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    (1907)
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    MAP




        "These are our ancestors, and their history  is  our
history.

        Remember that as surely as we one day
        swung down out of the trees and walked upright,
        just as surely, on a far earlier day,
        did we crawl up out of the sea
        and achieve our first adventure on land."

     Pictures! Pictures! Pictures! Often, before I learned, did
I wonder  whence  came the multitudes of pictures that thronged
my dreams; for they were pictures the like of which I had never
seen in real wake-a-day  life.  They  tormented  my  childhood,
making  of  my  dreams  a procession of nightmares and a little
later convincing me that  I  was  different  from  my  kind,  a
creature unnatural and accursed.

     In  my days only did I attain any measure of happiness. My
nights marked the reign of fear--and such fear! I make bold  to
state  that  no  man  of all the men who walk the earth with me
ever suffer fear of like kind and degree. For my  fear  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  supreme  in  that  period  known  as  the
Mid-Pleistocene.

     What do I mean? I see explanation is  necessary  before  I
can  tell  you of the substance of my dreams. Otherwise, little
could you know of the meaning of the things I know so well.  As
I write this, all the beings and happenings of that other world
rise  up  before  me in vast phantasmagoria, and I know that to
you they would be rhymeless and reasonless.

     

     What to you the friendship of Lop-Ear, the  warm  lure  of
the Swift One, the lust and the atavism of Red-Eye? A screaming
incoherence and no more. And a screaming incoherence, likewise,
the  doings  of  the  Fire  People and the Tree People, and the
gibbering councils of the horde. For you know not the peace  of
the cool caves in the cliffs, the circus of the drinking-places
at  the  end  of  the  day. You have never felt the bite of the
morning wind in the tree-tops, nor is 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 waking hours. It was in my sleep
that I was different. From my earliest  recollection  my  sleep
was  a  period  of terror. Rarely were my dreams tinctured with
happiness. As a rule, they were stuffed with fear--and  with  a
fear so strange and alien that it had no ponderable quality. No
fear  that  I  experienced in my waking life resembled the fear
that possessed me in my sleep. It was of  a  quality  and  kind
that transcended all my experiences.

     For  instance,  I was a city boy, a city child, rather, to
whom the country was an unexplored domain. Yet I never  dreamed
of cities; nor did a house ever occur in any of my dreams. Nor,
for  that  matter,  did any of my human kind ever break through
the wall of my sleep. I, who had seen trees only in  parks  and
illustrated  books,  wandered  in my sleep through interminable
forests. And further, these dream trees were not a mere blur on
my vision. They were sharp and distinct.  I  was  on  terms  of
practised  intimacy  with  them. I saw every branch 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. As I looked at the  leaves  and  branches  and
gnarls,  it  came  to  me with distressing vividness that I had
seen that same kind of tree  many  and  countless  times  n  my
sleep.  So  I  was not surprised, still later on in my life, to
recognize instantly, the first time I saw them, trees  such  as
the spruce, the yew, the birch, and the laurel. I had seen them
all  before,  and was seeing them even then, 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 waking life,  or  combinations  of  the
things  he  has  seen  in  his  waking  life. But all my dreams
violated this law. In my dreams I never saw ANYTHING of which I
had knowledge in my waking life. My dream life  and  my  waking
life  were  lives  apart,  with  not  one  thing in common save
myself. I was the  connecting  link  that  somehow  lived  both
lives.

     Early  in  my  childhood I learned that nuts came from the
grocer, berries from  the  fruit  man;  but  before  ever  that
knowledge  was  mine, in my dreams I picked nuts from trees, or
gathered them and ate them from the  ground  underneath  trees,
and  in  the same way I ate berries from vines and bushes. This
was beyond any experience of mine.

     I shall never forget the  first  time  I  saw  blueberries
served  on  the table. I had never seen blueberries before, and
yet, at the sight of them, there leaped up in my mind  memories
of  dreams wherein I had wandered through swampy land eating my
fill of them. My mother set before me a dish of the berries.  I
filled my 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 times in my sleep.

     

     Snakes? Long before  I  had  heard  of  the  existence  of
snakes, I was tormented by them 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  of
rock;  or  pursued me into the tree-tops, encircling the trunks
with their great shining bodies, driving me higher  and  higher
or  farther  and farther out on swaying and crackling branches,
the ground a dizzy distance  beneath  me.  Snakes!--with  their
forked  tongues,  their beady eyes and glittering scales, their
hissing and their rattling--did I not already know them far too
well  on  that  day  of  my  first  circus  when  I   saw   the
snake-charmer  lift  them  up?  They  were old friends of mine,
enemies rather, that peopled my nights with fear.

     Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom!
For what eternities have I  wandered  through  them,  a  timid,
hunted  creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my
own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and  vigilant,  ready  on  the
instant  to  dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the
prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and
it was in ecstasies of fear that  I  fled  before  the  hunting
monsters.

     When  I  was  five  years old I went to my first circus. I
came home from it sick--but not from peanuts and pink lemonade.
Let me tell you. As  we  entered  the  animal  tent,  a  hoarse
roaring  shook  the  air. I tore my hand loose from my father's
and dashed wildly back through the entrance.  I  collided  with
people,  fell  down;  and  all  the  time  I was screaming with
terror. My father caught me and soothed me. He pointed  to  the
crowd  of  people,  all careless of the roaring, and cheered me
with assurances of safety.

     

     Nevertheless, it was in fear and trembling, and with  much
encouragement on his part, that I at last approached the lion's
cage.  Ah,  I  knew him on the instant. The beast! The terrible
one! And  on  my  inner  vision  flashed  the  memories  of  my
dreams,--the  midday  sun  shining on tall grass, the wild bull
grazing quietly, the sudden parting of  the  grass  before  the
swift  rush  of the tawny one, his leap to the bull's back, the
crashing and the bellowing, and the crunch crunch of bones;  or
again,  the  cool quiet of the water-hole, the wild horse up to
his knees and drinking softly, and then the  tawny  one--always
the  tawny  one!-- the leap, the screaming and the splashing of
the horse, and the crunch crunch of bones; and yet  again,  the
sombre twilight and the sad silence of the end of day, and then
the great full-throated roar, sudden, like a trump of doom, and
swift  upon  it  the  insane shrieking and chattering among the
trees, and I, too, am trembling with fear and  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. I gritted my teeth at  him,  danced  up
and  down,  screaming  an  incoherent  mockery and making antic
faces. He responded, rushing against the bars and roaring  back
at me his impotent wrath. Ah, he knew me, too, and the sounds I
made were the sounds 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   they  never  knew.  Already  had  I  developed  reticence
concerning this quality of mine,  this  semi-disassociation  of
personality as I think I am justified in calling it.

     I  saw  the snake-charmer, and no more of the circus did I
see that night. I was taken home, nervous and overwrought, sick
with the invasion of my real life by  that  other  life  of  my
dreams.

     I have mentioned my reticence. Only once did I confide the
strangeness of it all to another. He was a boy--my chum; and we
were  eight  years  old. From my dreams I reconstructed for him
pictures of that vanished world in which I do  believe  I  once
lived. I told him of the terrors of that early time, of Lop-Ear
and the pranks we played, of the gibbering councils, and of the
Fire People and their squatting places.

     

     He  laughed at me, and jeered, and told me tales of ghosts
and of the dead that walk at night. But mostly did he laugh  at
my  feeble fancy. I told him more, and he 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 my tales 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  my  kind.  I  was abnormal with something they
could not understand, and the telling of which would cause only
misunderstanding. When the stories of ghosts and  goblins  went
around,  I  kept quiet. I smiled grimly to myself. I thought of
my  nights  of  fear,  and  knew  that  mine  were   the   real
things--real as life itself, not attenuated vapors and surmised
shadows.
      For  me no terrors resided in the thought of bugaboos and
wicked ogres. The fall through leafy  branches  and  the  dizzy
heights;  the  snakes  that struck at me as I dodged and leaped
away in chattering flight; the wild dogs that hunted me  across
the  open spaces to the timber--these were terrors concrete and
actual, happenings and not imaginings,  things  of  the  living
flesh and of sweat and blood. Ogres and bugaboos and I had been
happy  bed-fellows, compared with these terrors that made their
bed with me throughout my childhood, and that  still  bed  with
me, now, as I write this, full of years.





     I  have  said that in my dreams I never saw a human being.
Of this fact I became aware very early, and felt poignantly the
lack of my own kind. As a very little  child,  even,  I  had  a
feeling,  in  the midst of the horror of my dreaming, that if I
could find but one man, only one human, I should be saved  from
my  dreaming,  that  I should be surrounded no more by haunting
terrors. This thought obsessed me every night of  my  life  for
years--if only I could find that one human and be saved!

     I  must iterate that I had this thought in the midst of my
dreaming, and I take it as an evidence of the merging of my two
personalities, as evidence of a point of  contact  between  the
two  disassociated  parts  of me. My dream personality 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 the knowledge of man's existence, into the  substance
of my dreams.

     Perhaps the psychologists of the book will find fault with
my way  of using the phrase, "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  take shelter behind the
inadequacy of the English language. And now to the  explanation
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 the significance of my dreams, and to the cause  of
them.  Up  to  that  time they had been meaningless and without
apparent causation. But at college I discovered  evolution  and
psychology,  and  learned  the  explanation  of various strange
mental states and experiences.  For  instance,  there  was  the
falling-through-space  dream--the  commonest  dream experience,
one practically known, by first-hand experience, to all men.

     This, my professor told me, was a racial memory. It  dated
back  to  our  remote  ancestors who lived in trees. With them,
being  tree-dwellers,  the  liability   of   falling   was   an
ever-present  menace.  Many  lost  their lives that way; all of
them experienced terrible falls, saving themselves by clutching
branches as they fell toward the ground.

     Now  a  terrible  fall,  averted  in  such  fashion,   was
productive  of  shock.  Such  shock was productive of molecular
changes in the cerebral cells.  These  molecular  changes  were
transmitted to the cerebral cells of progeny, became, in short,
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  which  has  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 an instinct. An instinct is merely a  habit
that is stamped into the stuff of our heredity, that is all. It
will  be noted, in passing, that in this falling dream which is
so familiar to you and me  and  all  of  us,  we  never  strike
bottom.  To  strike  bottom  would be destruction. Those of our
arboreal ancestors who struck bottom died forthwith. True,  the
shock of their fall was communicated to the cerebral cells, but
they  died immediately, before they could have progeny. You and
I are descended from those that did not strike bottom; that  is
why you and I, in our dreams, never strike bottom.

     And now we come to disassociation of personality. We never
have  this  sense  of  falling  when  we  are  wide  awake. Our
wake-a-day personality has no experience of it. Then--and  here
the  argument  is irresistible--it must be another and distinct
personality that falls when we are asleep,  and  that  has  had
experience  of  such  falling--that  has, in short, a memory of
past-day race experiences, just as our  wake-a-day  personality
has a memory of our wake-a-day experiences.


     It  was  at this stage in my reasoning that I began to see
the light. And quickly the light burst upon  me  with  dazzling
brightness, illuminating and explaining all that had been weird
and uncanny and unnaturally impossible in my dream experiences.
In  my  sleep  it  was  not my wake-a-day personality that took
charge  of  me;  it  was  another  and  distinct   personality,
possessing  a  new  and  totally different fund of experiences,
and, to the point of my dreaming, possessing memories of  those
totally different experiences.

     What  was  this  personality?  When  had it itself lived a
wake-a-day life on this planet in order to collect this fund of
strange  experiences?  These  were  questions  that  my  dreams
themselves  answered.  He lived in the long ago, when the world
was young, in that period that we call the Mid-Pleistocene.  He
fell from the trees but did not strike bottom. He gibbered with
fear  at  the roaring of the lions. He was pursued by beasts of
prey, struck at by deadly snakes. He chattered with his kind in
council, and he received rough usage at the hands of  the  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 as well, seeing  that  we  have  a  vague
other-personality that falls through space while we sleep?

     And   I  may  answer  with  another  question.  Why  is  a
two-headed calf? And my own answer to this  is  that  it  is  a
freak.   And   so   I   answer   your  question.  I  have  this
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.  This  other-personality  is  very
vague.  About  the  only  memory it has is that of falling. But
many of us have  sharper,  more  distinct  other-personalities.
Many  of  us have the flying dream, the pursuing-monster dream,
color dreams, suffocation dreams, and the  reptile  and  vermin
dreams.  In short, while this other-personality is vestigial in
all of us, in some of us it is  almost  obliterated,  while  in
others  of  us  it is more pronounced. Some of us have stronger
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 almost equal in power with my
own personality. And in this matter I am, as I said, a freak--a
freak of heredity.

