, apparently without anybridge, while the nostrils were like two holes in the face, opening outwardinstead of down.
The forehead slanted back from the eyes, and the hair began right at the eyesand ran up over the head. The head itself was preposterously small and wassupported on an equally preposterous, thick, short neck.
There was an elemental economy about his body—as was there about all ourbodies. The chest was deep, it is true, cavernously deep; but there were nofull-swelling muscles, no wide-spreading shoulders, no clean-limbedstraightness, no generous symmetry of outline. It represented strength, thatbody of my father’s, strength without beauty; ferocious, primordialstrength, made to clutch and gripe and rend and destroy.
His hips were thin; and the legs, lean and hairy, were crooked andstringy-muscled. In fact, my father’s legs were more like arms. They weretwisted and gnarly, and with scarcely the semblance of the full meaty calf suchas graces your leg and mine. I remember he could not walk on the flat of hisfoot. This was because it was a prehensile foot, more like a hand than a foot.The great toe, instead of being in line with the other toes, opposed them, likea thumb, and its opposition to the other toes was what enabled him to get agrip with his foot. This was why he could not walk on the flat of his foot.
But his appearance was no more unusual than the manner of his coming, there tomy mother and me as we perched above the angry wild pigs. He came through thetrees, leaping from limb to limb and from tree to tree; and he came swiftly. Ican see him now, in my wake-a-day life, as I write this, swinging along throughthe trees, a four-handed, hairy creature, howling with rage, pausing now andagain to beat his chest with his clenched fist, leaping ten-and-fifteen-footgaps, catching a branch with one hand and swinging on across another gap tocatch with his other hand and go on, never hesitating, never at a loss as tohow to proceed on his arboreal way.
And as I watched him I felt in my own being, in my very muscles themselves, thesurge and thrill of desire to go leaping from bough to bough; and I felt alsothe guarantee of the latent power in that being and in those muscles of mine.And why not? Little boys watch their fathers swing axes and fell trees, andfeel in themselves that some day they, too, will swing axes and fell trees. Andso with me. The life that was in me was constituted to do what my father did,and it whispered to me secretly and ambitiously of aerial paths and forestflights.
At last my father joined us. He was extremely angry. I remember the out-thrustof his protruding underlip as he glared down at the wild pigs. He snarledsomething like a dog, and I remember that his eye-teeth were large, like fangs,and that they impressed me tremendously.
His conduct served only the more to infuriate the pigs. He broke off twigs andsmall branches and flung them down upon our enemies. He even hung by one hand,tantalizingly just beyond reach, and mocked them as they gnashed their tuskswith impotent rage. Not content with this, he broke off a stout branch, and,holding on with one hand and foot, jabbed the infuriated beasts in the sidesand whacked them across their noses. Needless to state, my mother and I enjoyedthe sport.
But one tires of all good things, and in the end, my father, chucklingmaliciously the while, led the way across the trees. Now it was that myambitions ebbed away, and I became timid, holding tightly to my mother as sheclimbed and swung through space. I remember when the branch broke with herweight. She had made a wide leap, and with the snap of the wood I wasoverwhelmed with the sickening consciousness of falling through space, the pairof us. The forest and the sunshine on the rustling leaves vanished from myeyes. I had a fading glimpse of my father abruptly arresting his progress tolook, and then all was blackness.
The next moment I was awake, in my sheeted bed, sweating, trembling, nauseated.The window was up, and a cool air was blowing through the room. The night-lampwas burning calmly. And because of this I take it that the wild pigs did notget us, that we never fetched bottom; else I should not be here now, a thousandcenturies after, to remember the event.
And now put yourself in my place for a moment. Walk with me a bit in my tenderchildhood, bed with me a night and imagine yourself dreaming suchincomprehensible horrors. Remember I was an inexperienced child. I had neverseen a wild boar in my life. For that matter I had never seen a domesticatedpig. The nearest approach to one that I had seen was breakfast bacon sizzlingin its fat. And yet here, real as life, wild boars dashed through my dreams,and I, with fantastic parents, swung through the lofty tree-spaces.
Do you wonder that I was frightened and oppressed by my nightmare-riddennights? I was accursed. And, worst of all, I was afraid to tell. I do not knowwhy, except that I had a feeling of guilt, though I knew no better of what Iwas guilty. So it was, through long years, that I suffered in silence, until Icame to man’s estate and learned the why and wherefore of my dreams.
CHAPTER IV
There is one puzzling thing about these prehistoric memories of mine. It is thevagueness of the time element. I do not always know the order ofevents;—or can I tell, between some events, whether one, two, or four orfive years have elapsed. I can only roughly tell the passage of time by judgingthe changes in the appearance and pursuits of my fellows.
Also, I can apply the logic of events to the various happenings. For instance,there is no doubt whatever that my mother and I were treed by the wild pigs andfled and fell in the days before I made the acquaintance of Lop-Ear, who becamewhat I may call my boyhood chum. And it is just as conclusive that betweenthese two periods I must have left my mother.
I have no memory of my father than the one I have given. Never, in the yearsthat followed, did he reappear. And from my knowledge of the times, the onlyexplanation possible lies in that he perished shortly after the adventure withthe wild pigs. That it must have been an untimely end, there is no discussion.He was in full vigor, and only sudden and violent death could have taken himoff. But I know not the manner of his going—whether he was drowned in theriver, or was swallowed by a snake, or went into the stomach of oldSaber-Tooth, the tiger, is beyond my knowledge.
For know that I remember only the things I saw myself, with my own eyes, inthose prehistoric days. If my mother knew my father’s end, she never toldme. For that matter I doubt if she had a vocabulary adequate to convey suchinformation. Perhaps, all told, the Folk in that day had a vocabulary of thirtyor forty sounds.
I call them sounds, rather than words, because sounds they wereprimarily. They had no fixed values, to be altered by adjectives and adverbs.These latter were tools of speech not yet invented. Instead of qualifying nounsor verbs by the use of adjectives and adverbs, we qualified sounds byintonation, by changes in quantity and pitch, by retarding and by accelerating.The length of time employed in the utterance of a particular sound shaded itsmeaning.
We had no conjugation. One judged the tense by the context. We talked onlyconcrete things because we thought only concrete things. Also, we dependedlargely on pantomime. The simplest abstraction was practically beyond ourthinking; and when one did happen to think one, he was hard put to communicateit to his fellows. There were no sounds for it. He was pressing beyond thelimits of his vocabulary. If he invented sounds for it, his fellows did notunderstand the sounds. Then it was that he fell back on pantomime, illustratingthe thought wherever possible and at the same time repeating the new sound overand over again.
Thus language grew. By the few sounds we possessed we were enabled to think ashort distance beyond those sounds; then came the need for new sounds wherewithto express the new thought. Sometimes, however, we thought too long a distancein advance of our sounds, managed to achieve abstractions (dim ones I grant),which we failed utterly to make known to other folk. After all, language didnot grow fast in that day.
Oh, believe me, we were amazingly simple. But we did know a lot that is notknown to-day. We could twitch our ears, prick them up and flatten them down atwill. And we could scratch between our shoulders with ease. We could throwstones with our feet. I have done it many a time. And for that matter, I couldkeep my knees straight, bend forward from the hips, and touch, not the tips ofmy fingers, but the points of my elbows, to the ground. And as forbird-nesting—well, I only wish the twentieth-century boy could see us.But we made no collections of eggs. We ate them.
I remember—but I out-run my story. First let me tell of Lop-Ear and ourfriendship. Very early in my life, I separated from my mother. Possibly thiswas because, after the death of my father, she took to herself a secondhusband. I have few recollections of him, and they are not of the best. He wasa light fellow. There was no solidity to him. He was too voluble. His infernalchattering worries me even now as I think of it. His mind was tooinconsequential to permit him to possess purpose. Monkeys in their cages alwaysremind me of him. He was monkeyish. That is the best description I can give ofhim.
He hated me from the first. And I quickly learned to be afraid of him and hismalicious pranks. Whenever he came in sight I crept close to my mother andclung to her. But I was growing older all the time, and it was inevitable thatI should from time to time stray from her, and stray farther and farther. Andthese were the opportunities that the Chatterer waited for. (I may as wellexplain that we bore no names in those days; were not known by any name. Forthe sake of convenience I have myself given names to the various Folk I wasmore closely in contact with, and the “Chatterer” is the mostfitting description I can find for that precious stepfather of mine. As for me,I have named myself “Big-Tooth.” My eye-teeth were pronouncedlylarge.)
But to return to the Chatterer. He persistently terrorized me. He was alwayspinching me and cuffing me, and on occasion he was not above biting me. Oftenmy mother interfered, and the way she made his fur fly was a joy to see. Butthe result of all this was a beautiful and unending family quarrel, in which Iwas the bone of contention.
No, my home-life was not happy. I smile to myself as I write the phrase.Home-life! Home! I had no home in the modern sense of the term. My home was anassociation, not a habitation. I lived in my mother’s care, not in ahouse. And my mother lived anywhere, so long as when night came she was abovethe ground.
My mother was old-fashioned. She still clung to her trees. It is true, the moreprogressive members of our horde lived in the caves above the river. But mymother was suspicious and unprogressive. The trees were good enough for her. Ofcourse, we had one particular tree in which we usually roosted, though we oftenroosted in other trees when nightfall caught us. In a convenient fork was asort of rude platform of twigs and branches and creeping things. It was morelike a huge bird-nest than anything else, though it was a thousand times cruderin the weaving than any bird-nest. But it had one feature that I have neverseen attached to any bird-nest, namely, a roof.
Oh, not a roof such as modern man makes! Nor a roof such as is made by thelowest aborigines of to-day. It was infinitely more clumsy than the clumsiesthandiwork of man—of man as we know him. It was put together in a casual,helter-skelter sort of way. Above the fork of the tree whereon we rested was apile of dead branches and brush. Four or five adjacent forks held what I mayterm the various ridge-poles. These were merely stout sticks an inch or so indiameter. On them rested the brush and branches. These seemed to have beentossed on almost aimlessly. There was no attempt at thatching. And I mustconfess that the roof leaked miserably in a heavy rain.
But the Chatterer. He made home-life a burden for both my mother andme—and by home-life I mean, not the leaky nest in the tree, but thegroup-life of the three of us. He was most malicious in his persecution of me.That was the one purpose to which he held steadfastly for longer than fiveminutes. Also, as time went by, my mother was less eager in her defence of me.I think, what of the continuous rows raised by the Chatterer, that I must havebecome a nuisance to her. At any rate, the situation went from bad to worse sorapidly that I should soon, of my own volition, have left home. But thesatisfaction of performing so independent an act was denied me. Before I wasready to go, I was thrown out. And I mean this literally.
The opportunity came to the Chatterer one day when I was alone in the nest. Mymother and the Chatterer had gone away together toward the blueberry swamp. Hemust have planned the whole thing, for I heard him returning alone through theforest, roaring with self-induced rage as he came. Like all the men of ourhorde, when they were angry or were trying to make themselves angry, he stoppednow and again to hammer on his chest with his fist.
I realized the helplessness of my situation, and crouched trembling in thenest. The Chatterer came directly to the tree—I remember it was an oaktree—and began to climb up. And he never ceased for a moment from hisinfernal row. As I have said, our language was extremely meagre, and he musthave strained it by the variety of ways in which he informed me of his undyinghatred of me and of his intention there and then to have it out with me.
As he climbed to the fork, I fled out the great horizontal limb. He followedme, and out I went, farther and farther. At last I was out amongst the smalltwigs and leaves. The Chatterer was ever a coward, and greater always than anyanger he ever worked up was his caution. He was afraid to follow me out amongstthe leaves and twigs. For that matter, his greater weight would have crashedhim through the foliage before he could have got to me.
But it was not necessary for him to reach me, and well he knew it, thescoundrel! With a malevolent expression on his face, his beady eyes gleamingwith cruel intelligence, he began teetering. Teetering!—and with me outon the very edge of the bough, clutching at the twigs that broke continuallywith my weight. Twenty feet beneath me was the earth.
Wildly and more wildly he teetered, grinning at me his gloating hatred. Thencame the end. All four holds broke at the same time, and I fell, back-downward,looking up at him, my hands and feet still clutching the broken twigs. Luckily,there were no wild pigs under me, and my fall was broken by the tough andspringy bushes.
Usually, my falls destroy my dreams, the nervous shock being sufficient tobridge the thousand centuries in an instant and hurl me wide awake into mylittle bed, where, perchance, I lie sweating and trembling and hear the cuckooclock calling the hour in the hall. But this dream of my leaving home I havehad many times, and never yet have I been awakened by it. Always do I crash,shrieking, down through the brush and fetch up with a bump on the ground.
Scratched and bruised and whimpering, I lay where I had fallen. Peering upthrough the bushes, I could see the Chatterer. He had set up a demoniacal chantof joy and was keeping time to it with his teetering. I quickly hushed mywhimpering. I was no longer in the safety of the trees, and I knew the danger Iran of bringing upon myself the hunting animals by too audible an expression ofmy grief.
I remember, as my sobs died down, that I became interested in watching thestrange light-effects produced by partially opening and closing my tear-weteyelids. Then I began to investigate, and found that I was not so very badlydamaged by my fall. I had lost some hair and hide, here and there; the sharpand jagged end of a broken branch had thrust fully an inch into my forearm; andmy right hip, which had borne the brunt of my contact with the ground, wasaching intolerably. But these, after all, were only petty hurts. No bones werebroken, and in those days the flesh of man had finer healing qualities than ithas to-day. Yet it was a severe fall, for I limped with my injured hip forfully a week afterward.
Next, as I lay in the bushes, there came upon me a feeling of desolation, aconsciousness that I was homeless. I made up my mind never to return to mymother and the Chatterer. I would go far away through the terrible forest, andfind some tree for myself in which to roost. As for food, I knew where to findit. For the last year at least I had not been beholden to my mother for food.All she had furnished me was protection and guidance.
I crawled softly out through the bushes. Once I looked back and saw theChatterer still chanting and teetering. It was not a pleasant sight. I knewpretty well how to be cautious, and I was exceedingly careful on this my firstjourney in the world.
I gave no thought as to where I was going. I had but one purpose, and that wasto go away beyond the reach of the Chatterer. I climbed into the trees andwandered on amongst them for hours, passing from tree to tree and nevertouching the ground. But I did not go in any particular direction, nor did Itravel steadily. It was my nature, as it was the nature of all my folk, to beinconsequential. Besides, I was a mere child, and I stopped a great deal toplay by the way.
The events that befell me on my leaving home are very vague in my mind. Mydreams do not cover them. Much has my other-self forgotten, and particularly atthis very period. Nor have I been able to frame up the various dreams so as tobridge the gap between my leaving the home-tree and my arrival at the caves.
I remember that several times I came to open spaces. These I crossed in greattrepidation, descending to the ground and running at the top of my speed. Iremember that there were days of rain and days of sunshine, so that I must havewandered alone for quite a time. I especially dream of my misery in the rain,and of my sufferings from hunger and how I appeased it. One very strongimpression is of hunting little lizards on the rocky top of an open knoll. Theyran under the rocks, and most of them escaped; but occasionally I turned over astone and caught one. I was frightened away from this knoll by snakes. They didnot pursue me. They were merely basking on flat rocks in the sun. But such wasmy inherited fear of them that I fled as fast as if they had been after me.
Then I gnawed bitter bark from young trees. I remember vaguely the eating ofmany green nuts, with soft shells and milky kernels. And I remember mostdistinctly suffering from a stomach-ache. It may have been caused by the greennuts, and maybe by the lizards. I do not know. But I do know that I wasfortunate in not being devoured during the several hours I was knotted up onthe ground with the colic.
CHAPTER V
My vision of the scene came abruptly, as I emerged from the forest. I foundmyself on the edge of a large clear space. On one side of this space rose uphigh bluffs. On the other side was the river. The earth bank ran steeply downto the water, but here and there, in several places, where at some time slidesof earth had occurred, there were run-ways. These were the drinking-places ofthe Folk that lived in the caves.
And this was the main abiding-place of the Folk that I had chanced upon. Thiswas, I may say, by stretching the word, the village. My mother and theChatterer and I, and a few other simple bodies, were what might be termedsuburban residents. We were part of the horde, though we lived a distance awayfrom it. It was only a short distance, though it had taken me, what of mywandering, all of a week to arrive. Had I come directly, I could have coveredthe trip in an hour.
But to return. From the edge of the forest I saw the caves in the bluff, theopen space, and the run-ways to the drinking-places. And in the open space Isaw many of the Folk. I had been straying, alone and a child, for a week.During that time I had seen not one of my kind. I had lived in terror anddesolation. And now, at the sight of my kind, I was overcome with gladness, andI ran wildly toward them.