     I  do  believe  that  it  is  the   possession   of   this
other-personality--but not so strong a one as mine--that has in
some  few others given rise to belief in personal reincarnation
experiences. It is  very  plausible  to  such  people,  a  most
convincing  hypothesis.  When  they have visions of scenes they
have never seen in the  flesh,  memories  of  acts  and  events
dating back in time, the simplest explanation is that they have
lived before.

     But  they  make the mistake of ignoring their own duality.
They do not recognize their other-personality. They think it is
their own personality, that they have only one personality; and
from such a premise they can conclude only that they have lived
previous lives.

     But they are  wrong.  It  is  not  reincarnation.  I  have
visions  of  myself  roaming through the forests of the Younger
World; and yet it is not myself that I see but one that is only
remotely a part of me, as my  father  and  my  grandfather  are
parts  of  me  less  remote.  This  other-self  of  mine  is an
ancestor, a progenitor of my progenitors in the early  line  of
my  race,  himself  the  progeny of a line that long before his
time developed fingers and toes and climbed up into the trees.

     I must again, at the risk of boring, repeat that I am,  in
this  one  thing,  to  be  considered  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. And yet,
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 I and all of us receive these memories from
our fathers and mothers,  as  they  received  them  from  their
fathers  and  mothers. Therefore there must be a medium whereby
these memories are transmitted from generation  to  generation.
This  medium is what Weismann terms the "germplasm." It carries
the memories of the whole evolution of the race. These memories
are dim and confused, and many  of  them  are  lost.  But  some
strains   of   germplasm   carry  an  excessive  freightage  of
memories--are, to be  scientific,  more  atavistic  than  other
strains;  and  such a strain is mine. I am a freak of heredity,
an atavistic 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  Thomases  of psychology, who are prone to scoff,
and who would otherwise surely say that  the  coherence  of  my
dreams  is  due to overstudy and the subconscious projection of
my knowledge of evolution into my dreams. In the first place, I
have never been a zealous  student.  I  graduated  last  of  my
class.  I  cared  more for athletics, and--there is no reason I
should not confess it--more for billiards.


     Further, I had no knowledge of evolution until  I  was  at
college, whereas in my childhood
      and  youth  I  had  already  lived  in  my dreams all the
details of that other, long-ago life. I
      will say, however, that  these  details  were  mixed  and
incoherent until I came to know the
      science  of evolution. Evolution was the key. It gave the
explanation, gave sanity to the
      pranks of this atavistic brain of mine that,  modern  and
normal, harked back to a past
      so   remote   as  to  be  contemporaneous  with  the  raw
beginnings of mankind.

     For in this past I know of, man, as we  to-day  know  him,
did not exist. It was in the period of his becoming that I must
have lived and had my being.




     

     The  commonest  dream  of my early childhood was something
like this: It seemed that I was  very  small  and  that  I  lay
curled  up  in  a sort of nest of twigs and boughs. Sometimes I
was lying on my back. In this position it seemed that  I  spent
many  hours,  watching  the play of sunlight on the foliage and
the stirring of the leaves by the wind. Often the  nest  itself
moved back and forth when the wind was strong.

     But  always, while so lying in the nest, I was mastered as
of tremendous space beneath me. I never saw it, I never  peered
over  the  edge  of the nest to see; but I KNEW and feared that
space that lurked just beneath me and that ever  threatened  me
like a maw of some all-devouring monster.

     This  dream,  in  which I was quiescent and which was more
like a condition than an experience of action, I  dreamed  very
often  in  my  early  childhood. But suddenly, there would rush
into  the  very  midst  of  it  strange  forms  and   ferocious
happenings,  the  thunder  and crashing of storm, or unfamiliar
landscapes such as in my wake-a-day life I had never seen.  The
result  was confusion and nightmare. I could comprehend nothing
of it. There was no logic of sequence.

     You see, I did not dream consecutively. One moment I was a
wee babe of the Younger World lying in my tree nest;  the  next
moment  I was a grown man of the Younger World locked in combat
with the hideous Red-Eye; and the next moment  I  was  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  within  the  space  of  several minutes, or
seconds.

     It was all a jumble, but this jumble I shall  not  inflict
upon  you.  It  was not until I was a young man and had dreamed
many thousand  times,  that  everything  straightened  out  and
became  clear  and  plain.  Then  it was that I got the clew of
time, 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 time I lived in it--or at the
time my other-self  lived  in  it.  The  distinction  does  not
matter;  for  I,  too, the modern man, have gone back and lived
that early life in the company of my other-self.

     For your convenience, since this is to be no  sociological
screed,  I  shall  frame  together  the different events into a
comprehensive  story.  For  there  is  a  certain   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 of Red-Eye, and the love of the Swift One. Taking
it  all  in  all,  a fairly coherent and interesting story I am
sure you will agree.

     I do not remember much of my mother. Possibly the earliest
recollection I have of her--and certainly the sharpest--is  the
following:  It seemed I was lying on the ground. I was somewhat
older than during the nest days, but still helpless.  I  rolled
about in the dry leaves, playing with them and making crooning,
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,  were  bushes  and  fern-like growths, and
overhead and all about were the trunks and branches  of  forest
trees.

     Suddenly  I  heard  a sound. I sat upright and listened. I
made no movement. The little noises died down in my throat, and
I sat as one petrified. The sound drew closer. It was like  the
grunt  of  a pig. Then I began to hear the sounds caused by the
moving of a body through  the  brush.  Next  I  saw  the  ferns
agitated by the passage of the body. Then the ferns parted, and
I saw gleaming eyes, a long snout, and white tusks.

     

     It  was a wild boar. He peered at me curiously. He grunted
once or twice and shifted his weight from one  foreleg  to  the
other,  at  the same time moving his head from side to side and
swaying the ferns. Still  I  sat  as  one  petrified,  my  eyes
unblinking as I stared at him, fear eating at my heart.

     It  seemed  that  this movelessness and silence on my part
was what was expected of 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 ferns aside and
stepped into the open. The curiosity went out of his eyes,  and
they  gleamed  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 shrill and 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.  My  sounds  seemed
momentarily  to  disconcert  the  boar, and while he halted and
shifted his weight with indecision, an  apparition  burst  upon
us.

     She  was  like  a  large  orangutan,  my mother, or like a
chimpanzee,  and  yet,  in  sharp  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. She
wore no clothes--only her natural hair. And I can tell you  she
was a fury when she was excited.

     And  like  a  fury  she  dashed  upon  the  scene. She was
gritting  her  teeth,  making  frightful  grimaces,   snarling,
uttering  sharp  and continuous cries that sounded like "kh-ah!
kh-ah!" So sudden and formidable was her  appearance  that  the
boar  involuntarily  bunched  himself together on the defensive
and bristled as she swerved toward him. Then she swerved toward
me. She had quite taken the breath out of him. I knew just what
to do in that moment of time she had gained. I leaped  to  meet
her,  catching  her  about  the  waist  and holding on hand and
foot--yes, by my feet; I could hold on by them as readily as by
my hands. I could feel in my tense grip the pull of the hair as
her skin and her muscles moved beneath with her efforts.

     As I say, I leaped to meet her, and  on  the  instant  she
leaped straight up into the air, catching an overhanging branch
with her hands. The next instant, with clashing tusks, the boar
drove  past  underneath. He had recovered from his surprise and
sprung forward, emitting a squeal that was almost a trumpeting.
At any rate it was a call, for it was followed by  the  rushing
of bodies through the ferns and brush from all directions.

     From  every  side  wild hogs dashed into the open space--a
score of them. But my 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-gnashing  circle  that  had  gathered  beneath.  I,  too,
trembling,  peered  down at the angry beasts and did my best to
imitate my mother's cries.


     

     From the distance came similar cries, only pitched deeper,
into a sort of roaring bass. These grew momentarily louder, and
soon I saw him approaching, my father--at  least,  by  all  the
evidence  of  the times, I am driven to conclude that he was my
father.

     He was not an extremely prepossessing father,  as  fathers
go.  He seemed half man, 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 the earth. He was
a large man in his day, and he  must  have  weighed  all  of  a
hundred and thirty pounds. His face was broad and flat, and the
eyebrows  over-hung  the  eyes. The eyes themselves were small,
deep-set, and close together. He had  practically  no  nose  at
all.  It  was  squat and broad, apparently with-out any bridge,
while the nostrils were like two holes  in  the  face,  opening
outward instead of down.

     The  forehead  slanted  back  from  the eyes, and the hair
began right at the eyes and ran up  over  the  head.  The  head
itself was preposterously small and was supported on an equally
preposterous, thick, short neck.

     There  was  an  elemental  economy  about his body--as was
there about all our bodies. The chest was  deep,  it  is  true,
cavernously  deep;  but there were no full-swelling muscles, no
wide-spreading  shoulders,  no  clean-limbed  straightness,  no
generous  symmetry  of  outline.  It represented strength, that
body  of  my  father's,  strength  without  beauty;  ferocious,
primordial  strength,  made  to  clutch  and gripe and rend and
destroy.

     His hips were thin; and the legs,  lean  and  hairy,  were
crooked  and  stringy-muscled.  In  fact, my father's legs were
more like arms. They were twisted and gnarly, and with scarcely
the semblance of the full meaty calf such as  graces  your  leg
and mine. I remember he could not walk on the flat of his foot.
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, like a thumb, and its opposition to
the other toes was what enabled him to  get  a  grip  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 to my mother and me as we perched  above  the
angry  wild  pigs. He came through the trees, leaping from limb
to limb and from tree to tree; and he came swiftly. I  can  see
him now, in my wake-a-day life, as I write this, swinging along
through  the trees, a four-handed, hairy creature, howling with
rage, pausing now and again to beat his chest with his clenched
fist, leaping ten-and-fifteen-foot gaps, catching a branch with
one hand and swinging on across another gap to catch  with  his
other  hand  and go on, never hesitating, never at a loss as to
how to proceed on his arboreal way.

     And as I watched him I felt in my own being,  in  my  very
muscles  themselves,  the  surge  and  thrill  of  desire to go
leaping from bough to bough; and I felt also the  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,  and  feel  in themselves that some day they, too,
will swing axes and fell trees. And so 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
forest flights.

     At  last  my  father  joined us. He was extremely angry. I
remember the out-thrust of his protruding underlip as he glared
down at the wild pigs. He snarled something 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 and small 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  tusks with
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 sides and whacked  them  across  their
noses. Needless to state, my mother and I enjoyed the sport.

     But  one  tires  of  all  good  things, and in the end, my
father, chuckling maliciously the while, led the way across the
trees. Now it was that my ambitions ebbed away,  and  I  became
timid,  holding  tightly  to my mother as she climbed and swung
through space. I  remember  when  the  branch  broke  with  her
weight. She had made a wide leap, and with the snap of the wood
I  was  overwhelmed with the sickening consciousness of falling
through space, the pair of us. The forest and the  sunshine  on
the  rustling  leaves  vanished  from  my  eyes. I had a fading
glimpse of my father abruptly arresting his progress  to  look,
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-lamp was burning calmly.
And because of this I take it that the wild pigs  did  not  get
us,  that  we  never  fetched bottom; else I should not be here
now, a thousand centuries after, to remember the event.

     And now put yourself in my place for a moment.  Walk  with
me  a  bit  in  my  tender  childhood,  bed with me a night and
imagine  yourself  dreaming  such   incomprehensible   horrors.
Remember  I was an inexperienced child. I had never seen a wild
boar  in  my  life.  For  that  matter  I  had  never  seen   a
domesticated  pig.  The nearest approach to one that I had seen
was breakfast bacon sizzling in 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-ridden  nights?  I was accursed. And, worst of all, I
was afraid to tell. I do not know why,  except  that  I  had  a
feeling of guilt, though I knew no better of what I was guilty.
So  it  was,  through  long  years, that I suffered in silence,
until I came to man's estate and learned the why and  wherefore
of my dreams.




     There  is  one  puzzling  thing  about  these  prehistoric
memories of mine. It is the vagueness of the time element. I lo
not always know the order of events;--or can  I  tell,  between
some  events,  whether  one,  two,  or  four or five years have
elapsed. I can only roughly tell the passage of time by judging
the 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 and fled and  fell  in
the  days before I made the acquaintance of Lop-Ear, who became
what I may call my boyhood chum. And it is just  as  conclusive
that between these two periods I must have left my mother.


     

     I  have  no memory of my father than the one I have given.
Never, in the years that followed, did he reappear. And from my
knowledge of the times, the only explanation possible  lies  in
that  he  perished  shortly  after  the adventure with the 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 him off. But I know not  the  manner  of
his  going--whether  he  was  drowned  in  the  river,  or  was
swallowed  by  a  snake,  or  went  into  the  stomach  of  old
Saber-Tooth, the tiger, is beyond my knowledge.

     For  know  that  I  remember only the things I saw myself,
with my own eyes, in those prehistoric days. If my mother  knew
my  father's end, she never told me. For that matter I doubt if
she had a  vocabulary  adequate  to  convey  such  information.
Perhaps,  all  told,  the  Folk in that day had a vocabulary of
thirty or forty sounds.

     I call them SOUNDS, rather than WORDS, because sounds they
were primarily. They had no fixed  values,  to  be  altered  by
adjectives  and  adverbs. These latter were tools of speech not
yet invented. Instead of qualifying nouns or verbs by  the  use
of  adjectives  and adverbs, we qualified sounds by intonation,
by  changes  in  quantity  and  pitch,  by  retarding  and   by
accelerating. The length of time employed in the utterance of a
particular sound shaded its meaning.

     We  had  no  conjugation.  One  judged  the  tense  by the
context. We talked only concrete things because we thought only
concrete things. Also, we depended largely  on  pantomime.  The
simplest  abstraction  was practically beyond our thinking; and
when  one  did  happen  to  think  one,  he  was  hard  put  to
communicate  it to his fellows. There were no sounds for it. He
was pressing  beyond  the  limits  of  his  vocabulary.  If  he
invented  sounds  for  it,  his  fellows did not understand the
sounds.  Then  it  was  that  he  fell   back   on   pantomime,
illustrating the thought wherever possible and at the same time
repeating the new sound over and over again.

     Thus language grew. By the few sounds we possessed we were
enabled  to  think  a  short distance beyond those sounds; then
came the need for new  sounds  wherewith  to  express  the  new
thought.  Sometimes, however, we thought too long a distance in
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 did not grow fast in that day.

     Oh, believe me, we were amazingly simple. But we did  know
a lot that is not known to-day. We could twitch our ears, prick
them  up  and  flatten  them down at will. And we could scratch
between our shoulders with ease. We could throw stones with our
feet. I have done it many a time. And for that matter, I  could
keep  my knees straight, bend forward from the hips, and touch,
not the tips of my fingers, but the points of my elbows, to the
ground.  And  as  for  bird-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 our friendship. Very early in my life, I separated
from my mother. Possibly this was because, after the  death  of
my  father,  she  took  to herself a second husband. I have few
recollections of him, and they are not of the best.  He  was  a
light fellow. There was no solidity to him. He was too voluble.
His  infernal  chattering worries me even now as I think of it.
His mind was too  inconsequential  to  permit  him  to  possess
purpose. Monkeys in their cages always remind me of him. He was
monkeyish. That is the best description I can give of him.

     He  hated  me  from the first. And I quickly learned to be
afraid of him and his malicious pranks.  Whenever  he  came  in
sight  I  crept  close to my mother and clung to her. But I was
growing older all the time, and it was inevitable that I should
from time to  time  stray  from  her,  and  stray  farther  and
farther.  And  these  were the opportunities that the Chatterer
waited for. (I may as well explain that we  bore  no  names  in
those  days;  were  not  known  by  any  name.  For the sake of
convenience I have myself given names to the various Folk I was
more closely in contact with, and the "Chatterer" is  the  most
fitting  description I can find for that precious stepfather of
mine. As for me, I have named myself "Big-Tooth." My  eye-teeth
were pronouncedly large.)


     

     But to return to the Chatterer. He persistently terrorized
me. He  was  always pinching me and cuffing me, and on occasion
he was not above biting me. Often my mother interfered, and the
way she made his fur fly was a joy to see. But  the  result  of
all  this was a beautiful and unending family quarrel, in which
I was 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  an  association,  not   a
habitation. I lived in my mother's care, not in a house. And my
mother lived anywhere, so long as when night came she was above
the ground.


     My mother was old-fashioned. She still clung to her trees.
It is  true, the more progressive members of our horde lived in
the caves above the river. But my  mother  was  suspicious  and
unprogressive.  The  trees were good enough for her. Of course,
we had one particular tree in which we usually roosted,  though
we  often roosted in other trees when nightfall caught us. In a
convenient fork was a  sort  of  rude  platform  of  twigs  and
branches and creeping things. It was more like a huge bird-nest
than  anything  else,  though it was a thousand times cruder in
the weaving than any bird-nest. But it had one feature  that  I
have never seen 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  the  lowest  aborigines  of  to-day.  It  was
infinitely  more clumsy than the clumsiest handiwork 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 a pile of dead branches and brush. Four  or  five
adjacent  forks  held  what I may term the various ridge-poles.
These were merely stout sticks an inch or so  in  diameter.  On
them  rested  the brush and branches. These seemed to have been
tossed on almost aimlessly. There was no attempt at
      thatching. And  I  must  confess  that  the  roof  leaked
miserably in a heavy rain.


     But  the Chatterer. He made home-life a burden for both my
mother and me--and by home-life I mean, not the leaky  nest  in
the  tree,  but  the group-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 five  minutes.  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 have become a nuisance to her.  At  any  rate,  the
situation went from bad to worse so rapidly that I should soon,
of  my  own  volition,  have left home. But the satisfaction of
performing so independent an act was denied me.  Before  I  was
ready 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. My mother and the Chatterer  had  gone  away
together  toward  the blueberry swamp. He must have planned the
whole thing, for  I  heard  him  returning  alone  through  the
forest, roaring with self-induced rage as he came. Like all the
men  of  our horde, when they were angry or were trying to make
themselves angry, he stopped now and again  to  hammer  on  his
chest with his fist.

     I  realized the helplessness of my situation, and crouched
trembling in the nest.  The  Chatterer  came  directly  to  the
tree--I remember it was an oak tree--and began to climb up. And
he  never  ceased for a moment from his infernal row. As I have
said, our language was  extremely  meagre,  and  he  must  have
strained  it  by the variety of ways in which he informed me of
his undying hatred 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 followed me, and out I went, farther and  farther.  At
last  I  was  out  amongst  the  small  twigs  and  leaves. The
Chatterer was ever a coward, and greater always than any  anger
he  ever  worked up was his caution. He was afraid to follow me
out amongst the leaves and twigs. For that matter, his  greater
weight  would  have  crashed  him 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,  the  scoundrel!  With a malevolent expression on his
face, his beady eyes gleaming with cruel intelligence, he began
teetering. Teetering!--and with me out on the very edge of  the
bough,  clutching  at  the twigs that broke continually with my
weight. Twenty feet beneath me was the earth.

     Wildly and more--wildly he teetered, grinning  at  me  his
gloating hatred. Then came 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
and springy bushes.

     Usually, my falls destroy my  dreams,  the  nervous  shock
being sufficient to bridge the thousand centuries in an instant
and  hurl me wide awake into my little bed, where, perchance, I
lie sweating and trembling and hear the  cuckoo  clock  calling
the  hour in the hall. But this dream of my leaving home I have
had 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  up  through  the  bushes,  I  could  see  the
Chatterer. He had set up a demoniacal  chant  of  joy  and  was
keeping  time  to  it  with  his teetering. I quickly hushed my
whimpering. I was no longer in the safety of the trees,  and  I
knew  the  danger  I  ran  of  bringing upon myself the hunting
animals by too audible an expression of my grief.

     I remember, as my sobs died down, that I became interested
in watching the strange  light-effects  produced  by  partially
opening  and  closing  my  tear-wet  eyelids.  Then  I began to
investigate, and found that I was not so very badly damaged  by
my  fall.  I  had  lost some hair and hide, here and there; the
sharp and jagged end of a broken branch  had  thrust  fully  an
inch  into  my  forearm;  and my right hip, which had borne the
brunt of my contact with the ground,  was  aching  intolerably.
But  these,  after  all,  were  only petty hurts. No bones were
broken, and in those days the flesh of man  had  finer  healing
qualities  than  it has to-day. Yet it was a severe fall, for I
limped with my injured hip for fully a week afterward.

     Next, as I lay in the bushes, there came upon me a feeling
of desolation, a consciousness that I was homeless. I  made  up
my mind never to return to my mother and the Chatterer. I would
go far away through the terrible forest, and find some tree for
myself in which to roost. As for food, I knew where to find it.
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 the Chatterer still chanting and teetering. It was
not a pleasant sight. I knew pretty well how  to  be  cautious,
and  I  was exceedingly careful on this my first journey in the
world.

     I gave no thought as to where I was going. I had  but  one
purpose,  and  that  was  to  go  away  beyond the reach of the
Chatterer. I climbed into the trees  and  wandered  on  amongst
them  for  hours,  passing from tree to tree and never touching
the ground. But I did not go in any particular  direction,  nor
did  I  travel steadily. It was my nature, as it was the nature
of all my folk, to be inconsequential. Besides, I  was  a  mere
child, and I stopped a great deal to play by the way.

     The  events  that  befell  me  on my leaving home are very
vague in my mind. My dreams do not  cover  them.  Much  has  my
other-self forgotten, and particularly at this very period. Nor
have I been able to frame up the various dreams so as to bridge
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 great trepidation, descending to  the  ground  and
running at the top of my speed. I remember that there were days
of  rain  and  days  of  sunshine, so that I must have wandered
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 strong impression is of hunting little lizards on  the
rocky  top of an open knoll. They ran under the rocks, and most
of them escaped; but occasionally I turned  over  a  stone  and
caught  one.  I  was frightened away from this knoll by snakes.
They did not pursue me. They were merely basking on flat  rocks
in  the sun. But such was my 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  of  many green nuts, with soft shells and
milky kernels. And I remember most distinctly suffering from  a
stomach-ache.  It  may  have been caused by the green nuts, and
maybe by the lizards. I do not know. But I do know that  I  was
fortunate  in not being devoured during the several hours I was
knotted up on the ground with the colic.





     My vision of the scene came abruptly, as  I  emerged  from
the  forest. I found myself on the edge of a large clear space.
On one side of this space rose up high  bluffs.  On  the  other
side  was  the  river.  The  earth bank ran steeply down to the
water, but here and there, in several  places,  where  at  some
time  slides  of earth had occurred, there were run-ways. These
were the drinking-places of the Folk that lived in the caves.

     And this was the main abiding-place of the Folk that I had
chanced upon. This was, I may say, by stretching the word,  the
village.  My  mother  and  the Chatterer and I, and a few other
simple bodies, were what might be termed suburban residents. We
were part of the horde, though we lived a  distance  away  from
it.  It was only a short distance, though it had taken me, what
of my wandering, all of a week to arrive. Had I come  directly,
I could have covered the trip in an hour.

     But to return. From the edge of the forest I saw the caves
in the   bluff,  the  open  space,  and  the  run-ways  to  the
drinking-places. And in the open space I saw 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 and
desolation. And now, at the sight of my kind,  I  was  overcome
with gladness, and I ran wildly toward them.

     Then it was that a strange thing happened. Some one of the
Folk  saw  me and uttered a warning cry. On the instant, crying
out with fear and  panic,  the  Folk  fled  away.  Leaping  and
scrambling  over the rocks, they plunged into the mouths of the
caves and disappeared...all but one, a little  baby,  that  had
been  dropped in the excitement close to the base of the bluff.
He was wailing dolefully. His mother dashed out; he  sprang  to
meet  her  and  held  on tightly as she scrambled back into the
cave.

     I was all alone. The populous open space had of  a  sudden
become  deserted.  I  sat down forlornly and whimpered. I could
not understand. Why had the Folk run away  from  me?  In  later
time, when I came to know their ways, I was to learn. When they
saw  me  dashing  out of the forest at top speed they concluded
that I  was  being  pursued  by  some  hunting  animal.  By  my
unceremonious approach I had stampeded them.