Then it was that a strange thing happened. Some one of the Folk saw me anduttered a warning cry. On the instant, crying out with fear and panic, the Folkfled away. Leaping and scrambling over the rocks, they plunged into the mouthsof the caves and disappeared...all but one, a little baby, that had beendropped in the excitement close to the base of the bluff. He was wailingdolefully. His mother dashed out; he sprang to meet her and held on tightly asshe scrambled back into the cave.
I was all alone. The populous open space had of a sudden become deserted. I satdown forlornly and whimpered. I could not understand. Why had the Folk run awayfrom me? In later time, when I came to know their ways, I was to learn. Whenthey saw me dashing out of the forest at top speed they concluded that I wasbeing pursued by some hunting animal. By my unceremonious approach I hadstampeded them.
As I sat and watched the cave-mouths I became aware that the Folk were watchingme. Soon they were thrusting their heads out. A little later they were callingback and forth to one another. In the hurry and confusion it had happened thatall had not gained their own caves. Some of the young ones had sought refuge inother caves. The mothers did not call for them by name, because that was aninvention we had not yet made. All were nameless. The mothers utteredquerulous, anxious cries, which were recognized by the young ones. Thus, had mymother been there calling to me, I should have recognized her voice amongst thevoices of a thousand mothers, and in the same way would she have recognizedmine amongst a thousand.
This calling back and forth continued for some time, but they were too cautiousto come out of their caves and descend to the ground. Finally one did come. Hewas destined to play a large part in my life, and for that matter he alreadyplayed a large part in the lives of all the members of the horde. He it waswhom I shall call Red-Eye in the pages of this history—so called becauseof his inflamed eyes, the lids being always red, and, by the peculiar effectthey produced, seeming to advertise the terrible savagery of him. The color ofhis soul was red.
He was a monster in all ways. Physically he was a giant. He must have weighedone hundred and seventy pounds. He was the largest one of our kind I ever saw.Nor did I ever see one of the Fire People so large as he, nor one of the TreePeople. Sometimes, when in the newspapers I happen upon descriptions of ourmodern bruisers and prizefighters, I wonder what chance the best of them wouldhave had against him.
I am afraid not much of a chance. With one grip of his iron fingers and a pull,he could have plucked a muscle, say a biceps, by the roots, clear out of theirbodies. A back-handed, loose blow of his fist could have smashed their skullslike egg-shells. With a sweep of his wicked feet (or hind-hands) he could havedisembowelled them. A twist could have broken their necks, and I know that witha single crunch of his jaws he could have pierced, at the same moment, thegreat vein of the throat in front and the spinal marrow at the back.
He could spring twenty feet horizontally from a sitting position. He wasabominably hairy. It was a matter of pride with us to be not very hairy. But hewas covered with hair all over, on the inside of the arms as well as theoutside, and even the ears themselves. The only places on him where the hairdid not grow were the soles of his hands and feet and beneath his eyes. He wasfrightfully ugly, his ferocious grinning mouth and huge down-hanging under-lipbeing but in harmony with his terrible eyes.
This was Red-Eye. And right gingerly he crept out of his cave and descended tothe ground. Ignoring me, he proceeded to reconnoitre. He bent forward from thehips as he walked; and so far forward did he bend, and so long were his arms,that with every step he touched the knuckles of his hands to the ground oneither side of him. He was awkward in the semi-erect position of walking thathe assumed, and he really touched his knuckles to the ground in order tobalance himself. But oh, I tell you he could run on all-fours! Now this wassomething at which we were particularly awkward. Furthermore, it was a rareindividual among us who balanced himself with his knuckles when walking. Suchan individual was an atavism, and Red-Eye was an even greater atavism.
That is what he was—an atavism. We were in the process of changing ourtree-life to life on the ground. For many generations we had been going throughthis change, and our bodies and carriage had likewise changed. But Red-Eye hadreverted to the more primitive tree-dwelling type. Perforce, because he wasborn in our horde he stayed with us; but in actuality he was an atavism and hisplace was elsewhere.
Very circumspect and very alert, he moved here and there about the open space,peering through the vistas among the trees and trying to catch a glimpse of thehunting animal that all suspected had pursued me. And while he did this, takingno notice of me, the Folk crowded at the cave-mouths and watched.
At last he evidently decided that there was no danger lurking about. He wasreturning from the head of the run-way, from where he had taken a peep down atthe drinking-place. His course brought him near, but still he did not noticeme. He proceeded casually on his way until abreast of me, and then, withoutwarning and with incredible swiftness, he smote me a buffet on the head. I wasknocked backward fully a dozen feet before I fetched up against the ground, andI remember, half-stunned, even as the blow was struck, hearing the wild uproarof clucking and shrieking laughter that arose from the caves. It was a greatjoke—at least in that day; and right heartily the Folk appreciated it.
Thus was I received into the horde. Red-Eye paid no further attention to me,and I was at liberty to whimper and sob to my heart’s content. Several ofthe women gathered curiously about me, and I recognized them. I had encounteredthem the preceding year when my mother had taken me to the hazelnut canyons.
But they quickly left me alone, being replaced by a dozen curious and teasingyoungsters. They formed a circle around me, pointing their fingers, makingfaces, and poking and pinching me. I was frightened, and for a time I enduredthem, then anger got the best of me and I sprang tooth and nail upon the mostaudacious one of them—none other than Lop-Ear himself. I have so namedhim because he could prick up only one of his ears. The other ear always hunglimp and without movement. Some accident had injured the muscles and deprivedhim of the use of it.
He closed with me, and we went at it for all the world like a couple of smallboys fighting. We scratched and bit, pulled hair, clinched, and threw eachother down. I remember I succeeded in getting on him what in my college days Ilearned was called a half-Nelson. This hold gave me the decided advantage. ButI did not enjoy it long. He twisted up one leg, and with the foot (orhind-hand) made so savage an onslaught upon my abdomen as to threaten todisembowel me. I had to release him in order to save myself, and then we wentat it again.
Lop-Ear was a year older than I, but I was several times angrier than he, andin the end he took to his heels. I chased him across the open and down arun-way to the river. But he was better acquainted with the locality and ranalong the edge of the water and up another run-way. He cut diagonally acrossthe open space and dashed into a wide-mouthed cave.
Before I knew it, I had plunged after him into the darkness. The next moment Iwas badly frightened. I had never been in a cave before. I began to whimper andcry out. Lop-Ear chattered mockingly at me, and, springing upon me unseen,tumbled me over. He did not risk a second encounter, however, and took himselfoff. I was between him and the entrance, and he did not pass me; yet he seemedto have gone away. I listened, but could get no clew as to where he was. Thispuzzled me, and when I regained the outside I sat down to watch.
He never came out of the entrance, of that I was certain; yet at the end ofseveral minutes he chuckled at my elbow. Again I ran after him, and again heran into the cave; but this time I stopped at the mouth. I dropped back a shortdistance and watched. He did not come out, yet, as before, he chuckled at myelbow and was chased by me a third time into the cave.
This performance was repeated several times. Then I followed him into the cave,where I searched vainly for him. I was curious. I could not understand how heeluded me. Always he went into the cave, never did he come out of it, yetalways did he arrive there at my elbow and mock me. Thus did our fighttransform itself into a game of hide and seek.
All afternoon, with occasional intervals, we kept it up, and a playful,friendly spirit arose between us. In the end, he did not run away from me, andwe sat together with our arms around each other. A little later he disclosedthe mystery of the wide-mouthed cave. Holding me by the hand he led me inside.It connected by a narrow crevice with another cave, and it was through thisthat we regained the open air.
We were now good friends. When the other young ones gathered around to tease,he joined with me in attacking them; and so viciously did we behave that beforelong I was let alone. Lop-Ear made me acquainted with the village. There waslittle that he could tell me of conditions and customs—he had not thenecessary vocabulary; but by observing his actions I learned much, and also heshowed me places and things.
He took me up the open space, between the caves and the river, and into theforest beyond, where, in a grassy place among the trees, we made a meal ofstringy-rooted carrots. After that we had a good drink at the river and startedup the run-way to the caves.
It was in the run-way that we came upon Red-Eye again. The first I knew,Lop-Ear had shrunk away to one side and was crouching low against the bank.Naturally and involuntarily, I imitated him. Then it was that I looked to seethe cause of his fear. It was Red-Eye, swaggering down the centre of therun-way and scowling fiercely with his inflamed eyes. I noticed that all theyoungsters shrank away from him as we had done, while the grown-ups regardedhim with wary eyes when he drew near, and stepped aside to give him the centreof the path.
As twilight came on, the open space was deserted. The Folk were seeking thesafety of the caves. Lop-Ear led the way to bed. High up the bluff we climbed,higher than all the other caves, to a tiny crevice that could not be seen fromthe ground. Into this Lop-Ear squeezed. I followed with difficulty, so narrowwas the entrance, and found myself in a small rock-chamber. It was verylow—not more than a couple of feet in height, and possibly three feet byfour in width and length. Here, cuddled together in each other’s arms, weslept out the night.
CHAPTER VI
While the more courageous of the youngsters played in and out of thelarge-mouthed caves, I early learned that such caves were unoccupied. No oneslept in them at night. Only the crevice-mouthed caves were used, the narrowerthe mouth the better. This was from fear of the preying animals that made lifea burden to us in those days and nights.
The first morning, after my night’s sleep with Lop-Ear, I learned theadvantage of the narrow-mouthed caves. It was just daylight when oldSaber-Tooth, the tiger, walked into the open space. Two of the Folk werealready up. They made a rush for it. Whether they were panic-stricken, orwhether he was too close on their heels for them to attempt to scramble up thebluff to the crevices, I do not know; but at any rate they dashed into thewide-mouthed cave wherein Lop-Ear and I had played the afternoon before.
What happened inside there was no way of telling, but it is fair to concludethat the two Folk slipped through the connecting crevice into the other cave.This crevice was too small to allow for the passage of Saber-Tooth, and he cameout the way he had gone in, unsatisfied and angry. It was evident that hisnight’s hunting had been unsuccessful and that he had expected to make ameal off of us. He caught sight of the two Folk at the other cave-mouth andsprang for them. Of course, they darted through the passageway into the firstcave. He emerged angrier than ever and snarling.
Pandemonium broke loose amongst the rest of us. All up and down the greatbluff, we crowded the crevices and outside ledges, and we were all chatteringand shrieking in a thousand keys. And we were all making faces—snarlingfaces; this was an instinct with us. We were as angry as Saber-Tooth, thoughour anger was allied with fear. I remember that I shrieked and made faces withthe best of them. Not only did they set the example, but I felt the urge fromwithin me to do the same things they were doing. My hair was bristling, and Iwas convulsed with a fierce, unreasoning rage.
For some time old Saber-Tooth continued dashing in and out of first the onecave and then the other. But the two Folk merely slipped back and forth throughthe connecting crevice and eluded him. In the meantime the rest of us up thebluff had proceeded to action. Every time he appeared outside we pelted himwith rocks. At first we merely dropped them on him, but we soon began to whizthem down with the added force of our muscles.
This bombardment drew Saber-Tooth’s attention to us and made him angrierthan ever. He abandoned his pursuit of the two Folk and sprang up the blufftoward the rest of us, clawing at the crumbling rock and snarling as he clawedhis upward way. At this awful sight, the last one of us sought refuge insideour caves. I know this, because I peeped out and saw the whole bluff-sidedeserted, save for Saber-Tooth, who had lost his footing and was sliding andfalling down.
I called out the cry of encouragement, and again the bluff was covered by thescreaming horde and the stones were falling faster than ever. Saber-Tooth wasfrantic with rage. Time and again he assaulted the bluff. Once he even gainedthe first crevice-entrances before he fell back, but was unable to force hisway inside. With each upward rush he made, waves of fear surged over us. Atfirst, at such times, most of us dashed inside; but some remained outside tohammer him with stones, and soon all of us remained outside and kept up thefusillade.
Never was so masterly a creature so completely baffled. It hurt his prideterribly, thus to be outwitted by the small and tender Folk. He stood on theground and looked up at us, snarling, lashing his tail, snapping at the stonesthat fell near to him. Once I whizzed down a stone, and just at the rightmoment he looked up. It caught him full on the end of his nose, and he wentstraight up in the air, all four feet of him, roaring and caterwauling, what ofthe hurt and surprise.
He was beaten and he knew it. Recovering his dignity, he stalked out solemnlyfrom under the rain of stones. He stopped in the middle of the open space andlooked wistfully and hungrily back at us. He hated to forego the meal, and wewere just so much meat, cornered but inaccessible. This sight of him started usto laughing. We laughed derisively and uproariously, all of us. Now animals donot like mockery. To be laughed at makes them angry. And in such fashion ourlaughter affected Saber-Tooth. He turned with a roar and charged the bluffagain. This was what we wanted. The fight had become a game, and we took hugedelight in pelting him.
But this attack did not last long. He quickly recovered his common sense, andbesides, our missiles were shrewd to hurt. Vividly do I recollect the vision ofone bulging eye of his, swollen almost shut by one of the stones we had thrown.And vividly do I retain the picture of him as he stood on the edge of theforest whither he had finally retreated. He was looking back at us, hiswrithing lips lifted clear of the very roots of his huge fangs, his hairbristling and his tail lashing. He gave one last snarl and slid from view amongthe trees.
And then such a chattering as went up. We swarmed out of our holes, examiningthe marks his claws had made on the crumbling rock of the bluff, all of ustalking at once. One of the two Folk who had been caught in the double cave waspart-grown, half child and half youth. They had come out proudly from theirrefuge, and we surrounded them in an admiring crowd. Then the youngfellow’s mother broke through and fell upon him in a tremendous rage,boxing his ears, pulling his hair, and shrieking like a demon. She was astrapping big woman, very hairy, and the thrashing she gave him was a delightto the horde. We roared with laughter, holding on to one another or rolling onthe ground in our glee.
In spite of the reign of fear under which we lived, the Folk were always greatlaughers. We had the sense of humor. Our merriment was Gargantuan. It was neverrestrained. There was nothing half way about it. When a thing was funny we wereconvulsed with appreciation of it, and the simplest, crudest things were funnyto us. Oh, we were great laughers, I can tell you.
The way we had treated Saber-Tooth was the way we treated all animals thatinvaded the village. We kept our run-ways and drinking-places to ourselves bymaking life miserable for the animals that trespassed or strayed upon ourimmediate territory. Even the fiercest hunting animals we so bedevilled thatthey learned to leave our places alone. We were not fighters like them; we werecunning and cowardly, and it was because of our cunning and cowardice, and ourinordinate capacity for fear, that we survived in that frightfully hostileenvironment of the Younger World.
Lop-Ear, I figure, was a year older than I. What his past history was he had noway of telling me, but as I never saw anything of his mother I believed him tobe an orphan. After all, fathers did not count in our horde. Marriage was asyet in a rude state, and couples had a way of quarrelling and separating.Modern man, what of his divorce institution, does the same thing legally. Butwe had no laws. Custom was all we went by, and our custom in this particularmatter was rather promiscuous.
Nevertheless, as this narrative will show later on, we betrayed glimmeringadumbrations of the monogamy that was later to give power to, and make mighty,such tribes as embraced it. Furthermore, even at the time I was born, therewere several faithful couples that lived in the trees in the neighborhood of mymother. Living in the thick of the horde did not conduce to monogamy. It wasfor this reason, undoubtedly, that the faithful couples went away and lived bythemselves. Through many years these couples stayed together, though when theman or woman died or was eaten the survivor invariably found a new mate.
There was one thing that greatly puzzled me during the first days of myresidence in the horde. There was a nameless and incommunicable fear thatrested upon all. At first it appeared to be connected wholly with direction.The horde feared the northeast. It lived in perpetual apprehension of thatquarter of the compass. And every individual gazed more frequently and withgreater alarm in that direction than in any other.
When Lop-Ear and I went toward the north-east to eat the stringy-rooted carrotsthat at that season were at their best, he became unusually timid. He wascontent to eat the leavings, the big tough carrots and the little ropy ones,rather than to venture a short distance farther on to where the carrots were asyet untouched. When I so ventured, he scolded me and quarrelled with me. Hegave me to understand that in that direction was some horrible danger, but justwhat the horrible danger was his paucity of language would not permit him tosay.
Many a good meal I got in this fashion, while he scolded and chattered vainlyat me. I could not understand. I kept very alert, but I could see no danger. Icalculated always the distance between myself and the nearest tree, and knewthat to that haven of refuge I could out-foot the Tawny One, or oldSaber-Tooth, did one or the other suddenly appear.
One late afternoon, in the village, a great uproar arose. The horde wasanimated with a single emotion, that of fear. The bluff-side swarmed with theFolk, all gazing and pointing into the northeast. I did not know what it was,but I scrambled all the way up to the safety of my own high little cave beforeever I turned around to see.