     As  I  sat and watched the cave-mouths I became aware that
the Folk were watching me. Soon they were thrusting their heads
out. A little later they were calling back  and  forth  to  one
another.  In  the  hurry and confusion it had happened that all
had not gained their own caves. Some  of  the  young  ones  had
sought refuge in other caves. The mothers did not call for them
by name, because that was an invention we had not yet made. All
were  nameless.  The  mothers uttered querulous, anxious cries,
which were recognized by the young ones. Thus,  had  my  mother
been  there  calling  to me, I should have recognized her voice
amongst the voices of a thousand mothers, and in the  same  way
would she have recognized mine amongst a thousand.

     This  calling  back and forth continued for some time, but
they were too cautious to come out of their caves  and  descend
to  the ground. Finally one did come. He was destined to play a
large part in my life, and for that matter he already played  a
large  part in the lives of all the members of the horde. He it
was whom I shall call Red-Eye in the pages of this  history--so
called because of his inflamed eyes, the lids being always red,
and, by the peculiar effect they produced, seeming to advertise
the terrible savagery of him. The color of his soul was red.

     He  was  a monster in all ways. Physically he was a giant.
He must have weighed one 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 Tree People.
Sometimes, when in the newspapers I happen upon descriptions of
our modern bruisers and prizefighters, I wonder what chance the
best of them would have 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 their bodies. A back-handed,
loose blow of his fist could have  smashed  their  skulls  like
egg-shells.  With a sweep of his wicked feet (or hind-hands) he
could have disembowelled them. A twist could have broken  their
necks,  and  I  know  that  with a single crunch of his jaws he
could have pierced, at the same moment, the great vein  of  the
throat in front and the spinal marrow at the back.


     

     He  could  spring  twenty feet horizontally from a sitting
position. He was abominably hairy. It was  a  matter  of  pride
with  us to be not very hairy. But he was covered with hair all
over, on the inside of the arms as well  as  the  outside,  and
even the ears themselves. The only places on him where the hair
did  not  grow were the soles of his hands and feet and beneath
his eyes. He was frightfully ugly, his ferocious grinning mouth
and huge down-hanging under-lip being but in harmony  with  his
terrible eyes.

     This  was  Red-Eye. And right gingerly he crept out or his
cave and descended to the ground. Ignoring me, he proceeded  to
reconnoitre. He bent forward from the hips 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
on  either  side  of  him.  He  was  awkward  in the semi-erect
position of walking that he assumed, and he really touched  his
knuckles  to  the ground in order to balance himself. But oh, I
tell you he could run on all-fours! Now this was  something  at
which  we were particularly awkward. Furthermore, it was a rare
individual among us who balanced himself with his knuckles when
walking. Such an 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  our  tree-life  to  life  on  the  ground.  For  many
generations we had been going  through  this  change,  and  our
bodies  and  carriage  had  likewise  changed.  But Red-Eye had
reverted to the more primitive  tree-dwelling  type.  Perforce,
because  he  was  born  in  our horde he stayed with us; but in
actuality he was an atavism and his place 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 the hunting animal  that
all  suspected had pursued me. And while he did this, taking no
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 was returning from the head of the run-way,
from where he had taken a peep down at the drinking-place.  His
course  brought  him  near,  but still he did not notice me. He
proceeded casually on his way until abreast of  me,  and  then,
without  warning  and  with incredible swiftness, he smote me a
buffet on the head. I was knocked backward fully a  dozen  feet
before  I  fetched  up  against  the  ground,  and  I remember,
half-stunned, even as the blow was  struck,  hearing  the  wild
uproar  of  clucking and shrieking laughter that arose from the
caves. It was a great joke--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  of  the women gathered
curiously about me, and I recognized them.  I  had  encountered
them  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 teasing youngsters. They formed a circle around me,
pointing  their  fingers, making faces, and poking and pinching
me. I was frightened, and for a time I endured them, then anger
got the best of me and I sprang tooth and nail  upon  the  most
audacious  one of them--none other than Lop-Ear himself. I have
so named him because he could prick up only one  of  his  ears.
The  other  ear  always  hung  limp  and without movement. Some
accident had injured the muscles and deprived him of the use of
it.

     He closed with me, and we went at it  for  all  the  world
like  a  couple  of  small boys fighting. We scratched and bit,
pulled hair, clinched, and threw each other down. I remember  I
succeeded  in  getting on him what in my college days I learned
was called  a  half-Nelson.  This  hold  gave  me  the  decided
advantage.  But I did not enjoy it long. He twisted up one leg,
and with the foot (or hind-hand) made so  savage  an  onslaught
upon  my  abdomen  as  to  threaten  to disembowel me. I had to
release him in order to save myself, and then  we  went  at  it
again.


     

     Lop-Ear  was  a year older than I, but I was several times
angrier than he, and in the end he took to his heels. I  chased
him across the open and down a run-way to the river. But he was
better  acquainted  with the locality and ran along the edge of
the water and up another run-way. He cut diagonally across  the
open space and dashed into a wide-mouthed cave.

     Before  I  knew  it,  I  had  plunged  after  him into the
darkness. The next moment I was badly frightened. I  had  never
been  in a cave before. I began to whimper and cry 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 himself off. I was between him and the  entrance,  and
he  did  not  pass  me;  yet  he  seemed  to  have gone away. I
listened, but could get no  clew  as  to  where  he  was.  This
puzzled  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  of  several minutes he chuckled at my elbow.
Again I ran after him, and again he ran into the cave; but this
time I stopped at the mouth. I dropped back  a  short  distance
and  watched.  He did not come out, yet, as before, he chuckled
at my elbow 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 he eluded me. Always he
went into the cave, never did he come out of it, yet always did
he arrive there at my elbow and mock me.  Thus  did  our  fight
transform 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, and we sat  together  with  our  arms
around  each  other. A little later he disclosed the 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 this that 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 before long I was let
alone. Lop-Ear made me acquainted with the village.  There  was
little  that he could tell me of conditions and customs--he had
not the necessary vocabulary; but by observing  his  actions  I
learned much, and also he showed me places and things.


     

     He  took  me  up the open space, between the caves and the
river, and into the forest beyond, where,  in  a  grassy  place
among  the  trees,  we  made  a meal of stringy-rooted carrots.
After that we had a good drink at the river and started up  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 see the cause of his
fear. It was Red-Eye, swaggering down the centre of
      the run-way and scowling fiercely with his inflamed eyes.
I noticed  that  all  the youngsters shrank away from him as we
had done, while the grown-ups regarded him with wary eyes  when
he  drew  near, and stepped aside to give him the centre of the
path.

     As twilight came on, the open space was deserted. The Folk
were seeking the safety 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  from  the
ground. Into this Lop-Ear squeezed. I followed with difficulty,
so  narrow  was  the  entrance,  and  found  myself  in a small
rock-chamber. It was very low--not more than a couple  of  feet
in height, and possibly three feet by four in width and length.
Here,  cuddled  together in each other's arms, we slept out the
night.






     While the more courageous of the youngsters played in  and
out of the large-mouthed caves, I early learned that such caves
were  unoccupied.  No  one  slept  in  them  at night. Only the
crevice-mouthed caves were used, the  narrower  the  mouth  the
better.  This  was  from  fear of the preying animals that made
life a burden to us in those days and nights.

     The first morning, after my night's sleep with Lop-Ear,  I
learned  the advantage of the narrow-mouthed caves. It was just
daylight when old Saber-Tooth, the tiger, walked into the  open
space.  Two  of  the Folk were already up. They made a rush for
it. Whether they were panic-stricken, or  whether  he  was  too
close  on  their  heels  for them to attempt to scramble up the
bluff to the crevices, I do not know;  but  at  any  rate  they
dashed  into  the  wide-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  conclude  that  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 came out
the way he had gone in, unsatisfied and angry. It  was  evident
that  his night's hunting had been unsuccessful and that he had
expected to make a meal off of us. He caught sight of  the  two
Folk  at  the  other cave-mouth and sprang for them. Of course,
they darted through the passageway  into  the  first  cave.  He
emerged angrier than ever and snarling.

     Pandemonium broke loose amongst the rest of us. All up and
down  the  great  bluff,  we  crowded  the crevices and outside
ledges, and we were all chattering and shrieking in a  thousand
keys. And we were all making faces--snarling faces; this was an
instinct  with  us. We were as angry as Saber-Tooth, though our
anger was allied with fear. I remember that I shrieked and made
faces with the best of them. Not only did they set the example,
but I felt the urge from within me to do the same  things  they
were  doing.  My hair was bristling, and I was convulsed with a
fierce, unreasoning rage.

     For some time old Saber-Tooth continued dashing in and out
of first the one cave and then the  other.  But  the  two  Folk
merely  slipped  back  and forth through the connecting crevice
and eluded him. In the meantime the rest of us up the bluff had
proceeded to action. Every time he appeared outside  we  pelted
him  with rocks. At first we merely dropped them on him, but we
soon began to whiz them  down  with  the  added  force  of  our
muscles.

     This  bombardment  drew  Saber-Tooth's attention to us and
made him angrier than ever. He abandoned his pursuit of the two
Folk and sprang up the bluff toward the rest of us, clawing  at
the crumbling rock and snarling as he clawed his upward way. At
this  awful  sight, the last one of us sought refuge inside our
caves. I know this, because I peeped  out  and  saw  the  whole
bluff-side  deserted,  save  for  Saber-Tooth, who had lost his
footing and was sliding and falling down.

     I called out the cry of encouragement, and again the bluff
was covered by the screaming horde and the stones were  falling
faster  than  ever. Saber-Tooth was frantic with rage. Time and
again he assaulted the bluff. Once he  even  gained  the  first
crevice-entrances  before he fell back, but was unable to force
his way inside. With each upward rush he made,  waves  of  fear
surged  over  us.  At  first,  at such times, most of us dashed
inside; but some remained outside to hammer  him  with  stones,
and soon all of us remained outside and kept up the fusillade.

     Never was so masterly a creature so completely baffled. It
hurt  his pride terribly, thus to be outwitted by the small and
tender Folk. He stood on  the  ground  and  looked  up  at  us,
snarling,  lashing  his  tail, snapping at the stones that fell
near to him. Once I whizzed down a stone, and just at the right
moment he looked up. It caught him full on the end of his nose,
and he went straight up in the  air,  all  four  feet  of  him,
roaring and caterwauling, what of the hurt and surprise.

     He  was  beaten and he knew it. Recovering his dignity, he
stalked out solemnly from under the rain of stones. He  stopped
in  the  middle  of  the  open  space  and looked wistfully and
hungrily back at us. He hated to forego the meal, and  we  were
just so much meat, cornered but inaccessible. This sight of him
started us to laughing. We laughed derisively and uproariously,
all  of  us.  Now animals do not like mockery. To be laughed at
makes them angry. And in such  fashion  our  laughter  affected
Saber-Tooth. He turned with a roar and charged the bluff again.
This  was  what  we wanted. The fight had become a game, and we
took huge delight in pelting him.

     

     But this attack did not last long.  He  quickly  recovered
his  common  sense,  and  besides,  our missiles were shrewd to
hurt. Vividly do I recollect the vision of one 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  the  forest  whither he had finally retreated. He was
looking back at us, his writhing lips lifted clear of the  very
roots  of  his  huge  fangs,  his  hair  bristling and his tail
lashing. He gave one last snarl and slid from  view  among  the
trees.

     And  then  such a chattering as went up. We swarmed out of
our holes, examining the  marks  his  claws  had  made  on  the
crumbling  rock of the bluff, all of us talking at once. One of
the two Folk who  had  been  caught  in  the  double  cave  was
part-grown,  half  child  and  half  youth.  They  had come out
proudly from  their  refuge,  and  we  surrounded  them  in  an
admiring  crowd.  Then  the young fellow'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 a
strapping big woman, very hairy, and the thrashing she gave him
was a delight to the horde. We roared with laughter, holding on
to one another or rolling on the ground in our glee.

     In spite of the reign of fear under which  we  lived,  the
Folk were always great laughers. We had the sense of humor. Our
merriment  was  Gargantuan.  It was never restrained. There was
nothing half way about it. When  a  thing  was  funny  we  were
convulsed  with  appreciation  of it, and the simplest, crudest
things were funny to us. Oh, we were great laughers, I can tell
you.