And then, across the river, away into the northeast, I saw for the first timethe mystery of smoke. It was the biggest animal I had ever seen. I thought itwas a monster snake, up-ended, rearing its head high above the trees andswaying back and forth. And yet, somehow, I seemed to gather from the conductof the Folk that the smoke itself was not the danger. They appeared to fear itas the token of something else. What this something else was I was unable toguess. Nor could they tell me. Yet I was soon to know, and I was to know it asa thing more terrible than the Tawny One, than old Saber-Tooth, than the snakesthemselves, than which it seemed there could be no things more terrible.
CHAPTER VII
Broken-Tooth was another youngster who lived by himself. His mother lived inthe caves, but two more children had come after him and he had been thrust outto shift for himself. We had witnessed the performance during the severalpreceding days, and it had given us no little glee. Broken-Tooth did not wantto go, and every time his mother left the cave he sneaked back into it. Whenshe returned and found him there her rages were delightful. Half the horde madea practice of watching for these moments. First, from within the cave, wouldcome her scolding and shrieking. Then we could hear sounds of the thrashing andthe yelling of Broken-Tooth. About this time the two younger children joinedin. And finally, like the eruption of a miniature volcano, Broken-Tooth wouldcome flying out.
At the end of several days his leaving home was accomplished. He wailed hisgrief, unheeded, from the centre of the open space, for at least half an hour,and then came to live with Lop-Ear and me. Our cave was small, but withsqueezing there was room for three. I have no recollection of Broken-Toothspending more than one night with us, so the accident must have happened rightaway.
It came in the middle of the day. In the morning we had eaten our fill of thecarrots, and then, made heedless by play, we had ventured on to the big treesjust beyond. I cannot understand how Lop-Ear got over his habitual caution, butit must have been the play. We were having a great time playing tree tag. Andsuch tag! We leaped ten or fifteen-foot gaps as a matter of course. And atwenty or twenty-five foot deliberate drop clear down to the ground was nothingto us. In fact, I am almost afraid to say the great distances we dropped. As wegrew older and heavier we found we had to be more cautious in dropping, but atthat age our bodies were all strings and springs and we could do anything.
Broken-Tooth displayed remarkable agility in the game. He was “It”less frequently than any of us, and in the course of the game he discovered onedifficult “slip” that neither Lop-Ear nor I was able to accomplish.To be truthful, we were afraid to attempt it.
When we were “It,” Broken-Tooth always ran out to the end of alofty branch in a certain tree. From the end of the branch to the ground itmust have been seventy feet, and nothing intervened to break a fall. But abouttwenty feet lower down, and fully fifteen feet out from the perpendicular, wasthe thick branch of another tree.
As we ran out the limb, Broken-Tooth, facing us, would begin teetering. Thisnaturally impeded our progress; but there was more in the teetering than that.He teetered with his back to the jump he was to make. Just as we nearly reachedhim he would let go. The teetering branch was like a spring-board. It threw himfar out, backward, as he fell. And as he fell he turned around sidewise in theair so as to face the other branch into which he was falling. This branch bentfar down under the impact, and sometimes there was an ominous crackling; but itnever broke, and out of the leaves was always to be seen the face ofBroken-Tooth grinning triumphantly up at us.
I was “It” the last time Broken-Tooth tried this. He had gained theend of the branch and begun his teetering, and I was creeping out after him,when suddenly there came a low warning cry from Lop-Ear. I looked down and sawhim in the main fork of the tree crouching close against the trunk.Instinctively I crouched down upon the thick limb. Broken-Tooth stoppedteetering, but the branch would not stop, and his body continued bobbing up anddown with the rustling leaves.
I heard the crackle of a dry twig, and looking down saw my first Fire-Man. Hewas creeping stealthily along on the ground and peering up into the tree. Atfirst I thought he was a wild animal, because he wore around his waist and overhis shoulders a ragged piece of bearskin. And then I saw his hands and feet,and more clearly his features. He was very much like my kind, except that hewas less hairy and that his feet were less like hands than ours. In fact, heand his people, as I was later to know, were far less hairy than we, though we,in turn, were equally less hairy than the Tree People.
It came to me instantly, as I looked at him. This was the terror of thenortheast, of which the mystery of smoke was a token. Yet I was puzzled.Certainly he was nothing of which to be afraid. Red-Eye or any of our strongmen would have been more than a match for him. He was old, too, wizened withage, and the hair on his face was gray. Also, he limped badly with one leg.There was no doubt at all that we could out-run him and out-climb him. He couldnever catch us, that was certain.
But he carried something in his hand that I had never seen before. It was a bowand arrow. But at that time a bow and arrow had no meaning for me. How was I toknow that death lurked in that bent piece of wood? But Lop-Ear knew. He hadevidently seen the Fire People before and knew something of their ways. TheFire-Man peered up at him and circled around the tree. And around the maintrunk above the fork Lop-Ear circled too, keeping always the trunk betweenhimself and the Fire-Man.
The latter abruptly reversed his circling. Lop-Ear, caught unawares, alsohastily reversed, but did not win the protection of the trunk until after theFire-Man had twanged the bow.
I saw the arrow leap up, miss Lop-Ear, glance against a limb, and fall back tothe ground. I danced up and down on my lofty perch with delight. It was a game!The Fire-Man was throwing things at Lop-Ear as we sometimes threw things at oneanother.
The game continued a little longer, but Lop-Ear did not expose himself a secondtime. Then the Fire-Man gave it up. I leaned far out over my horizontal limband chattered down at him. I wanted to play. I wanted to have him try to hit mewith the thing. He saw me, but ignored me, turning his attention toBroken-Tooth, who was still teetering slightly and involuntarily on the end ofthe branch.
The first arrow leaped upward. Broken-Tooth yelled with fright and pain. It hadreached its mark. This put a new complexion on the matter. I no longer cared toplay, but crouched trembling close to my limb. A second arrow and a thirdsoared up, missing Broken-Tooth, rustling the leaves as they passed through,arching in their flight and returning to earth.
The Fire-Man stretched his bow again. He shifted his position, walking awayseveral steps, then shifted it a second time. The bow-string twanged, the arrowleaped upward, and Broken-Tooth, uttering a terrible scream, fell off thebranch. I saw him as he went down, turning over and over, all arms and legs itseemed, the shaft of the arrow projecting from his chest and appearing anddisappearing with each revolution of his body.
Sheer down, screaming, seventy feet he fell, smashing to the earth with anaudible thud and crunch, his body rebounding slightly and settling down again.Still he lived, for he moved and squirmed, clawing with his hands and feet. Iremember the Fire-Man running forward with a stone and hammering him on thehead...and then I remember no more.
Always, during my childhood, at this stage of the dream, did I wake upscreaming with fright—to find, often, my mother or nurse, anxious andstartled, by my bedside, passing soothing hands through my hair and telling methat they were there and that there was nothing to fear.
My next dream, in the order of succession, begins always with the flight ofLop-Ear and myself through the forest. The Fire-Man and Broken-Tooth and thetree of the tragedy are gone. Lop-Ear and I, in a cautious panic, are fleeingthrough the trees. In my right leg is a burning pain; and from the flesh,protruding head and shaft from either side, is an arrow of the Fire-Man. Notonly did the pull and strain of it pain me severely, but it bothered mymovements and made it impossible for me to keep up with Lop-Ear.
At last I gave up, crouching in the secure fork of a tree. Lop-Ear went righton. I called to him—most plaintively, I remember; and he stopped andlooked back. Then he returned to me, climbing into the fork and examining thearrow. He tried to pull it out, but one way the flesh resisted the barbed head,and the other way it resisted the feathered shaft. Also, it hurt grievously,and I stopped him.
For some time we crouched there, Lop-Ear nervous and anxious to be gone,perpetually and apprehensively peering this way and that, and myself whimperingsoftly and sobbing. Lop-Ear was plainly in a funk, and yet his conduct inremaining by me, in spite of his fear, I take as a foreshadowing of thealtruism and comradeship that have helped make man the mightiest of theanimals.
Once again Lop-Ear tried to drag the arrow through the flesh, and I angrilystopped him. Then he bent down and began gnawing the shaft of the arrow withhis teeth. As he did so he held the arrow firmly in both hands so that it wouldnot play about in the wound, and at the same time I held on to him. I oftenmeditate upon this scene—the two of us, half-grown cubs, in the childhoodof the race, and the one mastering his fear, beating down his selfish impulseof flight, in order to stand by and succor the other. And there rises up beforeme all that was there foreshadowed, and I see visions of Damon and Pythias, oflife-saving crews and Red Cross nurses, of martyrs and leaders of forlornhopes, of Father Damien, and of the Christ himself, and of all the men ofearth, mighty of stature, whose strength may trace back to the elemental loinsof Lop-Ear and Big-Tooth and other dim denizens of the Younger World.
When Lop-Ear had chewed off the head of the arrow, the shaft was withdrawneasily enough. I started to go on, but this time it was he that stopped me. Myleg was bleeding profusely. Some of the smaller veins had doubtless beenruptured. Running out to the end of a branch, Lop-Ear gathered a handful ofgreen leaves. These he stuffed into the wound. They accomplished the purpose,for the bleeding soon stopped. Then we went on together, back to the safety ofthe caves.
CHAPTER VIII
Well do I remember that first winter after I left home. I have long dreams ofsitting shivering in the cold. Lop-Ear and I sit close together, with our armsand legs about each other, blue-faced and with chattering teeth. It gotparticularly crisp along toward morning. In those chill early hours we sleptlittle, huddling together in numb misery and waiting for the sunrise in orderto get warm.
When we went outside there was a crackle of frost under foot. One morning wediscovered ice on the surface of the quiet water in the eddy where was thedrinking-place, and there was a great How-do-you-do about it. Old Marrow-Bonewas the oldest member of the horde, and he had never seen anything like itbefore. I remember the worried, plaintive look that came into his eyes as heexamined the ice. (This plaintive look always came into our eyes when we didnot understand a thing, or when we felt the prod of some vague andinexpressible desire.) Red-Eye, too, when he investigated the ice, looked bleakand plaintive, and stared across the river into the northeast, as though insome way he connected the Fire People with this latest happening.
But we found ice only on that one morning, and that was the coldest winter weexperienced. I have no memory of other winters when it was so cold. I haveoften thought that that cold winter was a fore-runner of the countless coldwinters to come, as the ice-sheet from farther north crept down over the faceof the land. But we never saw that ice-sheet. Many generations must have passedaway before the descendants of the horde migrated south, or remained andadapted themselves to the changed conditions.
Life was hit or miss and happy-go-lucky with us. Little was ever planned, andless was executed. We ate when we were hungry, drank when we were thirsty,avoided our carnivorous enemies, took shelter in the caves at night, and forthe rest just sort of played along through life.
We were very curious, easily amused, and full of tricks and pranks. There wasno seriousness about us, except when we were in danger or were angry, in whichcases the one was quickly forgotten and the other as quickly got over.
We were inconsecutive, illogical, and inconsequential. We had no steadfastnessof purpose, and it was here that the Fire People were ahead of us. Theypossessed all these things of which we possessed so little. Occasionally,however, especially in the realm of the emotions, we were capable oflong-cherished purpose. The faithfulness of the monogamic couples I havereferred to may be explained as a matter of habit; but my long desire for theSwift One cannot be so explained, any more than can be explained the undyingenmity between me and Red-Eye.
But it was our inconsequentiality and stupidity that especially distresses mewhen I look back upon that life in the long ago. Once I found a broken gourdwhich happened to lie right side up and which had been filled with the rain.The water was sweet, and I drank it. I even took the gourd down to the streamand filled it with more water, some of which I drank and some of which I pouredover Lop-Ear. And then I threw the gourd away. It never entered my head to fillthe gourd with water and carry it into my cave. Yet often I was thirsty atnight, especially after eating wild onions and watercress, and no one everdared leave the caves at night for a drink.
Another time I found a dry gourd, inside of which the seeds rattled. I had funwith it for a while. But it was a plaything, nothing more. And yet, it was notlong after this that the using of gourds for storing water became the generalpractice of the horde. But I was not the inventor. The honor was due to oldMarrow-Bone, and it is fair to assume that it was the necessity of his greatage that brought about the innovation.
At any rate, the first member of the horde to use gourds was Marrow-Bone. Hekept a supply of drinking-water in his cave, which cave belonged to his son,the Hairless One, who permitted him to occupy a corner of it. We used to seeMarrow-Bone filling his gourd at the drinking-place and carrying it carefullyup to his cave. Imitation was strong in the Folk, and first one, and thenanother and another, procured a gourd and used it in similar fashion, until itwas a general practice with all of us so to store water.
Sometimes old Marrow-Bone had sick spells and was unable to leave the cave.Then it was that the Hairless One filled the gourd for him. A little later, theHairless One deputed the task to Long-Lip, his son. And after that, even whenMarrow-Bone was well again, Long-Lip continued carrying water for him. By andby, except on unusual occasions, the men never carried any water at all,leaving the task to the women and larger children. Lop-Ear and I wereindependent. We carried water only for ourselves, and we often mocked the youngwater-carriers when they were called away from play to fill the gourds.
Progress was slow with us. We played through life, even the adults, much in thesame way that children play, and we played as none of the other animals played.What little we learned, was usually in the course of play, and was due to ourcuriosity and keenness of appreciation. For that matter, the one big inventionof the horde, during the time I lived with it, was the use of gourds. At firstwe stored only water in the gourds—in imitation of old Marrow-Bone.
But one day some one of the women—I do not know which one—filled agourd with black-berries and carried it to her cave. In no time all the womenwere carrying berries and nuts and roots in the gourds. The idea, once started,had to go on. Another evolution of the carrying-receptacle was due to thewomen. Without doubt, some woman’s gourd was too small, or else she hadforgotten her gourd; but be that as it may, she bent two great leaves together,pinning the seams with twigs, and carried home a bigger quantity of berriesthan could have been contained in the largest gourd.
So far we got, and no farther, in the transportation of supplies during theyears I lived with the Folk. It never entered anybody’s head to weave abasket out of willow-withes. Sometimes the men and women tied tough vines aboutthe bundles of ferns and branches that they carried to the caves to sleep upon.Possibly in ten or twenty generations we might have worked up to the weaving ofbaskets. And of this, one thing is sure: if once we wove withes into baskets,the next and inevitable step would have been the weaving of cloth. Clotheswould have followed, and with covering our nakedness would have come modesty.
Thus was momentum gained in the Younger World. But we were without thismomentum. We were just getting started, and we could not go far in a singlegeneration. We were without weapons, without fire, and in the raw beginnings ofspeech. The device of writing lay so far in the future that I am appalled whenI think of it.
Even I was once on the verge of a great discovery. To show you how fortuitouswas development in those days let me state that had it not been for thegluttony of Lop-Ear I might have brought about the domestication of the dog.And this was something that the Fire People who lived to the northeast had notyet achieved. They were without dogs; this I knew from observation. But let metell you how Lop-Ear’s gluttony possibly set back our social developmentmany generations.
Well to the west of our caves was a great swamp, but to the south lay a stretchof low, rocky hills. These were little frequented for two reasons. First ofall, there was no food there of the kind we ate; and next, those rocky hillswere filled with the lairs of carnivorous beasts.
But Lop-Ear and I strayed over to the hills one day. We would not have strayedhad we not been teasing a tiger. Please do not laugh. It was old Saber-Toothhimself. We were perfectly safe. We chanced upon him in the forest, early inthe morning, and from the safety of the branches overhead we chattered down athim our dislike and hatred. And from branch to branch, and from tree to tree,we followed overhead, making an infernal row and warning all theforest-dwellers that old Saber-Tooth was coming.
We spoiled his hunting for him, anyway. And we made him good and angry. Hesnarled at us and lashed his tail, and sometimes he paused and stared up at usquietly for a long time, as if debating in his mind some way by which he couldget hold of us. But we only laughed and pelted him with twigs and the ends ofbranches.
This tiger-baiting was common sport among the folk. Sometimes half the hordewould follow from overhead a tiger or lion that had ventured out in thedaytime. It was our revenge; for more than one member of the horde, caughtunexpectedly, had gone the way of the tiger’s belly or the lion’s.Also, by such ordeals of helplessness and shame, we taught the hunting animalsto some extent to keep out of our territory. And then it was funny. It was agreat game.
And so Lop-Ear and I had chased Saber-Tooth across three miles of forest.Toward the last he put his tail between his legs and fled from our gibing likea beaten cur. We did our best to keep up with him; but when we reached the edgeof the forest he was no more than a streak in the distance.
I don’t know what prompted us, unless it was curiosity; but after playingaround awhile, Lop-Ear and I ventured across the open ground to the edge of therocky hills. We did not go far. Possibly at no time were we more than a hundredyards from the trees. Coming around a sharp corner of rock (we went verycarefully, because we did not know what we might encounter), we came upon threepuppies playing in the sun.
They did not see us, and we watched them for some time. They were wild dogs. Inthe rock-wall was a horizontal fissure—evidently the lair where theirmother had left them, and where they should have remained had they beenobedient. But the growing life, that in Lop-Ear and me had impelled us toventure away from the forest, had driven the puppies out of the cave to frolic.I know how their mother would have punished them had she caught them.
But it was Lop-Ear and I who caught them. He looked at me, and then we made adash for it. The puppies knew no place to run except into the lair, and weheaded them off. One rushed between my legs. I squatted and grabbed him. Hesank his sharp little teeth into my arm, and I dropped him in the suddenness ofthe hurt and surprise. The next moment he had scurried inside.
Lop-Ear, struggling with the second puppy, scowled at me and intimated by avariety of sounds the different kinds of a fool and a bungler that I was. Thismade me ashamed and spurred me to valor. I grabbed the remaining puppy by thetail. He got his teeth into me once, and then I got him by the nape of theneck. Lop-Ear and I sat down, and held the puppies up, and looked at them, andlaughed.
They were snarling and yelping and crying. Lop-Ear started suddenly. He thoughthe had heard something. We looked at each other in fear, realizing the dangerof our position. The one thing that made animals raging demons was tamperingwith their young. And these puppies that made such a racket belonged to thewild dogs. Well we knew them, running in packs, the terror of the grass-eatinganimals. We had watched them following the herds of cattle and bison anddragging down the calves, the aged, and the sick. We had been chased by themourselves, more than once. I had seen one of the Folk, a woman, run down bythem and caught just as she reached the shelter of the woods. Had she not beentired out by the run, she might have made it into a tree. She tried, andslipped, and fell back. They made short work of her.
We did not stare at each other longer than a moment. Keeping tight hold of ourprizes, we ran for the woods. Once in the security of a tall tree, we held upthe puppies and laughed again. You see, we had to have our laugh out, no matterwhat happened.
And then began one of the hardest tasks I ever attempted. We started to carrythe puppies to our cave. Instead of using our hands for climbing, most of thetime they were occupied with holding our squirming captives. Once we tried towalk on the ground, but were treed by a miserable hyena, who followed alongunderneath. He was a wise hyena.
Lop-Ear got an idea. He remembered how we tied up bundles of leaves to carryhome for beds. Breaking off some tough vines, he tied his puppy’s legstogether, and then, with another piece of vine passed around his neck, slungthe puppy on his back. This left him with hands and feet free to climb. He wasjubilant, and did not wait for me to finish tying my puppy’s legs, butstarted on. There was one difficulty, however. The puppy wouldn’t stayslung on Lop-Ear’s back. It swung around to the side and then on infront. Its teeth were not tied, and the next thing it did was to sink its teethinto Lop-Ear’s soft and unprotected stomach. He let out a scream, nearlyfell, and clutched a branch violently with both hands to save himself. The vinearound his neck broke, and the puppy, its four legs still tied, dropped to theground. The hyena proceeded to dine.
Lop-Ear was disgusted and angry. He abused the hyena, and then went off alonethrough the trees. I had no reason that I knew for wanting to carry the puppyto the cave, except that I wantedto; and I stayed by my task. I madethe work a great deal easier by elaborating on Lop-Ear’s idea. Not onlydid I tie the puppy’s legs, but I thrust a stick through his jaws andtied them together securely.
At last I got the puppy home. I imagine I had more pertinacity than the averageFolk, or else I should not have succeeded. They laughed at me when they saw melugging the puppy up to my high little cave, but I did not mind. Successcrowned my efforts, and there was the puppy. He was a plaything such as none ofthe Folk possessed. He learned rapidly. When I played with him and he bit me, Iboxed his ears, and then he did not try again to bite for a long time.
I was quite taken up with him. He was something new, and it was acharacteristic of the Folk to like new things. When I saw that he refusedfruits and vegetables, I caught birds for him and squirrels and young rabbits.(We Folk were meat-eaters, as well as vegetarians, and we were adept atcatching small game.) The puppy ate the meat and thrived. As well as I canestimate, I must have had him over a week. And then, coming back to the caveone day with a nestful of young-hatched pheasants, I found Lop-Ear had killedthe puppy and was just beginning to eat him. I sprang for Lop-Ear,—thecave was small,—and we went at it tooth and nail.
And thus, in a fight, ended one of the earliest attempts to domesticate thedog. We pulled hair out in handfuls, and scratched and bit and gouged. Then wesulked and made up. After that we ate the puppy. Raw? Yes. We had not yetdiscovered fire. Our evolution into cooking animals lay in the tight-rolledscroll of the future.
CHAPTER IX
Red-Eye was an atavism. He was the great discordant element in our horde. Hewas more primitive than any of us. He did not belong with us, yet we were stillso primitive ourselves that we were incapable of a cooperative effort strongenough to kill him or cast him out. Rude as was our social organization, hewas, nevertheless, too rude to live in it. He tended always to destroy thehorde by his unsocial acts. He was really a reversion to an earlier type, andhis place was with the Tree People rather than with us who were in the processof becoming men.
He was a monster of cruelty, which is saying a great deal in that day. He beathis wives—not that he ever had more than one wife at a time, but that hewas married many times. It was impossible for any woman to live with him, andyet they did live with him, out of compulsion. There was no gainsaying him.
No man was strong enough to stand against him.
Often do I have visions of the quiet hour before the twilight. Fromdrinking-place and carrot patch and berry swamp the Folk are trooping into theopen space before the caves. They dare linger no later than this, for thedreadful darkness is approaching, in which the world is given over to thecarnage of the hunting animals, while the fore-runners of man hide tremblinglyin their holes.
There yet remain to us a few minutes before we climb to our caves. We are tiredfrom the play of the day, and the sounds we make are subdued. Even the cubs,still greedy for fun and antics, play with restraint. The wind from the sea hasdied down, and the shadows are lengthening with the last of the sun’sdescent. And then, suddenly, from Red-Eye’s cave, breaks a wild screamingand the sound of blows. He is beating his wife.
At first an awed silence comes upon us. But as the blows and screams continuewe break out into an insane gibbering of helpless rage. It is plain that themen resent Red-Eye’s actions, but they are too afraid of him. The blowscease, and a low groaning dies away, while we chatter among ourselves and thesad twilight creeps upon us.
We, to whom most happenings were jokes, never laughed during Red-Eye’swife-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 hadtossed her there, after she had died, from his cave-mouth. He never buried hisdead. The task of carrying away the bodies, that else would have polluted ourabiding-place, he left to the horde. We usually flung them into the river belowthe last drinking-place.
Not alone did Red-Eye murder his wives, but he also murdered for his wives, inorder to get them. When he wanted a new wife and selected the wife of anotherman, he promptly killed that man. Two of these murders I saw myself. The wholehorde knew, but could do nothing. We had not yet developed any government, tospeak of, inside the horde. We had certain customs and visited our wrath uponthe unlucky ones who violated those customs. Thus, for example, the individualwho defiled a drinking-place would be attacked by every onlooker, while one whodeliberately gave a false alarm was the recipient of much rough usage at ourhands. But Red-Eye walked rough-shod over all our customs, and we so feared himthat 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 thatwe were really growing up. From the first it had been a squeeze to get inthrough the entrance-crevice. This had had its advantages, however. It hadprevented the larger Folk from taking our cave away from us. And it was a mostdesirable cave, the highest on the bluff, the safest, and in winter thesmallest and warmest.
To show the stage of the mental development of the Folk, I may state that itwould have been a simple thing for some of them to have driven us out andenlarged the crevice-opening. But they never thought of it. Lop-Ear and I didnot think of it either until our increasing size compelled us to make anenlargement. This occurred when summer was well along and we were fat withbetter 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 gotsore, when I accidentally stumbled upon the idea of using a piece of wood onthe rock. This worked well. Also it worked woe. One morning early, we hadscratched out of the wall quite a heap of fragments. I gave the heap a shoveover the lip of the entrance. The next moment there came up from below a howlof rage. There was no need to look. We knew the voice only too well. Therubbish had descended upon Red-Eye.
We crouched down in the cave in consternation. A minute later he was at theentrance, peering in at us with his inflamed eyes and raging like a demon. Buthe was too large. He could not get in to us. Suddenly he went away. This wassuspicious. By all we knew of Folk nature he should have remained and had outhis rage. I crept to the entrance and peeped down. I could see him justbeginning to mount the bluff again. In one hand he carried a long stick. BeforeI could divine his plan, he was back at the entrance and savagely jabbing thestick in at us.
His thrusts were prodigious. They could have disembowelled us. We shrank backagainst the side-walls, where we were almost out of range. But by industriouspoking he got us now and again—cruel, scraping jabs with the end of thestick that raked off the hide and hair. When we screamed with the hurt, heroared his satisfaction and jabbed the harder.
I began to grow angry. I had a temper of my own in those days, and prettyconsiderable courage, too, albeit it was largely the courage of the corneredrat. I caught hold of the stick with my hands, but such was his strength thathe jerked me into the crevice. He reached for me with his long arm, and hisnails tore my flesh as I leaped back from the clutch and gained the comparativesafety of the side-wall.
He began poking again, and caught me a painful blow on the shoulder. Beyondshivering with fright and yelling when he was hit, Lop-Ear did nothing. Ilooked 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. Hebegan 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 allfear. I ripped a fragment of rock from the wall. The piece must have weighedtwo or three pounds. With my strength I slammed it full into Red-Eye’sface. It nearly finished him. He staggered backward, dropping his stick, andalmost fell off the cliff.
He was a ferocious sight. His face was covered with blood, and he was snarlingand 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 beganripping out chunks of crumbling rock and throwing them in at me. This suppliedme with ammunition. I gave him as good as he sent, and better; for he presenteda good target, while he caught only glimpses of me as I snuggled against theside-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 hedescended, the more timid ones scurried for their caves. I could see oldMarrow-Bone tottering along as fast as he could. Red-Eye sprang out from thewall and finished the last twenty feet through the air. He landed alongside amother who was just beginning the ascent. She screamed with fear, and thetwo-year-old child that was clinging to her released its grip and rolled atRed-Eye’s feet. Both he and the mother reached for it, and he got it. Thenext moment the frail little body had whirled through the air and shatteredagainst the wall. The mother ran to it, caught it up in her arms, and crouchedover it crying.
Red-Eye started over to pick up the stick. Old Marrow-Bone had tottered intohis way. Red-Eye’s great hand shot out and clutched the old man by theback of the neck. I looked to see his neck broken. His body went limp as hesurrendered 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 notstruggle. 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 comeforward. And then, in obedience to some whim of his erratic spirit, Red-Eye letthe 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 andpeeping alongside of me, scrambled back into the cave. It was plain thatRed-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 rocksat the cave-entrance. Red-Eye was now several yards beneath me, concealed forthe 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 theflying 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 ofaudience. At last there was one of the Folk who dared to face Red-Eye. As theirapproval and acclamation arose on the air, Red-Eye snarled down at them, and onthe instant they were subdued to silence. Encouraged by this evidence of hispower, he thrust his head into view, and by scowling and snarling and gnashinghis fangs tried to intimidate me. He scowled horribly, contracting the scalpstrongly over the brows and bringing the hair down from the top of the headuntil each hair stood apart and pointed straight forward.
The sight chilled me, but I mastered my fear, and, with a stone poised in myhand, threatened him back. He still tried to advance. I drove the stone down athim and made a sheer miss. The next shot was a success. The stone struck him onthe neck. He slipped back out of sight, but as he disappeared I could see himclutching for a grip on the wall with one hand, and with the other clutching athis throat. The stick fell clattering to the ground.
I could not see him any more, though I could hear him choking and stranglingand coughing. The audience kept a death-like silence. I crouched on the lip ofthe entrance and waited. The strangling and coughing died down, and I couldhear him now and again clearing his throat. A little later he began to climbdown. He went very quietly, pausing every moment or so to stretch his neck orto feel it with his hand.
At the sight of him descending, the whole horde, with wild screams and yells,stampeded for the woods. Old Marrow-Bone, hobbling and tottering, followedbehind. Red-Eye took no notice of the flight. When he reached the ground heskirted the base of the bluff and climbed up and into his own cave. He did notlook 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 wereached the top we looked back. The abiding-place was deserted, Red-Eyeremained in his cave, and the horde had disappeared in the depths of theforest.
We turned and ran. We dashed across the open spaces and down the slopesunmindful of possible snakes in the grass, until we reached the woods. Up intothe trees we went, and on and on, swinging our arboreal flight until we had putmiles between us and the caves. And then, and not till then, in the security ofa great fork, we paused, looked at each other, and began to laugh. We held onto each other, arms and legs, our eyes streaming tears, our sides aching, andlaughed and laughed and laughed.
CHAPTER X
After we had had out our laugh, Lop-Ear and I curved back in our flight and gotbreakfast in the blueberry swamp. It was the same swamp to which I had made myfirst journeys in the world, years before, accompanied by my mother. I had seenlittle of her in the intervening time. Usually, when she visited the horde atthe caves, I was away in the forest. I had once or twice caught glimpses of theChatterer in the open space, and had had the pleasure of making faces at himand angering him from the mouth of my cave. Beyond such amenities I had left myfamily severely alone. I was not much interested in it, and anyway I was doingvery well by myself.
After eating our fill of berries, with two nestfuls of partly hatchedquail-eggs for dessert, Lop-Ear and I wandered circumspectly into the woodstoward the river. Here was where stood my old home-tree, out of which I hadbeen thrown by the Chatterer. It was still occupied. There had been increase inthe family. Clinging tight to my mother was a little baby. Also, there was agirl, 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 intothe tree. Lop-Ear, who was more cautious by far than I, beat a retreat, norcould I persuade him to return. Later in the day, however, my sister came downto the ground, and there and in neighboring trees we romped and played allafternoon. And then came trouble. She was my sister, but that did not preventher from treating me abominably, for she had inherited all the viciousness ofthe 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 mytemper. I did not injure her, but it was undoubtedly the soundest spanking shehad received up to that time.
How she yelled and squalled. The Chatterer, who had been away all day and whowas only then returning, heard the noise and rushed for the spot. My motheralso rushed, but he got there first. Lop-Ear and I did not wait his coming. Wewere off and away, and the Chatterer gave us the chase of our lives through thetrees.
After the chase was over, and Lop-Ear and I had had out our laugh, wediscovered that twilight was falling. Here was night with all its terrors uponus, and to return to the caves was out of the question. Red-Eye made thatimpossible. We took refuge in a tree that stood apart from other trees, andhigh up in a fork we passed the night. It was a miserable night. For the firstfew 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 eachother’s arms. We missed the snug, dry cave that so quickly warmed withthe 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 forourselves. We built the framework of a rough nest, and on higher forks overheadeven got in several ridge-poles for the roof. Then the sun came out, and underits benign influence we forgot the hardships of the night and went off insearch of breakfast. After that, to show the inconsequentiality of life inthose days, we fell to playing. It must have taken us all of a month, workingintermittently, to make our tree-house; and then, when it was completed, wenever used it again.
But I run ahead of my story. When we fell to playing, after breakfast, on thesecond day away from the caves, Lop-Ear led me a chase through the trees anddown to the river. We came out upon it where a large slough entered from theblueberry swamp. The mouth of this slough was wide, while the slough itself waspractically without a current. In the dead water, just inside its mouth, lay atangled mass of tree trunks. Some of these, what of the wear and tear offreshets and of being stranded long summers on sand-bars, were seasoned and dryand without branches. They floated high in the water, and bobbed up and down orrolled over when we put our weight upon them.
Here and there between the trunks were water-cracks, and through them we couldsee schools of small fish, like minnows, darting back and forth. Lop-Ear and Ibecame 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 lackof salt.
The mouth of the slough became our favorite playground. Here we spent manyhours each day, catching fish and playing on the logs, and here, one day, welearned our first lessons in navigation. The log on which Lop-Ear was lying gotadrift. He was curled up on his side, asleep. A light fan of air slowly driftedthe log away from the shore, and when I noticed his predicament the distancewas already too great for him to leap.
At first the episode seemed merely funny to me. But when one of the vagrantimpulses of fear, common in that age of perpetual insecurity, moved within me,I was struck with my own loneliness. I was made suddenly aware ofLop-Ear’s remoteness out there on that alien element a few feet away. Icalled loudly to him a warning cry. He awoke frightened, and shifted his weightrashly on the log. It turned over, sousing him under. Three times again itsoused him under as he tried to climb out upon it. Then he succeeded, crouchingupon it and chattering with fear.