     The way we had treated Saber-Tooth was the way we  treated
all  animals that invaded the village. We kept our run-ways and
drinking-places to ourselves by making life miserable  for  the
animals   that   trespassed   or  strayed  upon  our  immediate
territory. Even the fiercest hunting animals we  so  bedevilled
that  they  learned  to  leave  our  places  alone. We were not
fighters like them; we were cunning and cowardly,  and  it  was
because  of  our  cunning  and  cowardice,  and  our inordinate
capacity for fear, that we survived in that frightfully hostile
environment of the Younger World.

     Lop-Ear, I figure, was a year older than I. What his  past
history  was  he  had  no way of telling me, but as I never saw
anything of his mother I believed him to be  an  orphan.  After
all, fathers did not count in our horde. Marriage was as yet 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. But we had no laws. Custom was all we
went by, and our custom in this particular  matter  was  rather
promiscuous .

     Nevertheless,  as  this  narrative  will show later on, we
betrayed glimmering adumbrations 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, there were several
faithful couples that lived in the trees in the neighborhood of
my mother. Living in the thick of the horde did not conduce  to
monogamy.  It  was  for  this  reason,  undoubtedly,  that  the
faithful couples went away and  lived  by  themselves.  Through
many  years  these couples stayed together, though when the man
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 my residence in the horde. There was  a  nameless
and  incommunicable  fear  that  rested  upon  all. At first it
appeared to be  connected  wholly  with  direction.  The  horde
feared  the  northeast.  It  lived in perpetual apprehension of
that quarter of the compass. And every  individual  gazed  more
frequently and with greater alarm in that direction than in any
other.

     When  Lop-Ear  and I went toward the north-east to eat the
stringy-rooted carrots that at that season were at their  best,
he  became unusually timid. He was content 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
as yet untouched.  When  I  so  ventured,  he  scolded  me  and
quarrelled  with  me.  He  gave  me  to understand that in that
direction was some horrible danger, but just what the  horrible
danger was his paucity of language would not permit him to say.

     Many  a  good meal I got in this fashion, while he scolded
and chattered vainly at me. I could not understand. I kept very
alert, but I could see  no  danger.  I  calculated  always  the
distance  between myself and the nearest tree, and knew that to
that haven of refuge I could out-foot the  Tawny  One,  or  old
Saber-Tooth, did one or the other suddenly appear.

     One  late afternoon, in the village, a great uproar arose.
The horde was animated with a single emotion, that of fear. The
bluff-side swarmed with the Folk, 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 before ever
I turned around to see.

     And then, across the river, away into the northeast, I saw
for the first time the mystery of smoke.  It  was  the  biggest
animal  I  had  ever  seen.  I  thought it was a monster snake,
up-ended, rearing its head high above  the  trees  and  swaying
back  and  forth. And yet, somehow, I seemed to gather from the
conduct of the Folk that the smoke itself was not  the  danger.
They  appeared  to fear it as the token of something else. What
this something else was I was unable to guess. Nor  could  they
tell  me.  Yet  I  was  soon to know, and I was to know it as a
thing more terrible than the Tawny One, than  old  Saber-Tooth,
than the snakes themselves, than which it seemed there could be
no things more terrible.





     

     Broken-Tooth  was  another youngster who lived by himself.
His mother lived in the caves, but two more children  had  come
after  him  and he had been thrust out to shift for himself. We
had witnessed the  performance  during  the  several  preceding
days,  and it had given us no little glee. Broken-Tooth did not
want to go, and every time his mother left the cave he  sneaked
back  into  it. When she returned and found him there her rages
were delightful. Half the horde made a practice of watching for
these moments. First, from within  the  cave,  would  come  her
scolding  and  shrieking.  Then  we  could  hear  sounds of the
thrashing and the yelling of Broken-Tooth. About this time  the
two  younger children joined in. And finally, like the eruption
of a miniature volcano, Broken-Tooth would come flying out.

     At  the  end  of  several  days  his  leaving   home   was
accomplished. He wailed his grief, 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  with
squeezing  there  was room for three. I have no recollection of
Broken-Tooth spending more than  one  night  with  us,  so  the
accident must have happened right away.

     It  came  in  the middle of the day. In the morning we had
eaten our fill of the carrots, and then, made heedless by play,
we had ventured on to the  big  trees  just  beyond.  I  cannot
understand  how  Lop-Ear  got over his habitual caution, but it
must have been the play. We were having a  great  time  playing
tree tag. And such tag! We leaped ten or fifteen-foot gaps as a
matter  of  course. And a twenty or twenty-five foot deliberate
drop clear down to the ground was nothing to us. In fact, I  am
almost afraid to say the great distances we dropped. As we grew
older  and  heavier  we  found  we  had  to be more cautious in
dropping, but at that 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  one  difficult  "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 a lofty branch in a certain tree. From the end of the branch
to the ground it must  have  been  seventy  feet,  and  nothing
intervened  to  break a fall. But about twenty feet lower down,
and fully fifteen feet out  from  the  perpendicular,  was  the
thick branch of another tree.

     As  we  ran  out  the limb, Broken-Tooth, facing us, would
begin teetering. This naturally 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 reached him he
would let go. The teetering branch was like a spring-board.  It
threw  him  far  out,  backward,  as he fell. And as he fell he
turned around sidewise in the air  so  as  to  face  the  other
branch  into  which  he  was falling. This branch bent far down
under the impact, and sometimes there was an ominous crackling;
but it never broke, and out of the leaves was always to be seen
the face of Broken-Tooth grinning triumphantly up at us.

     I was "It" the last time Broken-Tooth tried this.  He  had
gained the end 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 saw him in the main fork of
the tree crouching close against  the  trunk.  Instinctively  I
crouched   down  upon  the  thick  limb.  Broken-Tooth  stopped
teetering,  but  the  branch  would  not  stop,  and  his  body
continued bobbing up and down with the rustling leaves.

     I heard the crackle of a dry twig, and looking down saw my
first  Fire-Man. He was creeping stealthily along on the ground
and peering up into the tree. At first I thought he was a  wild
animal, because he wore around his waist and over his 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 he was less hairy and that his feet were less like
hands than ours. In fact, he and 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  the  northeast, 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 strong  men  would  have  been
more  than  a match for him. He was old, too, wizened with age,
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 could never catch us, that was certain.

     But he carried something in his hand that I had never seen
before. It was a bow and arrow. But at  that  time  a  bow  and
arrow  had  no  meaning  for  me.  How was I to know that death
lurked in that bent piece of wood? But  Lop-Ear  knew.  He  had
evidently  seen  the  Fire  People before and knew something of
their ways. The Fire-Man peered up at him  and  circled  around
the  tree.  And  around  the  main trunk above the fork Lop-Ear
circled too, keeping always the trunk between himself  and  the
Fire-Man.

     The latter abruptly reversed his circling. Lop-Ear, caught
unawares, also hastily reversed, but did not win the protection
of the trunk until after the Fire-Man had twanged the bow.

     I  saw  the  arrow leap up, miss Lop-Ear, glance against a
limb, and fall back to the 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  one
another.

     The  game  continued  a little longer, but Lop-Ear did not
expose himself a second time. Then the Fire-Man gave it  up.  I
leaned  far  out  over my horizontal limb and chattered down at
him. I wanted to play. I wanted to have him try to hit me  with
the  thing. He saw me, but ignored me, turning his attention to
Broken-Tooth,   who   was   still   teetering   slightly    and
involuntarily on the end of the branch.

     The  first  arrow  leaped upward. Broken-Tooth yelled with
fright and pain. It had  reached  its  mark.  This  put  a  new
complexion  on  the  matter.  I  no  longer  cared to play, but
crouched trembling close to my limb. A second arrow and a third
soared 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 away several steps, then shifted it a  second
time.  The  bow-string  twanged,  the  arrow leaped upward, and
Broken-Tooth, uttering a terrible scream, fell off the  branch.
I  saw him as he went down, turning over and over, all arms and
legs it seemed, the shaft of  the  arrow  projecting  from  his
chest  and  appearing  and disappearing with each revolution of
his body.

     Sheer down, screaming, seventy feet he fell,  smashing  to
the  earth with an audible 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. I remember the
Fire-Man running forward with a stone and hammering him on  the
head...and then I remember no more.

     Always,  during  my childhood, at this stage of the dream,
did I wake up screaming with fright--to find, often, my  mother
or nurse, anxious and startled, by my bedside, passing soothing
hands  through  my hair and telling me that they were there and
that there was nothing to fear.

     My next dream, in the order of succession,  begins  always
with  the  flight of Lop-Ear and myself through the forest. The
Fire-Man and Broken-Tooth and the tree of the tragedy are gone.
Lop-Ear and I, in a cautious panic,  are  fleeing  through  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.  Not  only  did  the  pull  and  strain of it pain me
severely, but it bothered my movements 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  right  on.  I called to him--most plaintively, I
remember; and he stopped and looked back. Then he  returned  to
me, climbing into the fork and examining the arrow. He tried to
pull  it  out,  but one way the flesh resisted the barbed lead,
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 whimpering softly and sobbing. Lop-Ear
was plainly in a funk, and yet his conduct in remaining by  me,
in spite of his fear, I take as a foreshadowing of the altruism
and  comradeship that have helped make man the mightiest of the
animals.

     Once again Lop-Ear tried to drag  the  arrow  through  the
flesh,  and  I angrily stopped him. Then he bent down and began
gnawing the shaft of the arrow with his teeth. As he did so  he
held  the  arrow firmly in both hands so that it would not play
about in the wound, and at the same time I held on  to  him.  I
often meditate upon this scene--the two of us, half-grown cubs,
in  the  childhood of the race, and the one mastering his fear,
beating down his selfish impulse of flight, in order  to  stand
by  and succor the other. And there rises up before me all that
was there foreshadowed, and I see visions of Damon and Pythias,
of life-saving crews and  Red  Cross  nurses,  of  martyrs  and
leaders  of  forlorn hopes, of Father Damien, and of the Christ
himself, and of all the men of earth, mighty of stature,  whose
strength  may  trace back to the elemental loins of 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 withdrawn easily enough. I started to go on, but this
time  it was he that stopped me. My leg was bleeding profusely.
Some of the smaller veins had doubtless been ruptured.  Running
out to the end of a branch, Lop-Ear gathered a handful of green
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 of the caves.




     Well  do I remember that first winter after I left home. I
have long dreams of sitting shivering in the cold. Lop-Ear  and
I  sit close together, with our arms and legs about each other,
blue-faced and with chattering teeth. It got particularly crisp
along toward morning. In  those  chill  early  hours  we  slept
little,  huddling  together  in numb misery and waiting for the
sunrise in order to get warm.

     When we went outside there was a crackle  of  frost  under
foot. One morning we discovered ice on the surface of the quiet
water in the eddy where was the drinking-place, and there was a
great  How-do-you-do  about  it. Old Marrow-Bone was the oldest
member of the horde, and he had never  seen  anything  like  it
before.  I  remember the worried, plaintive look that came into
his eyes as he examined the ice. (This  plaintive  look  always
came  into our eyes when we did not understand a thing, or when
we felt the prod  of  some  vague  and  inexpressible  desire.)
Red-Eye,  too,  when  he investigated the ice, looked bleak and
plaintive, and stared across the river into the  northeast,  as
though  in  some  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  we experienced. I have no memory of other
winters when it was so cold. I have  often  thought  that  that
cold  winter was a fore-runner of the countless cold winters to
come, as the ice-sheet from farther north crept down  over  the
face  of  the  land.  But  we  never  saw  that ice-sheet. Many
generations must have passed away before the descendants of the
horde migrated south, or remained and adapted themselves to the
changed conditions.

     Life was hit or miss and happy-go-lucky  with  us.  Little
was  ever  planned,  and less 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 for the rest
just sort of played along through life.

     We were very curious, easily amused, and  full  of  tricks
and  pranks.  There was no seriousness about us, except when we
were in danger or were  angry,  in  which  cases  the  one  was
quickly forgotten and the other as quickly got over.

     We  were inconsecutive, illogical, and inconsequential. We
had no steadfastness of purpose, and it was here that the  Fire
People  were  ahead  of  us. They possessed all these things of
which we possessed so little. Occasionally, however, especially
in the realm of the emotions, we were capable of long-cherished
purpose. The faithfulness  of  the  monogamic  couples  I  have
referred  to may be explained as a matter of habit; but my long
desire for the Swift One cannot be so explained, any more  than
can be explained the undying enmity between me and Red-Eye.