I could do nothing. Nor could he. Swimming was something of which we knewnothing. We were already too far removed from the lower life-forms to have theinstinct for swimming, and we had not yet become sufficiently man-like toundertake it as the working out of a problem. I roamed disconsolately up anddown 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 uponus 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 hundredfeet 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. Icould not understand. I sat down and watched and waited until he gained theshore.
But he had learned something, which was more than I had done. Later in theafternoon, he deliberately launched out from shore on the log. Still later hepersuaded me to join him, and I, too, learned the trick of paddling. For thenext several days we could not tear ourselves away from the slough. So absorbedwere we in our new game that we almost neglected to eat. We even roosted in anearby tree at night. And we forgot that Red-Eye existed.
We were always trying new logs, and we learned that the smaller the log thefaster we could make it go. Also, we learned that the smaller the log the moreliable it was to roll over and give us a ducking. Still another thing aboutsmall logs we learned. One day we paddled our individual logs alongside eachother. And then, quite by accident, in the course of play, we discovered thatwhen each, with one hand and foot, held on to the other’s log, the logswere steadied and did not turn over. Lying side by side in this position, ouroutside hands and feet were left free for paddling. Our final discovery wasthat this arrangement enabled us to use still smaller logs and thereby gaingreater speed. And there our discoveries ended. We had invented the mostprimitive catamaran, and we did not have sense enough to know it. It neverentered 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 begunto return to our tree-shelter to sleep at night, that we found the Swift One. Isaw her first, gathering young acorns from the branches of a large oak near ourtree. She was very timid. At first, she kept very still; but when she saw thatshe was discovered she dropped to the ground and dashed wildly away. We caughtoccasional glimpses of her from day to day, and came to look for her when wetravelled 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 softpeace-sounds. We could not get very near, however. When we seemed to approachtoo close, she darted suddenly away and from a safe distance uttered the softsounds again. This continued for some days. It took a long while to getacquainted with her, but finally it was accomplished and she joined ussometimes in our play.
I liked her from the first. She was of most pleasing appearance. She was verymild. Her eyes were the mildest I had ever seen. In this she was quite unlikethe rest of the girls and women of the Folk, who were born viragos. She nevermade harsh, angry cries, and it seemed to be her nature to flee away fromtrouble rather than to remain and fight.
The mildness I have mentioned seemed to emanate from her whole being. Herbodily as well as facial appearance was the cause of this. Her eyes were largerthan most of her kind, and they were not so deep-set, while the lashes werelonger and more regular. Nor was her nose so thick and squat. It had quite abridge, and the nostrils opened downward. Her incisors were not large, nor washer upper lip long and down-hanging, nor her lower lip protruding. She was notvery 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 throughthe medium of my dreams, and it has always occurred to me that possibly she mayhave been related to the Fire People. Her father, or mother, might well havecome from that higher stock. While such things were not common, still they didoccur, and I have seen the proof of them with my own eyes, even to the extentof members of the horde turning renegade and going to live with the TreePeople.
All of which is neither here nor there. The Swift One was radically differentfrom any of the females of the horde, and I had a liking for her from thefirst. Her mildness and gentleness attracted me. She was never rough, and shenever fought. She always ran away, and right here may be noted the significanceof the naming of her. She was a better climber than Lop-Ear or I. When weplayed tag we could never catch her except by accident, while she could catchus at will. She was remarkably swift in all her movements, and she had a geniusfor judging distances that was equalled only by her daring. Excessively timidin all other matters, she was without fear when it came to climbing or runningthrough the trees, and Lop-Ear and I were awkward and lumbering and cowardly incomparison.
She was an orphan. We never saw her with any one, and there was no telling howlong she had lived alone in the world. She must have learned early in herhelpless childhood that safety lay only in flight. She was very wise and verydiscreet. It became a sort of game with Lop-Ear and me to try to find where shelived. It was certain that she had a tree-shelter somewhere, and not very faraway; but trail her as we would, we could never find it. She was willing enoughto join with us at play in the day-time, but the secret of her abiding-placeshe guarded jealously.
CHAPTER XI
It must be remembered that the description I have just given of the Swift Oneis not the description that would have been given by Big-Tooth, my other selfof 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. Thereis a duality about my impressions that is too confusing to inflict upon myreaders. I shall merely pause here in my narrative to indicate this duality,this perplexing mixing of personality. It is I, the modern, who look backacross the centuries and weigh and analyze the emotions and motives ofBig-Tooth, my other self. He did not bother to weigh and analyze. He wassimplicity itself. He just lived events, without ever pondering why he livedthem in his particular and often erratic way.
As I, my real self, grew older, I entered more and more into the substance ofmy dreams. One may dream, and even in the midst of the dream be aware that heis dreaming, and if the dream be bad, comfort himself with the thought that itis only a dream. This is a common experience with all of us. And so it was thatI, the modern, often entered into my dreaming, and in the consequent strangedual personality was both actor and spectator. And right often have I, themodern, been perturbed and vexed by the foolishness, illogic, obtuseness, andgeneral all-round stupendous stupidity of myself, the primitive.
And one thing more, before I end this digression. Have you ever dreamed thatyou dreamed? Dogs dream, horses dream, all animals dream. In Big-Tooth’sday the half-men dreamed, and when the dreams were bad they howled in theirsleep. 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 knowthat I have done this thing. And let me tell you that the flying and crawlingdreams of Big-Tooth were as vivid to him as the falling-through-space dream isto you.
For Big-Tooth also had an other-self, and when he slept that other-self dreamedback into the past, back to the winged reptiles and the clash and the onset ofdragons, and beyond that to the scurrying, rodent-like life of the tinymammals, and far remoter still, to the shore-slime of the primeval sea. Icannot, I dare not, say more. It is all too vague and complicated and awful. Ican only hint of those vast and terrific vistas through which I have peeredhazily at the progression of life, not upward from the ape to man, but upwardfrom the worm.
And now to return to my tale. I, Big-Tooth, knew not the Swift One as acreature of finer facial and bodily symmetry, with long-lashed eyes and abridge to her nose and down-opening nostrils that made toward beauty. I knewher 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 togo bird-nesting with her. And I must confess she taught me things abouttree-climbing. She was very wise, very strong, and no clinging skirts impededher movements.
It was about this time that a slight defection arose on the part of Lop-Ear. Hegot into the habit of wandering off in the direction of the tree where mymother lived. He had taken a liking to my vicious sister, and the Chatterer hadcome to tolerate him. Also, there were several other young people, progeny ofthe monogamic couples that lived in the neighborhood, and Lop-Ear played withthese young people.
I could never get the Swift One to join with them. Whenever I visited them shedropped behind and disappeared. I remember once making a strong effort topersuade her. But she cast backward, anxious glances, then retreated, callingto me from a tree. So it was that I did not make a practice of accompanyingLop-Ear when he went to visit his new friends. The Swift One and I were goodcomrades, but, try as I would, I could never find her tree-shelter.Undoubtedly, had nothing happened, we would have soon mated, for our liking wasmutual; but the something did happen.
One morning, the Swift One not having put in an appearance, Lop-Ear and I weredown at the mouth of the slough playing on the logs. We had scarcely got out onthe water, when we were startled by a roar of rage. It was Red-Eye. He wascrouching on the edge of the timber jam and glowering his hatred at us. We werebadly frightened, for here was no narrow-mouthed cave for refuge. But thetwenty feet of water that intervened gave us temporary safety, and we pluckedup courage.
Red-Eye stood up erect and began beating his hairy chest with his fist. Our twologs were side by side, and we sat on them and laughed at him. At first ourlaughter was half-hearted, tinged with fear, but as we became convinced of hisimpotence we waxed uproarious. He raged and raged at us, and ground his teethin helpless fury. And in our fancied security we mocked and mocked him. We wereever short-sighted, we Folk.
Red-Eye abruptly ceased his breast-beating and tooth-grinding, and ran acrossthe timber-jam to the shore. And just as abruptly our merriment gave way toconsternation. It was not Red-Eye’s way to forego revenge so easily. Wewaited in fear and trembling for whatever was to happen. It never struck us topaddle away. He came back with great leaps across the jam, one huge hand filledwith round, water-washed pebbles. I am glad that he was unable to find largermissiles, say stones weighing two or three pounds, for we were no more than ascore 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 theforce almost of a bullet. Lop-Ear and I began paddling frantically.Whiz-zip-bang! Lop-Ear screamed with sudden anguish. The pebble had struck himbetween the shoulders. Then I got one and yelled. The only thing that saved uswas the exhausting of Red-Eye’s ammunition. He dashed back to thegravel-bed for more, while Lop-Ear and I paddled away.
Gradually we drew out of range, though Red-Eye continued making trips for moreammunition and the pebbles continued to whiz about us. Out in the centre of theslough there was a slight current, and in our excitement we failed to noticethat it was drifting us into the river. We paddled, and Red-Eye kept as closeas he could to us by following along the shore. Then he discovered largerrocks. Such ammunition increased his range. One fragment, fully five pounds inweight, crashed on the log alongside of me, and such was its impact that itdrove a score of splinters, like fiery needles, into my leg. Had it struck meit would have killed me.
And then the river current caught us. So wildly were we paddling that Red-Eyewas 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 orsmall 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 toholding the logs together alongside each other. In the meanwhile Red-Eyecontinued to bombard us, the rock fragments falling about us, splashing wateron us, and menacing our lives. At the same time he gloated over us, wildly andvociferously.
It happened that there was a sharp turn in the river at the point where theslough entered, and the whole main current of the river was deflected to theother 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 ofRed-Eye, and the last we saw of him was far out on a point of land, where hewas jumping up and down and chanting a paean of victory.
Beyond holding the two logs together, Lop-Ear and I did nothing. We wereresigned to our fate, and we remained resigned until we aroused to the factthat we were drifting along the north shore not a hundred feet away. We beganto paddle for it. Here the main force of the current was flung back toward thesouth shore, and the result of our paddling was that we crossed the currentwhere it was swiftest and narrowest. Before we were aware, we were out of itand in a quiet eddy.
Our logs drifted slowly and at last grounded gently on the bank. Lop-Ear and Icrept ashore. The logs drifted on out of the eddy and swept away down thestream. We looked at each other, but we did not laugh. We were in a strangeland, and it did not enter our minds that we could return to our own land inthe same manner that we had come.
We had learned how to cross a river, though we did not know it. And this wassomething that no one else of the Folk had ever done. We were the first of theFolk to set foot on the north bank of the river, and, for that matter, Ibelieve the last. That they would have done so in the time to come isundoubted; but the migration of the Fire People, and the consequent migrationof 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 FirePeople’s migration. Personally, I am prone to believe that it broughtabout the destruction of the Folk; that we, a branch of lower life buddingtoward the human, were nipped short off and perished down by the roaring surfwhere the river entered the sea. Of course, in such an eventuality, I remain tobe accounted for; but I outrun my story, and such accounting will be madebefore 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 thelikelihood of our getting home again. We turned our backs upon the river, andfor weeks and months adventured in that wilderness where there were no Folk. Itis very difficult for me to reconstruct our journeying, and impossible to do itfrom day to day. Most of it is hazy and indistinct, though here and there Ihave vivid recollections of things that happened.
Especially do I remember the hunger we endured on the mountains between LongLake and Far Lake, and the calf we caught sleeping in the thicket. Also, thereare the Tree People who dwelt in the forest between Long Lake and themountains. It was they who chased us into the mountains and compelled us totravel on to Far Lake.
First, after we left the river, we worked toward the west till we came to asmall stream that flowed through marshlands. Here we turned away toward thenorth, skirting the marshes and after several days arriving at what I havecalled Long Lake. We spent some time around its upper end, where we found foodin 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 sodifferent from us. They were more hairy, it is true; their legs were a triflemore twisted and gnarly, their eyes a bit smaller, their necks a bit thickerand shorter, and their nostrils slightly more like orifices in a sunkensurface; but they had no hair on their faces and on the palms of their handsand the soles of their feet, and they made sounds similar to ours with somewhatsimilar 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 andbleary-eyed and tottery. He was legitimate prey. In our world there was nosympathy between the kinds, and he was not our kind. He was a Tree-Man, and hewas 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 hadfun. We pinched him, pulled his hair, tweaked his ears, and poked twigs intohim, and all the while we laughed with streaming eyes. His futile anger wasmost absurd. He was a comical sight, striving to fan into flame the cold ashesof his youth, to resurrect his strength dead and gone through the oozing of theyears—making woeful 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 hesurrendered to his weakness and did no more than sit and weep. And Lop-Ear andI 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 heachieved 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“Goëk! Goëk!” to our ears. To this there were answering cries,several of them, and from very far off we could hear a big, bass “Goëk!Goëk! Goëk!” Also, the “Whoo-whoo!” call was rising in theforest all around us.
Then came the chase. It seemed it never would end. They raced us through thetrees, the whole tribe of them, and nearly caught us. We were forced to take tothe 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 awaytoward the north, the tribe howling on our track. Across the open spaces wegained, and in the brush they caught up with us, and more than once it was nipand 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 asmuch as possible, but they always ended in more thick forest. Sometimes wethought we had escaped, and sat down to rest; but always, before we couldrecover our breath, we would hear the hateful “Whoo-whoo!” criesand the terrible “Goëk! Goëk! Goëk!” This latter sometimesterminated in a savage “Ha ha ha ha haaaaa!!!”
And in this fashion were we hunted through the forest by the exasperated TreePeople. At last, by mid-afternoon, the slopes began rising higher and higherand the trees were becoming smaller. Then we came out on the grassy flanks ofthe mountains. Here was where we could make time, and here the Tree People gaveup and returned to their forest.
The mountains were bleak and inhospitable, and three times that afternoon wetried to regain the woods. But the Tree People were lying in wait, and theydrove us back. Lop-Ear and I slept that night in a dwarf tree, no larger than abush. Here was no security, and we would have been easy prey for any huntinganimal that chanced along.
In the morning, what of our new-gained respect for the Tree People, we facedinto 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 wanderingsthrough the mountains I have only misty memories. We were in that bleak regionmany days, and we suffered much, especially from fear, it was all so new andstrange. 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 viewpoint, there spread out before us, in all directions, range upon range, theunceasing mountains. We slept at night in holes and crevices, and on one coldnight we perched on top a slender pinnacle of rock that was almost like a tree.
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 thedark line of a wide-stretching forest.
We were two days in gaining the lake, and we were weak with hunger; but on itsshore, sleeping snugly in a thicket, we found a part-grown calf. It gave usmuch trouble, for we knew no other way to kill than with our hands. When we hadgorged our fill, we carried the remainder of the meat to the eastward forestand hid it in a tree. We never returned to that tree, for the shore of thestream that drained Far Lake was packed thick with salmon that had come up fromthe sea to spawn.
Westward from the lake stretched the grass-lands, and here were multitudes ofbison and wild cattle. Also were there many packs of wild dogs, and as therewere no trees it was not a safe place for us. We followed north along thestream for days. Then, and for what reason I do not know, we abruptly left thestream and swung to the east, and then to the southeast, through a greatforest. I shall not bore you with our journey. I but indicate it to show how wefinally arrived at the Fire People’s country.
We came out upon the river, but we did not know it for our river. We had beenlost so long that we had come to accept the condition of being lost ashabitual. As I look back I see clearly how our lives and destinies are shapedby the merest chance. We did not know it was our river—there was no wayof telling; and if we had never crossed it we would most probably have neverreturned to the horde; and I, the modern, the thousand centuries yet to beborn, would never have been born.
And yet Lop-Ear and I wanted greatly to return. We had experienced homesicknesson our journey, the yearning for our own kind and land; and often had I hadrecollections of the Swift One, the young female who made soft sounds, whom itwas good to be with, and who lived by herself nobody knew where. Myrecollections of her were accompanied by sensations of hunger, and these I feltwhen I was not hungry and when I had just eaten.
But to come back to the river. Food was plentiful, principally berries andsucculent roots, and on the river bank we played and lingered for days. Andthen the idea came to Lop-Ear. It was a visible process, the coming of theidea. I saw it. The expression in his eyes became plaintive and querulous, andhe was greatly perturbed. Then his eyes went muddy, as if he had lost his gripon the inchoate thought. This was followed by the plaintive, querulousexpression as the idea persisted and he clutched it anew. He looked at me, andat the river and the far shore. He tried to speak, but had no sounds with whichto express the idea. The result was a gibberish that made me laugh. Thisangered him, and he grabbed me suddenly and threw me on my back. Of course wefought, and in the end I chased him up a tree, where he secured a long branchand 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 thenext morning it awoke in him again. Perhaps it was the homing instinct in himasserting itself that made the idea persist. At any rate it was there, andclearer than before. He led me down to the water, where a log had grounded inan eddy. I thought he was minded to play, as we had played in the mouth of theslough. Nor did I change my mind as I watched him tow up a second log fromfarther 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 pausedto point at the far shore, and resumed his paddling, at the same time utteringloud and encouraging cries. I understood, and we paddled energetically. Theswift current caught us, flung us toward the south shore, but before we couldmake a landing flung us back toward the north shore.
Here arose dissension. Seeing the north shore so near, I began to paddle forit. Lop-Ear tried to paddle for the south shore. The logs swung around incircles, and we got nowhere, and all the time the forest was flashing past aswe drifted down the stream. We could not fight. We knew better than to let gothe grips of hands and feet that held the logs together. But we chattered andabused each other with our tongues until the current flung us toward the southbank again. That was now the nearest goal, and together and amicably we paddledfor it. We landed in an eddy, and climbed directly into the trees toreconnoitre.
CHAPTER XIII
It was not until the night of our first day on the south bank of the river thatwe discovered the Fire People. What must have been a band of wandering hunterswent into camp not far from the tree in which Lop-Ear and I had elected toroost for the night. The voices of the Fire People at first alarmed us, butlater, when darkness had come, we were attracted by the fire. We creptcautiously 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 couldfeel him tremble. I looked more closely, and saw the wizened little old hunterwho had shot Broken-Tooth out of the tree years before. When he got up andwalked about, throwing fresh wood upon the fire, I saw that he limped with hiscrippled leg. Whatever it was, it was a permanent injury. He seemed more driedup 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, theirbows and arrows, and I knew the weapons for what they were. The Fire-Men woreanimal skins around their waists and across their shoulders. Their arms andlegs, 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 ofthe slant of the head back from the eyes.
They were less stooped than we, less springy in their movements. Theirbackbones and hips and knee-joints seemed more rigid. Their arms were not solong as ours either, and I did not notice that they ever balanced themselveswhen 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 weremore pleasing. Their nose orifices opened downward; likewise the bridges oftheir 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 somuch like fangs. However, they were quite as thin-hipped as we, and did notweigh much more. Take it all in all, they were less different from us than werewe from the Tree People. Certainly, all three kinds were related, and not soremotely related at that.
The fire around which they sat was especially attractive. Lop-Ear and I sat forhours, watching the flames and smoke. It was most fascinating when fresh fuelwas thrown on and showers of sparks went flying upward. I wanted to come closerand look at the fire, but there was no way. We were crouching in the forks of atree on the edge of the open space, and we did not dare run the risk of beingdiscovered.
The Fire-Men squatted around the fire and slept with their heads bowed forwardon 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 morewood upon the fire. About the circle of light in the forest, in the darknessbeyond, 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 andsnarling that awakened on the instant the whole circle of sleeping Fire-Men.
Once a lion and a lioness stood beneath our tree and gazed out with bristlinghair and blinking eyes. The lion licked his chops and was nervous witheagerness, as if he wanted to go forward and make a meal. But the lioness wasmore cautious. It was she that discovered us, and the pair stood and looked upat us, silently, with twitching, scenting nostrils. Then they growled, lookedonce 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 wecould hear the crashing of heavy bodies in the thickets and underbrush, andfrom the darkness of the other side, across the circle, we could see eyesgleaming in the firelight. In the distance we heard a lion roar, and from faroff came the scream of some stricken animal, splashing and floundering in adrinking-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 wasstill smouldering, and the Fire-Men were gone. We made a circle through theforest to make sure, and then we ran to the fire. I wanted to see what it waslike, and between thumb and finger I picked up a glowing coal. My cry of painand fear, as I dropped it, stampeded Lop-Ear into the trees, and his flightfrightened 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 headsbent forward on our knees, made believe to sleep. Then we mimicked theirspeech, talking to each other in their fashion and making a great gibberish. Iremembered seeing the wizened old hunter poke the fire with a stick. I pokedthe fire with a stick, turning up masses of live coals and clouds of whiteashes. 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 flamedup and crackled, and we danced and gibbered with delight. Then we began tothrow on larger pieces of wood. We put on more and more, until we had a mightyfire. We dashed excitedly back and forth, dragging dead limbs and branches fromout the forest. The flames soared higher and higher, and the smoke-columnout-towered the trees. There was a tremendous snapping and crackling androaring. 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 dancedthere, white gnomes in the conflagration.
The dried grass and underbrush caught fire, but we did not notice it. Suddenlya great tree on the edge of the open space burst into flames.
We looked at it with startled eyes. The heat of it drove us back. Another treecaught, and another, and then half a dozen. We were frightened. The monster hadbroken loose. We crouched down in fear, while the fire ate around the circleand hemmed us in. Into Lop-Ear’s eyes came the plaintive look that alwaysaccompanied incomprehension, and I know that in my eyes must have been the samelook. We huddled, with our arms around each other, until the heat began toreach us and the odor of burning hair was in our nostrils. Then we made a dashof it, and fled away westward through the forest, looking back and laughing aswe ran.
By the middle of the day we came to a neck of land, made, as we afterwarddiscovered, by a great curve of the river that almost completed a circle. Rightacross the neck lay bunched several low and partly wooded hills. Over these weclimbed, looking backward at the forest which had become a sea of flame thatswept eastward before a rising wind. We continued to the west, following theriver bank, and before we knew it we were in the midst of the abiding-place ofthe 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 itaccessible by land. This was the narrow neck of the peninsula, and here theseveral low hills were a natural obstacle. Practically isolated from the restof the world, the Fire People must have here lived and prospered for a longtime. In fact, I think it was their prosperity that was responsible for thesubsequent migration that worked such calamity upon the Folk. The Fire Peoplemust have increased in numbers until they pressed uncomfortably against thebounds of their habitat. They were expanding, and in the course of theirexpanding they drove the Folk before them, and settled down themselves in thecaves and occupied the territory that we had occupied.
But Lop-Ear and I little dreamed of all this when we found ourselves in theFire 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 thevillage. 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 wildanimals.
The Fire People, like ourselves, lived in caves. The open space in front of thecaves 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-Earand I did not see them cook. Yet it is my opinion that they surely must haveperformed some sort of rude cookery. Like us, they carried water in gourds fromthe river. There was much coming and going, and loud cries made by the womenand children. The latter played about and cut up antics quite in the same wayas did the children of the Folk, and they more nearly resembled the children ofthe 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 shootingwith bow and arrow, and we sneaked back into the thicker forest and made ourway to the river. And there we found a catamaran, a real catamaran, oneevidently made by some Fire-Man. The two logs were small and straight, and werelashed together by means of tough roots and crosspieces of wood.
This time the idea occurred simultaneously to us. We were trying to escape outof the Fire People’s territory. What better way than by crossing theriver on these logs? We climbed on board and shoved off. A sudden somethinggripped the catamaran and flung it downstream violently against the bank. Theabrupt stoppage almost whipped us off into the water. The catamaran was tied toa 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 fardownstream 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, thatwe knew nothing until aroused by a yell from the shore. We looked around. Therewere the Fire People, many of them, looking at us and pointing at us, and morewere crawling out of the caves. We sat up to watch, and forgot all aboutpaddling. There was a great hullabaloo on the shore. Some of the Fire-Mendischarged their bows at us, and a few of the arrows fell near us, but therange was too great.
It was a great day for Lop-Ear and me. To the east the conflagration we hadstarted was filling half the sky with smoke. And here we were, perfectly safein the middle of the river, encircling the Fire People’s stronghold. Wesat 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 aroundto 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 sceneflashed upon our eyes.
It was the great drinking-place, where we had wandered once or twice to watchthe circus of the animals when they came down to drink. Beyond it, we knew, wasthe 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 itwe were down upon the drinking-places used by the horde. There were the womenand children, the water carriers, a number of them, filling their gourds. Atsight of us they stampeded madly up the run-ways, leaving behind them a trailof gourds they had dropped.
We landed, and of course we neglected to tie up the catamaran, which floatedoff down the river. Right cautiously we crept up a run-way. The Folk had alldisappeared into their holes, though here and there we could see a face peeringout at us. There was no sign of Red-Eye. We were home again. And that night weslept in our own little cave high up on the cliff, though first we had to evicta 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 comeupon the stage, and in the meantime we pounded nuts and lived. It was a goodyear, I remember, for nuts. We used to fill gourds with nuts and carry them tothe pounding-places. We placed them in depressions in the rock, and, with apiece 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 longadventure-journey, and the winter that followed was mild. I made frequent tripsto the neighborhood of my old home-tree, and frequently I searched the wholeterritory that lay between the blueberry swamp and the mouth of the sloughwhere Lop-Ear and I had learned navigation, but no clew could I get of theSwift One. She had disappeared. And I wanted her. I was impelled by that hungerwhich I have mentioned, and which was akin to physical hunger, albeit it cameoften 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 beconsidered. Lop-Ear and I never knew a moment’s peace except when we werein our own little cave. In spite of the enlargement of the entrance we hadmade, it was still a tight squeeze for us to get in. And though from time totime we continued to enlarge, it was still too small for Red-Eye’smonstrous body. But he never stormed our cave again. He had learned the lessonwell, and he carried on his neck a bulging lump to show where I had hit himwith the rock. This lump never went away, and it was prominent enough to beseen at a distance. I often took great delight in watching that evidence of myhandiwork; and sometimes, when I was myself assuredly safe, the sight of itcaused me to laugh.
While the other Folk would not have come to our rescue had Red-Eye proceeded totear Lop-Ear and me to pieces before their eyes, nevertheless they sympathizedwith us. Possibly it was not sympathy but the way they expressed their hatredfor Red-Eye; at any rate they always warned us of his approach. Whether in theforest, at the drinking-places, or in the open space before the caves, theywere always quick to warn us. Thus we had the advantage of many eyes in ourfeud with Red-Eye, the atavism.
Once he nearly got me. It was early in the morning, and the Folk were not yetup. The surprise was complete. I was cut off from the way up the cliff to mycave. Before I knew it I had dashed into the double-cave,—the cave whereLop-Ear had first eluded me long years before, and where old Saber-Tooth hadcome to discomfiture when he pursued the two Folk. By the time I had gotthrough the connecting passage between the two caves, I discovered that Red-Eyewas not following me. The next moment he charged into the cave from theoutside. I slipped back through the passage, and he charged out and around andin upon me again. I merely repeated my performance of slipping through thepassage.
He kept me there half a day before he gave up. After that, when Lop-Ear and Iwere reasonably sure of gaining the double-cave, we did not retreat up thecliff to our own cave when Red-Eye came upon the scene. All we did was to keepan 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 andrepeated beatings. I have called him an atavism, but in this he was worse thanan atavism, for the males of the lower animals do not maltreat and murder theirmates. In this I take it that Red-Eye, in spite of his tremendous atavistictendencies, foreshadowed the coming of man, for it is the males of the humanspecies only that murder their mates.
As was to be expected, with the doing away of one wife Red-Eye proceeded to getanother. He decided upon the Singing One. She was the granddaughter of oldMarrow-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 hadbut recently mated with Crooked-Leg. He was a quiet individual, molesting noone and not given to bickering with his fellows. He was no fighter anyway. Hewas 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 endof the day, when we began to congregate in the open space before climbing intoour 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 wasterribly scared. But he was a hero. He knew that death was upon him, yet he didnot 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 shoulddare 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 abroken neck, Crooked-Leg was floundering and squirming on the ground. TheSinging One screeched and gibbered. Red-Eye seized her by the hair of her headand 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 feltthe prod of gregarious instinct, the drawing together as though for unitedaction, the impulse toward cooperation. In dim ways this need for united actionwas impressed upon us. But there was no way to achieve it because there was noway to express it. We did not turn to, all of us, and destroy Red-Eye, becausewe lacked a vocabulary. We were vaguely thinking thoughts for which there wereno thought-symbols. These thought-symbols were yet to be slowly and painfullyinvented.
We tried to freight sound with the vague thoughts that flitted like shadowsthrough our consciousness. The Hairless One began to chatter loudly. By hisnoises he expressed anger against Red-Eye and desire to hurt Red-Eye. Thus farhe got, and thus far we understood. But when he tried to express thecooperative impulse that stirred within him, his noises became gibberish. ThenBig-Face, with brow-bristling and chest-pounding, began to chatter. One afteranother of us joined in the orgy of rage, until even old Marrow-Bone wasmumbling and spluttering with his cracked voice and withered lips. Some oneseized 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 asoothing effect upon us; and before we knew it, our rage forgotten, we were inthe full swing of a hee-hee council.
These hee-hee councils splendidly illustrate the inconsecutiveness andinconsequentiality of the Folk. Here were we, drawn together by mutual rage andthe impulse toward cooperation, led off into forgetfulness by the establishmentof a rude rhythm. We were sociable and gregarious, and these singing andlaughing councils satisfied us. In ways the hee-hee council was an adumbrationof the councils of primitive man, and of the great national assemblies andinternational conventions of latter-day man. But we Folk of the Younger Worldlacked speech, and whenever we were so drawn together we precipitated babel,out of which arose a unanimity of rhythm that contained within itself theessentials of art yet to come. It was art nascent.
There was nothing long-continued about these rhythms that we struck. A rhythmwas soon lost, and pandemonium reigned until we could find the rhythm again orstart a new one. Sometimes half a dozen rhythms would be swingingsimultaneously, each rhythm backed by a group that strove ardently to drown outthe other rhythms.
In the intervals of pandemonium, each chattered, cut up, hooted, screeched, anddanced, himself sufficient unto himself, filled with his own ideas andvolitions to the exclusion of all others, a veritable centre of the universe,divorced for the time being from any unanimity with the other universe-centresleaping and yelling around him. Then would come the rhythm—a clapping ofhands; the beating of a stick upon a log; the example of one that leaped withrepetitions; 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 andsang in the sombre twilight of the primeval world, inducing forgetfulness,achieving unanimity, and working ourselves up into sensuous frenzy. And so itwas that our rage against Red-Eye was soothed away by art, and we screamed thewild 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 ofan unseen world. We knew only the real world, and the things we feared were thereal things, the concrete dangers, the flesh-and-blood animals that preyed. Itwas they that made us afraid of the dark, for darkness was the time of thehunting animals. It was then that they came out of their lairs and pounced uponone from the dark wherein they lurked invisible.
Possibly it was out of this fear of the real denizens of the dark that the fearof the unreal denizens was later to develop and to culminate in a whole andmighty unseen world. As imagination grew it is likely that the fear of deathincreased until the Folk that were to come projected this fear into the darkand peopled it with spirits. I think the Fire People had already begun to beafraid of the dark in this fashion; but the reasons we Folk had for breaking upour hee-hee councils and fleeing to our holes were old Saber-Tooth, the lionsand the jackals, the wild dogs and the wolves, and all the hungry, meat-eatingbreeds.
CHAPTER XV
Lop-Ear got married. It was the second winter after our adventure-journey, andit was most unexpected. He gave me no warning. The first I knew was onetwilight when I climbed the cliff to our cave. I squeezed into the entrance andthere I stopped. There was no room for me. Lop-Ear and his mate were inpossession, and she was none other than my sister, the daughter of mystep-father, the Chatterer.
I tried to force my way in. There was space only for two, and that space wasalready occupied. Also, they had me at a disadvantage, and, what of thescratching and hair-pulling I received, I was glad to retreat. I slept thatnight, and for many nights, in the connecting passage of the double-cave. Frommy experience it seemed reasonably safe. As the two Folk had dodged oldSaber-Tooth, and as I had dodged Red-Eye, so it seemed to me that I could dodgethe hunting animals by going back and forth between the two caves.
I had forgotten the wild dogs. They were small enough to go through any passagethat I could squeeze through. One night they nosed me out. Had they enteredboth caves at the same time they would have got me. As it was, followed by someof them through the passage, I dashed out the mouth of the other cave. Outsidewere the rest of the wild dogs. They sprang for me as I sprang for thecliff-wall and began to climb. One of them, a lean and hungry brute, caught mein mid-leap. His teeth sank into my thigh-muscles, and he nearly dragged meback. He held on, but I made no effort to dislodge him, devoting my wholeeffort 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 mythigh. And then, a dozen feet above the snapping pack that leaped and scrambledagainst the wall and fell back, I got the dog by the throat and slowlythrottled him. I was a long time doing it. He clawed and ripped my hair andhide with his hind-paws, and ever he jerked and lunged with his weight to dragme from the wall.
At last his teeth opened and released my torn flesh. I carried his body up thecliff 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 abusefrom the aroused horde for being the cause of the disturbance. I had myrevenge. From time to time, as the noise of the pack below eased down, Idropped a rock and started it up again. Whereupon, from all around, the abuseof the exasperated Folk began afresh. In the morning I shared the dog withLop-Ear and his wife, and for several days the three of us were neithervegetarians nor fruitarians.