     But  it  was  our  inconsequentiality  and  stupidity that
especially distresses me when I look back upon that life in the
long ago. Once I found a broken gourd  which  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 stream and filled it with more water, some of which I drank
and  some  of which I poured over Lop-Ear. And then I threw the
gourd away. It never entered my head to  fill  the  gourd  with
water  and  carry  it  into my cave. Yet often I was thirsty at
night, especially after eating wild onions and watercress,  and
no one ever dared leave the caves at night for a drink.

     

     Another  time  I  found  a dry; gourd, inside of which the
seeds rattled. I had fun with it for a while. But it was a play
thing, nothing more. And yet, it was not long after  this  that
the  using  of  gourds  for  storing  water  became the general
practice of the horde. But I was not the  inventor.  The  honor
was  due  to  old Marrow-Bone, and it is fair to assume that it
was the necessity of his  great  age  that  brought  about  the
innovation.

     At  any  rate, the first member of the horde to use gourds
was Marrow-Bone. He kept 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  see
Marrow-Bone   filling  his  gourd  at  the  drinking-place  and
carrying it carefully up to his cave. Imitation was  strong  in
the Folk, and first one, and then another and another, procured
a  gourd and used it in similar fashion, until it was 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, the Hairless One deputed the
task  to  Long-Lip,  his  son.  And  after  that,   even   when
Marrow-Bone  was  well again, Long-Lip continued carrying water
for him. By and by, 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  were  independent.  We  carried
water  only  for  ourselves,  and  we  often  mocked  the young
water-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  the same 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 our
curiosity and keenness of appreciation. For  that  matter,  the
one  big  invention  of the horde, during the time I lived with
it, was the use of gourds. At first we 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  a  gourd  with black-berries and carried it to her
cave. In no time all the women were 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  the
women. Without doubt, some woman's gourd was too small, or else
she  had  forgotten  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 berries than could have been
contained in the largest gourd.

     So far we got, and no farther, in  the  transportation  of
supplies  during  the  years  I  lived  with the Folk. It never
entered anybody's head to weave a basket out of  willow-withes.
Sometimes  the men and women tied tough vines about the 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 of baskets. 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.  Clothes
would have followed, and with covering our nakedness would have
come modesty.


     Thus was momentum gained in the Younger World. But we were
without  this  momentum.  We  were just getting started, and we
could not go far  in  a  single  generation.  We  were  without
weapons, without fire, and in the raw beginnings of speech. The
device  of  writing lay so far in the future that I am appalled
when I think of it.

     Even I was once on the verge of a great discovery. To show
you how fortuitous was development in those days let  me  state
that  had  it not been for the gluttony 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
not yet achieved. They were without  dogs;  this  I  knew  from
observation.  But  let  me  tell  you  how  Lop-Ear's  gluttony
possibly set back our social development many generations.

     Well to the west of our caves was a great  swamp,  but  to
the  south lay a stretch of low, rocky hills. These were little
frequented for two reasons. First of all,  there  was  no  food
there  of  the  kind  we  ate; and next, those rocky hills were
filled with the lairs of carnivorous beasts.

     But Lop-Ear and I strayed over to the hills  one  day.  We
would  not have strayed had we not been teasing a tiger. Please
do not laugh. It was old Saber-Tooth himself. We were perfectly
safe. We chanced upon him in the forest, early in the  morning,
and  from the safety of the branches overhead we chattered down
at him our dislike and hatred. And from branch to  branch,  and
from tree to tree, we followed overhead, making an infernal row
and  warning  all  the forest-dwellers that old Saber-Tooth was
coming.


     

     We spoiled his hunting for him, anyway. And  we  made  him
good  and  angry.  He  snarled  at  us and lashed his tail, and
sometimes he paused and stared up at  us  quietly  for  a  long
time, as if debating in his mind some way by which he could get
hold  of  us. But we only laughed and pelted him with twigs and
the ends of branches.

     This  tiger-baiting  was  common  sport  among  the  folk.
Sometimes  half the horde would follow from overhead a tiger or
lion that had ventured out in the daytime. It was our  revenge;
for more than one member of the horde, caught unexpectedly, 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
animals  to  some extent to keep out of our territory. And then
it was funny. It was a great 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 like a beaten  cur.  We  did  our
best  to  keep up with him; but when we reached the edge of 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 playing around awhile, Lop-Ear and I ventured across
the open ground to the edge of the rocky hills. We did  not  go
far. Possibly at no time were we more than a hundred yards from
the  trees.  Coming around a sharp corner of rock (we went very
carefully, because we did not know what we might encounter), we
came upon three puppies playing in the sun.

     They did not see us, and we watched them  for  some  time.
They  were  wild  dogs.  In  the  rock-wall  was  a  horizontal
fissure--evidently the lair where their mother had  left  them,
and where they should have remained had they been obedient. But
the  growing  life,  that  in Lop-Ear and me had impelled us to
venture 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  a dash for it. The puppies knew no place to
run except into the lair, and we headed them  off.  One  rushed
between  my legs. I squatted and grabbed him. He sank his sharp
little teeth into my arm, and I dropped him in  the  suddenness
of  the  hurt  and  surprise.  The  next moment he had scurried
inside.

     Lop-Ear, struggling with the second puppy, scowled  at  me
and  intimated  by a variety of sounds the different kinds of a
fool and a bungler that I was. This made me ashamed and spurred
me to valor. I grabbed the remaining puppy by the tail. He  got
his  teeth  into me once, and then I got him by the nape of the
neck. Lop-Ear and I sat down, and  held  the  puppies  up,  and
looked at them, and laughed.

     They were snarling and yelping and crying. Lop-Ear started
suddenly.  He thought he had heard something. We looked at each
other in fear, realizing the danger of our  position.  The  one
thing  that made animals raging demons was tampering with their
young. And these puppies that made such a  racket  belonged  to
the  wild dogs. Well we knew them, running in packs, the terror
of the grass-eating animals. We had watched them following  the
herds  of  cattle  and  bison and dragging down the calves, the
aged, and the sick. We had been chased by them ourselves,  more
than  once.  I  had  seen one of the Folk, a woman, run down by
them and caught just as she reached the shelter of  the  woods.
Had  she  not been tired out by the run, she might have made it
into a tree. She tried, and slipped, and fell back.  They  made
short work of her.

     We  did  not  stare  at  each  other longer than a moment.
Keeping tight hold of our prizes, we ran for the woods. Once in
the security of a tall tree, we held up the puppies and laughed
again. You see, we had to have our laugh out,  no  matter  what
happened.


     

     And  then began one of the hardest tasks I ever attempted.
We started to carry the puppies to our cave. Instead  of  using
our  hands  for  climbing,  most of the time they were occupied
with holding our squirming captives. Once we tried to  walk  on
the  ground,  but were treed by a miserable hyena, who followed
along underneath. He was a wise hyena.

     Lop-Ear got an idea. He remembered how we tied up  bundles
of  leaves  to  carry  home  for  beds. Breaking off some tough
vines, he tied  his  puppy's  legs  together,  and  then,  with
another  piece  of vine passed around his neck, slung the puppy
on his back. This left him with hands and feet free  to  climb.
He  was  jubilant,  and  did not wait for me to finish tying my
puppy's  legs,  but  started  on.  There  was  one  difficulty,
however.  The  puppy  wouldn't stay slung on Lop-Ear's back. It
swung around to the side and then on in front. Its  teeth  were
not  tied, and the next thing it did was to sink its teeth into
Lop-Ear's soft
      and unprotected stomach. He  let  out  a  scream,  nearly
fell,  and  clutched a branch violently with both hands to save
himself. The vine around his neck broke,  and  the  puppy,  its
four  legs  still  tied,  dropped  to  the  ground.  The  hyena
proceeded to dine.

     Lop-Ear was disgusted and angry. He abused the hyena,  and
then  went  off alone through the trees. I had no reason that I
knew for wanting to carry the puppy to the cave, except that  I
WANTED  to;  and  I  stayed by my task. I made the work a great
deal easier by elaborating on Lop-Ear's idea. Not  only  did  I
tie the puppy's legs, but I thrust a stick through his jaws and
tied them together securely.

     At  last  I  got  the  puppy  home.  I  imagine I had more
pertinacity than the average Folk, or else I  should  not  have
succeeded.  They  laughed  at  me  when they saw me lugging the
puppy up to my high little cave, but I did  not  mind.  Success
crowned my efforts, and there was the puppy. He was a plaything
such  as none of the Folk possessed. He learned rapidly. When I
played with him and he bit me, I boxed 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 a characteristic of the Folk to like new things. When  I
saw  that  he refused fruits 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  at  catching  small
game.)  The  puppy  ate  the meat and thrived. As well as I can
estimate, I must have had him over a  week.  And  then,  coming
back  to  the  cave  one  day  with  a nestful of young-hatched
pheasants, I found Lop-Ear had killed the puppy  and  was  just
beginning  to  eat  him.  I  sprang  for Lop-Ear,--the cave was
small,--and we went at it tooth and nail.

     And thus, in a fight, ended one of the  earliest  attempts
to  domesticate  the  dog.  We pulled hair out in handfuls, and
scratched and bit and gouged. Then we sulked and made up. After
that we ate the puppy. Raw? Yes.  We  had  not  yet  discovered
fire.   Our   evolution   into   cooking  animals  lay  in  the
tight-rolled scroll of the future.





     Red-Eye was  an  atavism.  He  was  the  great  discordant
element  in our horde. He was more primitive than any of us. He
did not  belong  with  us,  yet  we  were  still  so  primitive
ourselves that we were incapable of a cooperative effort strong
enough  to  kill  him  or  cast him out. Rude as was our social
organization, he was, nevertheless, too rude to live in it.  He
tended always to destroy the horde by his unsocial acts. He was
really  a  reversion to an earlier type, and his place was with
the Tree People rather than with us who were in the process  of
becoming men.

     He  was a monster of cruelty, which is saying a great deal
in that day. He beat his wives--not that he ever had more  than
one  wife at a time, but that he was married many times. It was
impossible for any woman to live with him,  and  yet  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. From drinking-place and carrot patch and berry  swamp
the  Folk  are  trooping  into the open space before the caves.
They dare linger no later than this, for the dreadful  darkness
is approaching, in which the world is given over to the carnage
of  the  hunting  animals,  while  the fore-runners of man hide
tremblingly in their holes.

     

     There yet remain to us a few minutes before  we  climb  to
our  caves.  We  are  tired  from  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 has died
down, and the shadows are lengthening  with  the  last  of  the
sun's  descent. And then, suddenly, from Red-Eye's cave, breaks
a wild screaming and the sound of  blows.  He  is  beating  his
wife.

     At  first  an awed silence comes upon us. But as the blows
and screams continue we break out into an insane  gibbering  of
helpless  rage.  It  is  plain  that  the  men resent Red-Eye's
actions, but they are too afraid of him. The blows cease, and a
low groaning dies away, while we chatter  among  ourselves  and
the sad twilight creeps upon us.

     We,  to  whom  most  happenings  were jokes, never laughed
during Red-Eye's wife-beatings. We knew too well the tragedy of
them. On more than one morning, at the base of the  cliff,  did
we  find  the body of his latest wife. He had tossed her there,
after she had died, from his cave-mouth. He  never  buried  his
dead.  The  task  of  carrying away the bodies, that else would
have polluted our abiding-place,  he  left  to  the  horde.  We
usually   flung   them   into   the   river   below   the  last
drinking-place.

     Not alone did  Red-Eye  murder  his  wives,  but  he  also
murdered  for his wives, in order to get them. When he wanted a
new wife and selected the wife  of  another  man,  he  promptly
killed  that  man. Two of these murders I saw myself. The whole
horde knew, but could do nothing. We had not yet developed  any
government,  to  speak  of,  inside  the  horde. We had certain
customs and  visited  our  wrath  upon  the  unlucky  ones  who
violated  those  customs. Thus, for example, the individual who
defiled a drinking-place would be attacked by  every  onlooker,
while one who deliberately gave a false alarm was the recipient
of much rough usage at our hands. But Red-Eye walked rough-shod
over  all  our  customs,  and  we  so  feared  him that we were
incapable of the collective action necessary to punish him.

     It was during the sixth winter in our  cave  that  Lop-Ear
and I discovered that we were really growing up. From the first
it  had  been a squeeze to get in through the entrance-crevice.
This had had its advantages,  however.  It  had  prevented  the
larger  Folk  from  taking  our cave away from us. And it was a
most desirable cave, the highest on the bluff, the safest,  and
in winter the smallest and warmest.