Lop-Ear’s marriage was not a happy one, and the consolation about it isthat 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 littlecave, and somehow I did not make it up with any other of the young males. Isuppose 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 itnot been for the dearth of females in the horde. This dearth, it is fair toassume, was caused by the exorbitance of Red-Eye, and it illustrates the menacehe was to the existence of the horde. Then there was the Swift One, whom I hadnot forgotten.
At any rate, during the period of Lop-Ear’s marriage I knocked about frompillar to post, in danger every night that I slept, and never comfortable. Oneof the Folk died, and his widow was taken into the cave of another one of theFolk. I took possession of the abandoned cave, but it was wide-mouthed, andafter Red-Eye nearly trapped me in it one day, I returned to sleeping in thepassage of the double-cave. During the summer, however, I used to stay awayfrom the caves for weeks, sleeping in a tree-shelter I made near the mouth ofthe slough.
I have said that Lop-Ear was not happy. My sister was the daughter of theChatterer, and she made Lop-Ear’s life miserable for him. In no othercave 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 covetLop-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 forsome time the carrot-patch was the favorite feeding-place of the horde. Onemorning, early, several score of us were there making our breakfast. On oneside of me was the Hairless One. Beyond him were his father and son, oldMarrow-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 sprangand screamed. At the same instant I heard the thud of the arrows thattransfixed them. The next instant they were down on the ground, floundering andgasping, and the rest of us were stampeding for the trees. An arrow drove pastme and entered the ground, its feathered shaft vibrating and oscillating fromthe 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 atit as a horse shies at an object it fears.
Lop-Ear took a smashing fall as he ran beside me. An arrow had driven throughthe calf of his leg and tripped him. He tried to run, but was tripped andthrown by it a second time. He sat up, crouching, trembling with fear, andcalled to me pleadingly. I dashed back. He showed me the arrow. I caught holdof it to pull it out, but the consequent hurt made him seize my hand and stopme. A flying arrow passed between us. Another struck a rock, splintered, andfell 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 nextmoment we were in full flight again.
I looked back. Old Marrow-Bone, deserted and far behind, was tottering silentlyalong in his handicapped race with death. Sometimes he almost fell, and once hedid fall; but no more arrows were coming. He scrambled weakly to his feet. Ageburdened him heavily, but he did not want to die. The three Fire-Men, who werenow running forward from their forest ambush, could easily have got him, butthey did not try. Perhaps he was too old and tough. But they did want theHairless One and my sister, for as I looked back from the trees I could see theFire-Men beating in their heads with rocks. One of the Fire-Men was the wizenedold hunter who limped.
We went on through the trees toward the caves—an excited and disorderlymob that drove before it to their holes all the small life of the forest, andthat set the blue-jays screaming impudently. Now that there was no immediatedanger, Long-Lip waited for his grand-father, Marrow-Bone; and with the gap ofa 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 withhim in the old cave, and our old life of chumming began again. The loss of hismate seemed to cause him no grief. At least he showed no signs of it, nor ofneed for her. It was the wound in his leg that seemed to bother him, and it wasall 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 backupon him, when the vision of him is most clear, I note a striking resemblancebetween him and the father of my father’s gardener. The gardener’sfather was very old, very wrinkled and withered; and for all the world, when hepeered through his tiny, bleary eyes and mumbled with his toothless gums, helooked and acted like old Marrow-Bone. This resemblance, as a child, used tofrighten me. I always ran when I saw the old man tottering along on his twocanes. Old Marrow-Bone even had a bit of sparse and straggly white beard thatseemed identical with the whiskers of the old man.
As I have said, Marrow-Bone was the only old member of the horde. He was anexception. The Folk never lived to old age. Middle age was fairly rare. Deathby violence was the common way of death. They died as my father had died, asBroken-Tooth had died, as my sister and the Hairless One had justdied—abruptly and brutally, in the full possession of their faculties, inthe full swing and rush of life. Natural death? To die violently was thenatural way of dying in those days.
No one died of old age among the Folk. I never knew of a case. Even Marrow-Bonedid not die that way, and he was the only one in my generation who had thechance. A bad crippling, any serious accidental or temporary impairment of thefaculties, 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 themorning, and they never came back. They disappeared—into the ravenousmaws of the hunting creatures.
This inroad of the Fire People on the carrot-patch was the beginning of theend, though we did not know it. The hunters of the Fire People began to appearmore frequently as the time went by. They came in twos and threes, creepingsilently through the forest, with their flying arrows able to annihilatedistance and bring down prey from the top of the loftiest tree withoutthemselves climbing into it. The bow and arrow was like an enormous extensionof their leaping and striking muscles, so that, virtually, they could leap andkill at a hundred feet and more. This made them far more terrible thanSaber-Tooth himself. And then they were very wise. They had speech that enabledthem 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 morealert and vigilant and timid. No longer were the trees a protection to berelied upon. No longer could we perch on a branch and laugh down at ourcarnivorous enemies on the ground. The Fire People were carnivorous, with clawsand fangs a hundred feet long, the most terrible of all the hunting animalsthat ranged the primeval world.
One morning, before the Folk had dispersed to the forest, there was a panicamong the water-carriers and those who had gone down to the river to drink. Thewhole horde fled to the caves. It was our habit, at such times, to flee firstand 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 thelittle wizened old hunter. He stood for a long time and watched us, looking ourcaves and the cliff-wall up and down. He descended one of the run-ways to adrinking-place, returning a few minutes later by another run-way. Again hestood and watched us carefully, for a long time. Then he turned on his heel andlimped into the forest, leaving us calling querulously and plaintively to oneanother from the cave-mouths.
CHAPTER XVI
I found her down in the old neighborhood near the blueberry swamp, where mymother lived and where Lop-Ear and I had built our first tree-shelter. It wasunexpected. As I came under the tree I heard the familiar soft sound and lookedup. There she was, the Swift One, sitting on a limb and swinging her legs backand forth as she looked at me.
I stood still for some time. The sight of her had made me very happy. And thenan unrest and a pain began to creep in on this happiness. I started to climbthe tree after her, and she retreated slowly out the limb. Just as I reachedfor her, she sprang through the air and landed in the branches of the nexttree. 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 wasduplicated, for there she was, making soft sounds and peeping out from theleaves of a third tree.
It was borne in upon me that somehow it was different now from the old daysbefore Lop-Ear and I had gone on our adventure-journey. I wanted her, and Iknew that I wanted her. And she knew it, too. That was why she would not let mecome near her. I forgot that she was truly the Swift One, and that in the artof climbing she had been my teacher. I pursued her from tree to tree, and evershe eluded me, peeping back at me with kindly eyes, making soft sounds, anddancing and leaping and teetering before me just out of reach. The more sheeluded me, the more I wanted to catch her, and the lengthening shadows of theafternoon bore witness to the futility of my effort.
As I pursued her, or sometimes rested in an adjoining tree and watched her, Inoticed the change in her. She was larger, heavier, more grown-up. Her lineswere rounder, her muscles fuller, and there was about her that indefinitesomething of maturity that was new to her and that incited me on. Three yearsshe had been gone—three years at the very least, and the change in herwas marked. I say three years; it is as near as I can measure the time. Afourth year may have elapsed, which I have confused with the happenings of theother three years. The more I think of it, the more confident I am that it mustbe four years that she was away.
Where she went, why she went, and what happened to her during that time, I donot know. There was no way for her to tell me, any more than there was a wayfor Lop-Ear and me to tell the Folk what we had seen when we were away. Likeus, the chance is she had gone off on an adventure-journey, and by herself. Onthe other hand, it is possible that Red-Eye may have been the cause of hergoing. 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 thatit would have been sufficient to drive her away. From subsequent events, I amled to believe that she must have travelled far to the south, across a range ofmountains 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 whofinally drove her back to the horde and to me. My reasons for this I shallexplain later.
The shadows grew longer, and I pursued more ardently than ever, and still Icould not catch her. She made believe that she was trying desperately to escapeme, and all the time she managed to keep just beyond reach. I forgoteverything—time, the oncoming of night, and my meat-eating enemies. I wasinsane with love of her, and with—anger, too, because she would not letme come up with her. It was strange how this anger against her seemed to bepart of my desire for her.
As I have said, I forgot everything. In racing across an open space I ran fulltilt upon a colony of snakes. They did not deter me. I was mad. They struck atme, but I ducked and dodged and ran on. Then there was a python that ordinarilywould have sent me screeching to a tree-top. He did run me into a tree; but theSwift 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 conducthe was sure something was going to happen, and he followed me for an hour. Oncewe exasperated a band of wild pigs, and they took after us. The Swift One dareda wide leap between trees that was too much for me. I had to take to theground. There were the pigs. I didn’t care. I struck the earth within ayard of the nearest one. They flanked me as I ran, and chased me into twodifferent trees out of the line of my pursuit of the Swift One. I ventured theground again, doubled back, and crossed a wide open space, with the whole bandgrunting, bristling, and tusk-gnashing at my heels.
If I had tripped or stumbled in that open space, there would have been nochance for me. But I didn’t. And I didn’t care whether I did ornot. I was in such mood that I would have faced old Saber-Tooth himself, or ascore 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 anyreal risks, and I remember, on looking back across the centuries to that wildlove-chase, that when the pigs delayed me she did not run away very fast, butwaited, rather, for me to take up the pursuit again. Also, she directed herretreat 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 wallthat out-jutted among the trees. After that we penetrated a dense mass ofunderbrush 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 closeto her when she climbed it; and in the forks, in the nest-shelter I had soughtso long and vainly, I caught her.
The hyena had taken our trail again, and he now sat down on the ground and madehungry noises. But we did not mind, and we laughed at him when he snarled andwent away through the thicket. It was the spring-time, and the night noiseswere many and varied. As was the custom at that time of the year, there wasmuch fighting among the animals. From the nest we could hear the squealing andneighing 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.
I remember, next morning, that we came upon two ruffled cock-birds that foughtso ardently that I went right up to them and caught them by their necks. Thusdid the Swift One and I get our wedding breakfast. They were delicious. It waseasy to catch birds in the spring of the year. There was one night that yearwhen two elk fought in the moonlight, while the Swift One and I watched fromthe trees; and we saw a lion and lioness crawl up to them unheeded, and killthem as they fought.
There is no telling how long we might have lived in the Swift One’stree-shelter. But one day, while we were away, the tree was struck bylightning. Great limbs were riven, and the nest was demolished. I started torebuild, 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 thetree. 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 theconnecting passage of the double cave.
And with our coming to live with the horde came trouble. Red-Eye had had Idon’t know how many wives since the Singing One. She had gone the way ofthe rest. At present he had a little, soft, spiritless thing that whimpered andwept all the time, whether he beat her or not; and her passing was a questionof very little time. Before she passed, even, Red-Eye set his eyes on the SwiftOne; 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 forswift flight through the trees. She needed all her wisdom and daring in orderto keep out of the clutches of Red-Eye. I could not help her. He was sopowerful a monster that he could have torn me limb from limb. As it was, to mydeath I carried an injured shoulder that ached and went lame in rainy weatherand that was a mark of his handiwork.
The Swift One was sick at the time I received this injury. It must have been atouch of the malaria from which we sometimes suffered; but whatever it was, itmade 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 lairof the wild dogs, several miles south from the caves. Usually, she would havecircled around him, beaten him in the straight-away, and gained the protectionof our small-mouthed cave. But she could not circle him. She was too dull andslow. Each time he headed her off, until she gave over the attempt and devotedher energies wholly to keeping out of his clutches.
Had she not been sick it would have been child’s play for her to eludehim; but as it was, it required all her caution and cunning. It was to heradvantage that she could travel on thinner branches than he, and make widerleaps. Also, she was an unerring judge of distance, and she had an instinct forknowing the strength of twigs, branches, and rotten limbs.
It was an interminable chase. Round and round and back and forth for longstretches through the forest they dashed. There was great excitement among theother Folk. They set up a wild chattering, that was loudest when Red-Eye was ata distance, and that hushed when the chase led him near. They were impotentonlookers. The females screeched and gibbered, and the males beat their chestsin helpless rage. Big Face was especially angry, and though he hushed hisracket 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 mightymonster, the abysmal brute, and there was no hope for me in a conflict ofstrength. He would have killed me, and the situation would have remainedunchanged. He would have caught the Swift One before she could have gained thecave. As it was, I could only look on in helpless fury, and dodge out of theway and cease my raging when he came too near.
The hours passed. It was late afternoon. And still the chase went on. Red-Eyewas bent upon exhausting the Swift One. He deliberately ran her down. After along 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 hecould not follow. Thus she might have got a breathing spell, but Red-Eye wasfiendish. Unable to follow her, he dislodged her by shaking her off. With allhis strength and weight, he would shake the branch back and forth until hesnapped her off as one would snap a fly from a whip-lash. The first time, shesaved herself by falling into branches lower down. Another time, though theydid not save her from the ground, they broke her fall. Still another time, sofiercely did he snap her from the branch, she was flung clear across a gap intoanother tree. It was remarkable, the way she gripped and saved herself. Onlywhen driven to it did she seek the temporary safety of the thin branches. Butshe was so tired that she could not otherwise avoid him, and time after timeshe was compelled to take to the thin branches.
Still the chase went on, and still the Folk screeched, beat their chests, andgnashed their teeth. Then came the end. It was almost twilight. Trembling,panting, struggling for breath, the Swift One clung pitiably to a high thinbranch. It was thirty feet to the ground, and nothing intervened. Red-Eye swungback and forth on the branch farther down. It became a pendulum, swinging widerand wider with every lunge of his weight. Then he reversed suddenly, justbefore 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, fromsuch a height, the spring in her legs would have eased the shock of impact withthe ground. But she was exhausted. She could not exercise this spring. Her legsgave under her, having only partly met the shock, and she crashed on over onher side. This, as it turned out, did not injure her, but it did knock thebreath from her lungs. She lay helpless and struggling for air.
Red-Eye rushed upon her and seized her. With his gnarly fingers twisted intothe hair of her head, he stood up and roared in triumph and defiance at theawed Folk that watched from the trees. Then it was that I went mad. Caution wasthrown to the winds; forgotten was the will to live of my flesh. Even asRed-Eye roared, from behind I dashed upon him. So unexpected was my charge thatI knocked him off his feet. I twined my arms and legs around him and strove tohold him down. This would have been impossible to accomplish had he not heldtightly with one hand to the Swift One’s hair.
Encouraged by my conduct, Big-Face became a sudden ally. He charged in, sankhis teeth in Red-Eye’s arm, and ripped and tore at his face. This was thetime for the rest of the Folk to have joined in. It was the chance to do forRed-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 ofus. The reason he did not finish us off immediately was that the Swift Oneclogged 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 agrip on my arm. It was the beginning of the end for me. He began to draw metoward him into a position where he could sink his teeth into my throat. Hismouth was open, and he was grinning. And yet, though he had just begun to exerthis strength, in that moment he wrenched my shoulder so that I suffered from itfor the remainder of my life.
And in that moment something happened. There was no warning. A great bodysmashed down upon the four of us locked together. We were driven violentlyapart and rolled over and over, and in the suddenness of surprise we releasedour holds on one another. At the moment of the shock, Big-Face screamedterribly. I did not know what had happened, though I smelled tiger and caught aglimpse 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 hadcrept upon us unnoticed. The Swift One gained the next tree to mine, and Iimmediately joined her. I put my arms around her and held her close to me whileshe whimpered and cried softly. From the ground came a snarling, and crunchingof 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 amonster mightier than he. The Swift One and I turned and went away quietlythrough the trees toward the cave, while the Folk gathered overhead andshowered down abuse and twigs and branches upon their ancient enemy. He lashedhis tail and snarled, but went on eating.
And in such fashion were we saved. It was a mere accident—the sheerestaccident. Else would I have died, there in Red-Eye’s clutch, and therewould have been no bridging of time to the tune of a thousand centuries down toa progeny that reads newspapers and rides on electric cars—ay, and thatwrites 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 hisfailure to get the Swift One, Red-Eye had taken another wife; and, strange torelate, she was still alive. Stranger still, they had a baby several monthsold—Red-Eye’s first child. His previous wives had never lived longenough to bear him children. The year had gone well for all of us. The weatherhad been exceptionally mild and food plentiful. I remember especially theturnips of that year. The nut crop was also very heavy, and the wild plums werelarger and sweeter than usual.