     

     To show the stage of the mental development of the Folk, I
may state  that  it  would have been a simple thing for some of
them to have driven us out and  enlarged  the  crevice-opening.
But they never thought of it. Lop-Ear and I did not think of it
either  until  our  increasing  size  compelled  us  to make an
enlargement. This occurred when summer was well  along  and  we
were  fat  with  better  forage.  We  worked  at the crevice in
spells, when the fancy struck us.

     At first we dug the crumbling rocks away with our fingers,
until our nails got sore, when I accidentally stumbled upon the
idea of using a piece of wood on the rock.  This  worked  well.
Also  it worked woe. One morning early, we had scratched out of
the wall quite a heap of fragments. I gave  the  heap  a  shove
over  the  lip  of  the entrance. The next moment there came up
from below a howl of rage. There was no need to look.  We  knew
the  voice  only  too  well.  The  rubbish  had  descended upon
Red-Eye.

     We crouched down in the cave in  consternation.  A  minute
later  he  was  at  the  entrance,  peering  in  at us with his
inflamed eyes and raging like a demon. But he was too large. He
could not get in  to  us.  Suddenly  he  went  away.  This  was
suspicious.  By  all  we  knew  of  Folk  nature he should have
remained and had out his rage. I  crept  to  the  entrance  and
peeped  down. I could see him just beginning to mount the bluff
again. In one hand he carried a  long  stick.  Before  I  could
divine  his  plan,  he  was  back  at the entrance and savagely
jabbing the stick in at us.

     His thrusts were prodigious. They could have disembowelled
us. We shrank back against the side-walls, where we were almost
out of range. But by industrious  poking  he  got  us  now  and
again--cruel,  scraping  jabs  with  the  end of the stick that
raked off the hide and hair. When we screamed with the hurt, he
roared his satisfaction and jabbed the harder.

     I began to grow angry. I had a temper of my own  in  those
days,  and  pretty  considerable  courage,  too,  albeit it was
largely the courage of the cornered rat. I caught hold  of  the
stick  with  my hands, but such was his strength that he jerked
me into the crevice. He reached for me with his long  arm,  and
his  nails  tore  my flesh as I leaped back from the clutch and
gained the comparative safety of the side-wall.

     He began poking again, and caught me a painful blow on the
shoulder. Beyond shivering with fright and yelling when he  was
hit,  Lop-Ear  did  nothing. I looked for a stick with which to
jab back, but found only the end of a branch, an  inch  through
and  a  foot  long.  I threw this at Red-Eye. It did no damage,
though he howled with a sudden increase of rage at my daring to
strike back. He began jabbing furiously. I found a fragment  of
rock and threw it at him, striking him on the chest.

     This  emboldened  me,  and, besides, I was now as angry as
he, and had lost all fear. I ripped fragment of rock  from  the
wall.  The  piece must have weighed two or threepounds. With my
strength I slammed it  full  into  Red-Eye's  face.  It  nearly
finished  him.  He  staggered backward, dropping his stick, and
almost fell off the cliff.

     He was a ferocious sight. His face was covered with blood,
and he was snarling and gnashing his fangs like a wild boar. He
wiped the blood from his eyes, caught sight of me,  and  roared
with  fury.  His stick was gone, so he began ripping out chunks
of crumbling rock and throwing them in at me. This supplied  me
with ammunition. I gave him as good as he sent, and better; for
he presented a good target, while he caught only glimpses of me
as I snuggled against the side-wall.

     Suddenly  he disappeared again. From the lip of the cave I
saw him descending. All the horde had gathered outside  and  in
awed  silence  was  looking on. As he descended, the more timid
ones scurried for their caves.  I  could  see  old  Marrow-Bone
tottering  along  as  fast as he could. Red-Eye sprang out from
the wall and finished the last twenty feet through the air.  He
landed  alongside  a  mother who was just beginning the ascent.
She screamed with fear, and the  two-year-old  child  that  was
clinging to her released its grip and rolled at Red-Eye's feet.
Both  he and the mother reached for it, and he got it. The next
moment the frail little body had whirled through  the  air  and
shattered  against the wall. The mother ran to it, caught it up
in her arms, and crouched over it crying.

     Red-Eye started over to pick up the stick. Old Marrow-Bone
had tottered into his way. Red-Eye's great hand  shot  out  and
clutched  the  old man by the back of the neck. I looked to see
his neck broken. His body went limp as he  surrendered  himself
to his fate.
      Red-Eye  hesitated  a  moment, and Marrow-Bone, shivering
terribly, bowed his head and covered his face with his  crossed
arms. Then Red-Eye slammed him face-downward to the ground. Old
Marrow-Bone did not struggle. He lay there crying with the fear
of  death.  I  saw  the  Hairless  One,  out in the open space,
beating his chest and bristling, but afraid  to  come  forward.
And  then,  in  obedience  to  some whim of his erratic spirit,
Red-Eye let the old man alone and passed on and  recovered  the
stick.

     He  returned  to  the wall and began to climb up. Lop-Ear,
who was shivering and peeping alongside of me,  scrambled  back
into  the cave. It was plain that Red-Eye was bent upon murder.
I was desperate and angry and fairly  cool.  Running  back  and
forth  along the neighboring ledges, I gathered a heap of rocks
at the cave-entrance. Red-Eye was now several yards beneath me,
concealed for the moment by an out-jut  of  the  cliff.  As  he
climbed,  his head came into view, and I banged a rock down. It
missed, striking the wall and shattering; but the  flying  dust
and grit filled his eyes and he drew back out of view.

     A  chuckling  and  chattering  arose  from the horde, that
played the part of audience. At last there was one of the  Folk
who  dared  to  face Red-Eye. As their approval and acclamation
arose on the air, Red-Eye snarled down  at  them,  and  on  the
instant  they  were  subdued  to  silence.  Encouraged  by this
evidence of his power, he thrust his head  into  view,  and  by
scowling   and   snarling  and  gnashing  his  fangs  tried  to
intimidate me.  He  scowled  horribly,  contracting  the  scalp
strongly over the brows and bringing the hair down from the top
of  the  head  until each hair stood apart and pointed straight
forward.

     The sight chilled me, but I mastered my fear, and, with  a
stone poised in my hand, threatened him back. He still tried to
advance.  I  drove the stone down at him and made a sheer miss.
The next shot was a success. The stone struck him on the  neck.
He slipped back out of sight, but as he disappeared I could see
him  clutching  for  a grip on the wall with one hand, and with
the other clutching at his throat. The stick fell clattering to
the ground.

     I could not see him any more,  though  I  could  hear  him
choking  and  strangling  and  coughing.  The  audience  kept a
death-like silence. I crouched on the lip of the  entrance  and
waited. The strangling and coughing died down, and I could hear
him  now and again clearing his throat. A little later he began
to climb down. He went very quietly, pausing every moment or so
to stretch his neck or to feel it with his hand.

     

     At the sight of him descending, the whole horde, with wild
screams and yells, stampeded for the  woods.  Old  Marrow-Bone,
hobbling and tottering, followed behind. Red-Eye took no notice
of  the  flight. When he reached the ground he skirted the base
of the bluff and climbed up and into his own cave. He  did  not
look around once.

     I  stared  at  Lop-Ear,  and he stared back. We understood
each other. Immediately, and with great caution and  quietness,
we  began  climbing  up  the  cliff. When we reached the top we
looked back. The abiding-place was deserted,  Red-Eye  remained
in his cave, and the horde had disappeared in the depths of the
forest.

     We  turned  and  ran. We dashed across the open spaces and
down the slopes unmindful of  possible  snakes  in  the  grass,
until  we  reached the woods. Up into the trees we went, and on
and on, swinging our arboreal flight until  we  had  put  miles
between  us  and the caves. And then, and not till then, in the
security of a great fork, we paused, looked at each other,  and
began  to  laugh.  We held on to each other, arms and legs, our
eyes streaming  tears,  our  ,sides  aching,  and  laughed  and
laughed and laughed.




     After  we had had out our laugh, Lop-Ear and I curved back
in our flight and got breakfast in the blueberry swamp. It  was
the  same  swamp  to  which I had made my first journeys in the
world, years before, accompanied  by  my  mother.  I  had  seen
little  of  her  in  the  intervening  time.  Usually, when she
visited the horde at the caves, I was away in the forest. I had
once or twice caught glimpses of  the  Chatterer  in  the  open
space,  and  had  had  the  pleasure of making faces at him and
angering him from the mouth of my cave. Beyond such amenities I
had left my family severely alone. I was not much interested in
it, and anyway I was doing very well by myself.

     After eating our fill of berries,  with  two  nestfuls  of
partly  hatched  quail-eggs for dessert, Lop-Ear and I wandered
circumspectly into the woods toward the river. Here  was  where
stood  my  old home-tree, out of which I had been thrown by the
Chatterer. It was still occupied. There had  been  increase  in
the  family.  Clinging  tight  to  my mother was a little baby.
Also, there was a girl, partly grown, who  cautiously  regarded
us from one of the lower branches. She was evidently my sister,
or half-sister, rather.

     My  mother  recognized  me,  but she warned me away when I
started to climb into the tree. Lop-Ear, who was more  cautious
by  far  than  I,  beat  a retreat, nor could I persuade him to
return. Later in the day, however, my sister came down  to  the
ground, and there and in neighboring trees we romped and played
all  afternoon.  And  then came trouble. She was my sister, but
that did not prevent her from treating me abominably,  for  she
had  inherited all the viciousness of the Chatterer. She turned
upon me suddenly, in a petty rage, and scratched  me,  tore  my
hair,  and  sank her sharp little teeth deep into my forearm. I
lost my temper. I did not injure her, but  it  was  undoubtedly
the soundest spanking she had received up to that time.

     How  she  yelled and squalled. The Chatterer, who had been
away all day and who was only then returning, heard  the  noise
and  rushed  for  the  spot.  My mother also rushed, but he got
there first. Lop-Ear and I did not wait his coming. We were off
and away, and the Chatterer gave us  the  chase  of  our  lives
through the trees.

     After  the  chase  was over, and Lop-Ear and I had had out
our laugh, we discovered that twilight was  falling.  Here  was
night  with all its terrors upon us, and to return to the caves
was out of the question. Red-Eye made that impossible. We  took
refuge in a tree that stood apart from other trees, and high up
in  a  fork  we passed the night. It was a miserable night. For
the first few hours it rained heavily, then it turned cold  and
a  chill  wind  blew  upon  us.  Soaked through, with shivering
bodies and chattering teeth, we huddled in each  other's  arms.
We  missed  the  snug, dry cave that so quickly warmed with the
heat of our bodies.

     Morning found us wretched and resolved. We would not spend
another  such  night.  Remembering  the  tree-shelters  of  our
elders,  we set to work to make one for ourselves. We built the
framework of a rough nest, and on higher  forks  overhead  even
got in several ridge-poles for the roof. Then the sun came out,
and  under  its benign influence we forgot the hardships of the
night and went off in search of breakfast. After that, to  show
the  inconsequentiality  of  life  in  those  days,  we fell to
playing. It  must  have  taken  us  all  of  a  month,  working
intermittently,  to  make our tree-house; and then, when it was
completed, we never used it again.

     But I run ahead of my story.  When  we  fell  to  playing,
after breakfast, on the second day away from the caves, Lop-Ear
led me a chase through the trees and down to the river. We came
out  upon  it  where  a large slough entered from the blueberry
swamp. The mouth of this slough  was  wide,  while  the  slough
itself  was  practically  without a current. In the dead water,
just inside its mouth, lay a tangled mass of tree trunks.  Some
of  these,  what  of the wear and tear of freshets and of being
stranded long summers on sand-bars, were seasoned and  dry  and
without branches. They floated high in the water, and bobbed up
and down or rolled over when we put our weight upon them.

     Here  and  there between the trunks were water-cracks, and
through them we could see schools of small fish, like  minnows,
darting back and forth. Lop-Ear and I became fishermen at once.
Lying  flat  on the logs, keeping perfectly quiet, waiting till
the minnows came close, we would make  swift  passes  with  our
hands.  Our  prizes we ate on the spot, wriggling and moist. We
did not notice the lack of salt.

     The mouth of the slough became  our  favorite  playground.
Here we spent many hours each day, catching fish and playing on
the  logs,  and  here, one day, we learned our first lessons in
navigation. The log on which Lop-Ear was lying got  adrift.  He
was  curled  up  on his side, asleep. A light fan of air slowly
drifted the log away from the shore, and  when  I  noticed  his
predicament the distance was already too great for him to leap.