In short, it was a golden year. And then it happened. It was in the earlymorning, and we were surprised in our caves. In the chill gray light we awokefrom sleep, most of us, to encounter death. The Swift One and I were aroused bya pandemonium of screeching and gibbering. Our cave was the highest of all onthe cliff, and we crept to the mouth and peered down. The open space was filledwith the Fire People. Their cries and yells were added to the clamor, but theyhad order and plan, while we Folk had none. Each one of us fought and acted forhimself, and no one of us knew the extent of the calamity that was befallingus.
By the time we got to stone-throwing, the Fire People had massed thick at thebase of the cliff. Our first volley must have mashed some heads, for when theyswerved 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 wefixed them. By this time we males were roaring with rage, and we rained rocksupon the three men that were down. Several of the Fire-Men returned to dragthem into safety, but our rocks drove the rescuers back.
The Fire People became enraged. Also, they became cautious. In spite of theirangry 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 beenkilled and a score injured, the rest of us retreated inside our caves. I wasnot out of range in my lofty cave, but the distance was great enough to spoileffective 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 wellinside the cave, trembling with fear and making low wailing sounds because Iwould not come in, I crouched at the entrance and watched.
The fighting had now become intermittent. It was a sort of deadlock. We were inthe caves, and the question with the Fire People was how to get us out. Theydid not dare come in after us, and in general we would not expose ourselves totheir arrows. Occasionally, when one of them drew in close to the base of thecliff, one or another of the Folk would smash a rock down. In return, he wouldbe transfixed by half a dozen arrows. This ruse worked well for some time, butfinally the Folk no longer were inveigled into showing themselves. The deadlockwas complete.
Behind the Fire People I could see the little wizened old hunter directing itall. They obeyed him, and went here and there at his commands. Some of themwent 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 andarrows, ready to shoot any of the Folk that exposed themselves, several of theFire-Men heaped the dry grass and wood at the mouths of the lower tier ofcaves. Out of these heaps they conjured the monster wefeared—FIRE. At first, wisps of smoke arose and curled up thecliff. Then I could see the red-tongued flames darting in and out through thewood like tiny snakes. The smoke grew thicker and thicker, at times shroudingthe 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 thesmoke 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, andessayed to climb up the cliff. The arrows showered about him. He came to apause on a ledge, clutching a knob of rock for support, gasping and sneezingand shaking his head. He swayed back and forth. The feathered ends of a dozenarrows 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 hewailed most plaintively. His hand released its grip and he lurched outward tothe fall. His old bones must have been sadly broken. He groaned and strovefeebly 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 thearrows. Some of the women and children remained in the caves to strangle todeath, but the majority met death outside.
When the Fire-Men had in this fashion cleared the first tier of caves, theybegan making arrangements to duplicate the operation on the second tier ofcaves. It was while they were climbing up with their grass and wood, thatRed-Eye, followed by his wife, with the baby holding to her tightly, made asuccessful flight up the cliff. The Fire-Men must have concluded that in theinterval between the smoking-out operations we would remain in our caves; sothat they were unprepared, and their arrows did not begin to fly till Red-Eyeand his wife were well up the wall. When he reached the top, he turned aboutand glared down at them, roaring and beating his chest. They arched theirarrows at him, and though he was untouched he fled on.
I watched a third tier smoked out, and a fourth. A few of the Folk escaped upthe cliff, but most of them were shot off the face of it as they strove toclimb. I remember Long-Lip. He got as far as my ledge, crying piteously, anarrow clear through his chest, the feathered shaft sticking out behind, thebone head sticking out before, shot through the back as he climbed. He sankdown on my ledge bleeding profusely at the mouth.
It was about this time that the upper tiers seemed to empty themselvesspontaneously. Nearly all the Folk not yet smoked out stampeded up the cliff atthe same time. This was the saving of many. The Fire People could not shootarrows fast enough. They filled the air with arrows, and scores of the strickenFolk came tumbling down; but still there were a few who reached the top and gotaway.
The impulse of flight was now stronger in me than curiosity. The arrows hadceased flying. The last of the Folk seemed gone, though there may have been afew still hiding in the upper caves. The Swift One and I started to make ascramble for the cliff-top. At sight of us a great cry went up from the FirePeople. This was not caused by me, but by the Swift One. They were chatteringexcitedly and pointing her out to one another. They did not try to shoot her.Not an arrow was discharged. They began calling softly and coaxingly. I stoppedand looked down. She was afraid, and whimpered and urged me on. So we went upover the top and plunged into the trees.
This event has often caused me to wonder and speculate. If she were really oftheir kind, she must have been lost from them at a time when she was too youngto remember, else would she not have been afraid of them. On the other hand, itmay well have been that while she was their kind she had never been lost fromthem; that she had been born in the wild forest far from their haunts, herfather maybe a renegade Fire-Man, her mother maybe one of my own kind, one ofthe Folk. But who shall say? These things are beyond me, and the Swift One knewno more about them than did I.
We lived through a day of terror. Most of the survivors fled toward theblueberry swamp and took refuge in the forest in that neighborhood. And all dayhunting parties of the Fire People ranged the forest, killing us wherever theyfound us. It must have been a deliberately executed plan. Increasing beyond thelimits of their own territory, they had decided on making a conquest of ours.Sorry the conquest! We had no chance against them. It was slaughter,indiscriminate slaughter, for they spared none, killing old and young,effectively ridding the land of our presence.
It was like the end of the world to us. We fled to the trees as a last refuge,only to be surrounded and killed, family by family. We saw much of this duringthat day, and besides, I wanted to see. The Swift One and I never remained longin one tree, and so escaped being surrounded. But there seemed no place to go.The Fire-Men were everywhere, bent on their task of extermination. Every way weturned we encountered them, and because of this we saw much of their handiwork.
I did not see what became of my mother, but I did see the Chatterer shot downout of the old home-tree. And I am afraid that at the sight I did a bit ofjoyous teetering. Before I leave this portion of my narrative, I must tell ofRed-Eye. He was caught with his wife in a tree down by the blueberry swamp. TheSwift One and I stopped long enough in our flight to see. The Fire-Men were toointent upon their work to notice us, and, furthermore, we were well screened bythe thicket in which we crouched.
Fully a score of the hunters were under the tree, discharging arrows into it.They always picked up their arrows when they fell back to earth. I could notsee Red-Eye, but I could hear him howling from somewhere in the tree.
After a short interval his howling grew muffled. He must have crawled into ahollow in the trunk. But his wife did not win this shelter. An arrow broughther to the ground. She was severely hurt, for she made no effort to get away.She crouched in a sheltering way over her baby (which clung tightly to her),and made pleading signs and sounds to the Fire-Men. They gathered about her andlaughed at her—even as Lop-Ear and I had laughed at the old Tree-Man. Andeven as we had poked him with twigs and sticks, so did the Fire-Men withRed-Eye’s wife. They poked her with the ends of their bows, and proddedher in the ribs. But she was poor fun. She would not fight. Nor, for thatmatter, would she get angry. She continued to crouch over her baby and toplead. One of the Fire-Men stepped close to her. In his hand was a club. Shesaw and understood, but she made only the pleading sounds until the blow fell.
Red-Eye, in the hollow of the trunk, was safe from their arrows. They stoodtogether and debated for a while, then one of them climbed into the tree. Whathappened up there I could not tell, but I heard him yell and saw the excitementof those that remained beneath. After several minutes his body crashed down tothe ground. He did not move. They looked at him and raised his head, but itfell back limply when they let go. Red-Eye had accounted for himself.
They were very angry. There was an opening into the trunk close to the ground.They gathered wood and grass and built a fire. The Swift One and I, our armsaround each other, waited and watched in the thicket. Sometimes they threw uponthe fire green branches with many leaves, whereupon the smoke became verythick.
We saw them suddenly swerve back from the tree. They were not quick enough.Red-Eye’s flying body landed in the midst of them.
He was in a frightful rage, smashing about with his long arms right and left.He pulled the face off one of them, literally pulled it off with those gnarlyfingers of his and those tremendous muscles. He bit another through the neck.The Fire-Men fell back with wild fierce yells, then rushed upon him. He managedto get hold of a club and began crushing heads like eggshells. He was too muchfor them, and they were compelled to fall back again. This was his chance, andhe turned his back upon them and ran for it, still howling wrathfully. A fewarrows sped after him, but he plunged into a thicket and was gone.
The Swift One and I crept quietly away, only to run foul of another party ofFire-Men. They chased us into the blueberry swamp, but we knew the tree-pathsacross the farther morasses where they could not follow on the ground, and sowe escaped. We came out on the other side into a narrow strip of forest thatseparated the blueberry swamp from the great swamp that extended westward. Herewe met Lop-Ear. How he had escaped I cannot imagine, unless he had not sleptthe preceding night at the caves.
Here, in the strip of forest, we might have built tree-shelters and settleddown; but the Fire People were performing their work of exterminationthoroughly. In the afternoon, Hair-Face and his wife fled out from among thetrees to the east, passed us, and were gone. They fled silently and swiftly,with alarm in their faces. In the direction from which they had come we heardthe cries and yells of the hunters, and the screeching of some one of the Folk.The Fire People had found their way across the swamp.
The Swift One, Lop-Ear, and I followed on the heels of Hair-Face and his wife.When we came to the edge of the great swamp, we stopped. We did not know itspaths. It was outside our territory, and it had been always avoided by theFolk. None had ever gone into it—at least, to return. In our minds itrepresented mystery and fear, the terrible unknown. As I say, we stopped at theedge of it. We were afraid. The cries of the Fire-Men were drawing nearer. Welooked at one another. Hair-Face ran out on the quaking morass and gained thefirmer footing of a grass-hummock a dozen yards away. His wife did not follow.She tried to, but shrank back from the treacherous surface and cowered down.
The Swift One did not wait for me, nor did she pause till she had passed beyondHair-Face a hundred yards and gained a much larger hummock. By the time Lop-Earand I had caught up with her, the Fire-Men appeared among the trees.Hair-Face’s wife, driven by them into panic terror, dashed after us. Butshe ran blindly, without caution, and broke through the crust. We turned andwatched, and saw them shoot her with arrows as she sank down in the mud. Thearrows began falling about us. Hair-Face had now joined us, and the four of usplunged on, we knew not whither, deeper and deeper into the swamp.
CHAPTER XVIII
Of our wanderings in the great swamp I have no clear knowledge. When I striveto remember, I have a riot of unrelated impressions and a loss of time-value. Ihave no idea of how long we were in that vast everglade, but it must have beenfor weeks. My memories of what occurred invariably take the form of nightmare.For untold ages, oppressed by protean fear, I am aware of wandering, endlesslywandering, through a dank and soggy wilderness, where poisonous snakes struckat us, and animals roared around us, and the mud quaked under us and sucked atour heels.
I know that we were turned from our course countless times by streams and lakesand slimy seas. Then there were storms and risings of the water over greatareas of the low-lying lands; and there were periods of hunger and misery whenwe were kept prisoners in the trees for days and days by these transientfloods.
Very strong upon me is one picture. Large trees are about us, and from theirbranches hang gray filaments of moss, while great creepers, like monstrousserpents, curl around the trunks and writhe in tangles through the air. And allabout is the mud, soft mud, that bubbles forth gases, and that heaves and sighswith internal agitations. And in the midst of all this are a dozen of us. Weare lean and wretched, and our bones show through our tight-stretched skins. Wedo not sing and chatter and laugh. We play no pranks. For once our volatile andexuberant spirits are hopelessly subdued. We make plaintive, querulous noises,look at one another, and cluster close together. It is like the meeting of thehandful of survivors after the day of the end of the world.
This event is without connection with the other events in the swamp. How weever managed to cross it, I do not know, but at last we came out where a lowrange of hills ran down to the bank of the river. It was our river emerginglike ourselves from the great swamp. On the south bank, where the river hadbroken its way through the hills, we found many sand-stone caves. Beyond,toward the west, the ocean boomed on the bar that lay across the river’smouth. And here, in the caves, we settled down in our abiding-place by the sea.
There were not many of us. From time to time, as the days went by, more of theFolk appeared. They dragged themselves from the swamp singly, and in twos andthrees, more dead than alive, mere perambulating skeletons, until at last therewere thirty of us. Then no more came from the swamp, and Red-Eye was not amongus. It was noticeable that no children had survived the frightful journey.
I shall not tell in detail of the years we lived by the sea. It was not a happyabiding-place. The air was raw and chill, and we suffered continually fromcoughing and colds. We could not survive in such an environment. True, we hadchildren; but they had little hold on life and died early, while we died fasterthan new ones were born. Our number steadily diminished.
Then the radical change in our diet was not good for us. We got few vegetablesand fruits, and became fish-eaters. There were mussels and abalones and clamsand rock-oysters, and great ocean-crabs that were thrown upon the beaches instormy weather. Also, we found several kinds of seaweed that were good to eat.But the change in diet caused us stomach troubles, and none of us ever waxedfat. We were all lean and dyspeptic-looking. It was in getting the big abalonesthat Lop-Ear was lost. One of them closed upon his fingers at low-tide, andthen the flood-tide came in and drowned him. We found his body the next day,and it was a lesson to us. Not another one of us was ever caught in the closingshell of an abalone.
The Swift One and I managed to bring up one child, a boy—at least wemanaged to bring him along for several years. But I am quite confident he couldnever have survived that terrible climate. And then, one day, the Fire Peopleappeared again. They had come down the river, not on a catamaran, but in a rudedug-out. There were three of them that paddled in it, and one of them was thelittle wizened old hunter. They landed on our beach, and he limped across thesand and examined our caves.
They went away in a few minutes, but the Swift One was badly scared. We wereall frightened, but none of us to the extent that she was. She whimpered andcried and was restless all that night. In the morning she took the child in herarms, and by sharp cries, gestures, and example, started me on our second longflight. There were eight of the Folk (all that was left of the horde) thatremained behind in the caves. There was no hope for them. Without doubt, evenif the Fire People did not return, they must soon have perished. It was a badclimate down there by the sea. The Folk were not constituted for thecoast-dwelling life.
We travelled south, for days skirting the great swamp but never venturing intoit. Once we broke back to the westward, crossing a range of mountains andcoming down to the coast. But it was no place for us. There were notrees—only bleak headlands, a thundering surf, and strong winds thatseemed never to cease from blowing. We turned back across the mountains,travelling east and south, until we came in touch with the great swamp again.
Soon we gained the southern extremity of the swamp, and we continued our coursesouth and east. It was a pleasant land. The air was warm, and we were again inthe forest. Later on we crossed a low-lying range of hills and found ourselvesin an even better forest country. The farther we penetrated from the coast thewarmer we found it, and we went on and on until we came to a large river thatseemed familiar to the Swift One. It was where she must have come during thefour years’ absence from the horde. This river we crossed on logs,landing on the other side at the base of a large bluff. High up on the bluff wefound our new home most difficult of access and quite hidden from any eyebeneath.
There is little more of my tale to tell. Here the Swift One and I lived andreared our family. And here my memories end. We never made another migration. Inever dream beyond our high, inaccessible cave. And here must have been bornthe child that inherited the stuff of my dreams, that had moulded into itsbeing all the impressions of my life—or of the life of Big-Tooth, rather,who is my other-self, and not my real self, but who is so real to me that oftenI am unable to tell what age I am living in.
I often wonder about this line of descent. I, the modern, am incontestably aman; yet I, Big-Tooth, the primitive, am not a man. Somewhere, and by straightline of descent, these two parties to my dual personality were connected. Werethe Folk, before their destruction, in the process of becoming men? And did Iand mine carry through this process? On the other hand, may not some descendantof mine have gone in to the Fire People and become one of them? I do not know.There is no way of learning. One thing only is certain, and that is thatBig-Tooth did stamp into the cerebral constitution of one of his progeny allthe impressions of his life, and stamped them in so indelibly that the hosts ofintervening generations have failed to obliterate them.
There is one other thing of which I must speak before I close. It is a dreamthat I dream often, and in point of time the real event must have occurredduring the period of my living in the high, inaccessible cave. I remember thatI wandered far in the forest toward the east. There I came upon a tribe of TreePeople. I crouched in a thicket and watched them at play. They were holding alaughing council, jumping up and down and screeching rude choruses.
Suddenly they hushed their noise and ceased their capering. They shrank down infear, and quested anxiously about with their eyes for a way of retreat. ThenRed-Eye walked in among them. They cowered away from him. All were frightened.But he made no attempt to hurt them. He was one of them. At his heels, onstringy bended legs, supporting herself with knuckles to the ground on eitherside, walked an old female of the Tree People, his latest wife. He sat down inthe midst of the circle. I can see him now, as I write this, scowling, his eyesinflamed, as he peers about him at the circle of the Tree People. And as hepeers he crooks one monstrous leg and with his gnarly toes scratches himself onthe stomach. He is Red-Eye, the atavism.
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