     At  first  the episode seemed merely funny to me. But when
one of the vagrant impulses of fear,  common  in  that  age  of
perpetual insecurity, moved within me, I was struck with my own
loneliness.  I  was made suddenly aware of Lop-Ear's remoteness
out there on that alien element  a  few  feet  away.  I  called
loudly  to  him a warning cry. He awoke frightened, and shifted
his weight rashly on the  log.  It  turned  over,  sousing  him
under.  Three  times  again  it soused him under as he tried to
climb out upon it. Then he succeeded,  crouching  upon  it  and
chattering with fear.

     I  could  do nothing. Nor could he. Swimming was something
of which we knew nothing. We were already too far removed  from
the  lower life-forms to have the instinct for swimming, and we
had not yet become sufficiently man-like to undertake it as the
working out of a problem. I roamed disconsolately up  and  down
the bank, keeping as close to him in his involuntary travels as
I could, while he wailed and cried till it was a wonder that he
did not bring down upon us every hunting animal within a mile.

     The  hours  passed. The sun climbed overhead and began its
descent to the west. The light wind died down and left  Lop-Ear
on  his  log  floating  around  a  hundred feet away. And then,
somehow, I know not how, Lop-Ear made the great  discovery.  He
began  paddling  with his hands. At first his progress was slow
and erratic. Then he straightened out and began laboriously  to
paddle  nearer  and  nearer. I could not understand. I sat down
and watched and waited until he gained the shore.


     

     But he had learned something, which was more  than  I  had
done. Later in the afternoon, he deliberately launched out from
shore  on the log. Still later he persuaded me to join him, and
I, too, learned the trick of paddling.  For  the  next  several
days  we  could  not  tear  ourselves  away from the slough. So
absorbed were we in our new game that we  almost  neglected  to
eat.  We  even roosted in a nearby tree at night. And we forgot
that Red-Eye existed.

     We were always trying new logs, and we  learned  that  the
smaller  the  log  the  faster  we  could  make it go. Also, we
learned that the smaller the log the more liable it was to roll
over and give us a ducking. Still  another  thing  about  small
logs  we  learned.  One  day  we  paddled  our  individual logs
alongside each other. And  then,  quite  by  accident,  in  the
course of play, we discovered that when each, with one hand and
foot,  held  on  to the other's log, the logs were steadied and
did not turn over. Lying side by side  in  this  position,  our
outside  hands  and feet were left free for paddling. Our final
discovery was that this arrangement enabled  us  to  use  still
smaller  logs  and  thereby  gain  greater speed. And there our
discoveries  ended.  We  had  invented   the   most   primitive
catamaran,  and  we  did  not  have sense enough to know it. It
never entered our heads to lash the logs  together  with  tough
vines  or  stringy  roots.  We  were  content  to hold the logs
together with our hands and feet.

     It was not until we got  over  our  first  enthusiasm  for
navigation and had begun to return to our tree-shelter to sleep
at  night,  that  we  found  the  Swift  One.  I saw her first,
gathering young acorns from the branches of a  large  oak  near
our  tree.  She  was very timid. At first, she kept very still;
but when she saw that she was discovered  she  dropped  to  the
ground and dashed wildly away. We caught occasional glimpses of
her from day to day, and came to look for her when we travelled
back and forth between our tree and the mouth of the slough.

     And  then,  one  day, she did not run away. She waited our
coming, and made soft peace-sounds. We could not get very near,
however. When we seemed  to  approach  too  close,  she  darted
suddenly  away and from a safe distance uttered the soft sounds
again. This continued for some days. It took a  long  while  to
get  acquainted  with  her, but finally it was accomplished and
she joined us sometimes in our play.

     I liked her from the  first.  She  was  of  most  pleasing
appearance.  She was very mild. Her eyes were the mildest I had
ever seen. In this she was quite unlike the rest of  the  girls
and  women  of  the Folk, who were born viragos. She never made
harsh, angry cries, and it seemed to be her nature to flee away
from trouble rather than to remain and fight.

     The mildness I have mentioned seemed to emanate  from  her
whole  being.  Her  bodily as well as facial appearance was the
cause of this. Her eyes were larger than most of her kind,  and
they  were  not  so  deep-set, while the lashes were longer and
more regular. Nor was her nose so thick and squat. It had quite
a bridge, and the nostrils opened downward. Her  incisors  were
not large, nor was her upper lip long and down-hanging, nor her
lower  lip  protruding.  She  was not very hairy, except on the
outsides of arms and legs and across the shoulders;  and  while
she was thin-hipped, her calves were not twisted and gnarly.

     I  have  often  wondered,  looking  back upon her from the
twentieth century through the medium of my dreams, and  it  has
always  occurred  to me that possibly she may have been related
to the Fire People. Her father, or mother, might well have come
from that higher stock. While  such  things  were  not  common,
still they did occur, and I have seen the proof of them with my
own  eyes,  even  to the extent of members of the horde turning
renegade and going to live with the Tree People.

     All of which is neither here nor there. The Swift One  was
radically different from any of the females of the horde, and I
had  a  liking  for  her  from  the  first.  Her  mildness  and
gentleness attracted me. She was never  rough,  and  she  never
fought.  She  always  ran away, and right here may be noted the
significance of the naming of her. She  was  a  better  climber
than  Lop-Ear or I. When we played tag we could never catch her
except by accident, while she could catch us at will.  She  was
remarkably swift in all her movements, and she had a genius for
judging  distances  that  was  equalled  only  by  her  daring.
Excessively timid in all other matters, she  was  without  fear
when  it  came  to  climbing  or running through the trees, and
Lop-Ear and I  were  awkward  and  lumbering  and  cowardly  in
comparison.

     She  was  an  orphan.  We  never saw her with any one, and
there was no telling how long she had lived alone in the world.
She must have learned early  in  her  helpless  childhood  that
safety lay only in flight. She was very wise and very discreet.
It  became  a  sort  of game with Lop-Ear and me to try to find
where she lived. It was certain that  she  had  a  tree-shelter
somewhere, and not very far away; but trail her as we would, we
could  never find it. She was willing enough to join with us at
play in the day-time, but the secret of her  abiding-place  she
guarded jealously.




     It  must  be  remembered  that the description I have just
given of the Swift One is not the description that  would  have
been  given  by  Big-Tooth,  my  other  self  of  my dreams, my
prehistoric ancestor. It is by the medium of my dreams that  I,
the modern man, look through the eyes of Big-Tooth and see.

     And  so  it  is  with much that I narrate of the events of
that far-off time. There is a duality about my impressions that
is too confusing to inflict upon my  readers.  I  shall  merely
pause  here  in  my  narrative  to  indicate this duality, this
perplexing mixing of personality. It is I, the modern, who look
back across the centuries and weigh and  analyze  the  emotions
and  motives  of Big-Tooth, my other self. He did not bother to
weigh and analyze. He was  simplicity  itself.  He  just  lived
events,  without  ever  pondering  why  he  lived  them  in his
particular and often erratic way.

     As I, my real self, grew older, I entered  more  and  more
into the substance of my dreams. One may dream, and even in the
midst  of  the  dream  be aware that he is dreaming, and if the
dream be bad, comfort himself with the thought that it is  only
a  dream. This is a common experience with all of us. And so it
was that I, the modern, often entered into my dreaming, and  in
the  consequent  strange  dual  personality  was both actor and
spectator. And right often have I, the modern,  been  perturbed
and  vexed by the foolishness, illogic, obtuseness, and general
all-round stupendous stupidity of myself, the primitive.

     And one thing more, before I end this digression. Have you
ever dreamed that you dreamed? Dogs dream,  horses  dream,  all
animals  dream.  In  Big-Tooth's  day the half-men dreamed, and
when the dreams were bad they howled in their sleep. Now I, the
modern, have lain down with Big-Tooth and dreamed his dreams.

     This is getting almost beyond the grip of the intellect, I
know; but I do know that I have done this  thing.  And  let  me
tell  you that the flying and crawling dreams of Big-Tooth were
as vivid to him as the falling-through-space dream is to you.


     

     For Big-Tooth also had an other-self, and  when  he  slept
that  other-self dreamed back into the past, back to the winged
reptiles and the clash and the onset  of  dragons,  and  beyond
that  to  the  scurrying, rodent-like life of the tiny mammals,
and far remoter still, to the shore-slime of the primeval  sea.
I  cannot,  I  dare  not,  say  more.  It  is all too vague and
complicated and awful. I  can  only  hint  of  those  vast  and
terrific  vistas  through  which  I  have  peered hazily at the
progression of life, not upward from the ape to man, but upward
from the worm.

     And now to return to my tale. I, Big-Tooth, knew  not  the
Swift  One  as  a creature of finer facial and bodily symmetry,
with long-lashed eyes and a bridge to her nose and down-opening
nostrils that made toward  beauty.  I  knew  her  only  as  the
mild-eyed  young female who made soft sounds and did not fight.
I liked to play with her, I knew not why, to seek food  in  her
company,  and  to  go bird-nesting with her. And I must confess
she taught me things about tree-climbing. She  was  very  wise,
very strong, and no clinging skirts impeded her movements.

     It  was  about  this time that a slight defection arose on
the part of Lop-Ear. He got into the habit of wandering off  in
the direction of the tree where my mother lived. He had taken a
liking  to  my  vicious  sister,  and the Chatterer had come to
tolerate him. Also, there  were  several  other  young  people,
progeny   of   the   monogamic   couples   that  lived  in  the
neighborhood, and Lop-Ear played with these young people.

     I could never  get  the  Swift  One  to  join  with  them.
Whenever  I  visited them she dropped behind and disappeared. I
remember once making a strong effort to persuade her.  But  she
cast  backward,  anxious glances, then retreated, calling to me
from a tree. So it was that  I  did  not  make  a  practice  of
accompanying Lop-Ear when he went to visit his new friends. The
Swift  One  and  I  were  good comrades, but, try as I would, I
could never find her  tree-shelter.  Undoubtedly,  had  nothing
happened,  we would have soon mated, for our liking was mutual;
but the something did happen.

     One  morning,  the  Swift  One  not  having  put   in   an
appearance,  Lop-Ear and I were down at the mouth of the slough
playing on the logs. We had scarcely got out on the water, when
we were startled by a roar of rage.  It  was  Red-Eye.  He  was
crouching  on  the  edge  of  the  timber jam and glowering his
hatred at us.  We  were  badly  frightened,  for  here  was  no
narrow-mouthed  cave  for  refuge. But the twenty feet of water
that intervened gave us temporary safety,  and  we  plucked  up
courage.

     Red-Eye  stood  up erect and began beating his hairy chest
with his fist. Our two logs were side by side, and  we  sat  on
them   and   laughed   at   him.  At  first  our  laughter  was
half-hearted, tinged with fear, but as we became  convinced  of
his  impotence  we  waxed uproarious. He raged and raged at us,
and ground his teeth in  helpless  fury.  And  in  our  fancied
security  we mocked and mocked him. We were ever short-sighted,
we Folk.

     Red-Eye   abruptly   ceased   his    breast-beating    and
tooth-grinding, and ran across the timber-jam to the shore. And
just  as  abruptly  our merriment gave way to consternation. It
was not Red-Eye's way to forego revenge so easily. We waited in
fear and trembling for whatever was to happen. It never  struck
us  to  paddle  away.  He came back with great leaps across the
jam, one huge hand filled with round, water-washed  pebbles.  I
am  glad that he was unable to find larger missiles, say stones
weighing two or three pounds, for we were no more than a  score
of feet away, and he surely would have killed us.

     As  it was, we were in no small danger. Zip! A tiny pebble
whirred past with the force almost of a bullet. Lop-Ear  and  I
began  paddling  frantically.  Whiz-zip-bang ! Lop-Ear screamed
with sudden anguish. The pebble  had  struck  him  between  the
shoulders. Then I got one and yelled. The only thing that saved
us  was  the exhausting of Red-Eye's ammunition. He dashed back
to the gravel-bed for more, while Lop-Ear and I paddled away.

     Gradually we drew out of range, though  Red-Eye  continued
making  trips  for more ammunition and the pebbles continued to
whiz about us. Out in the centre of  the  slough  there  was  a
slight  current, and in our excitement we failed to notice that
it was drifting us into the river. We paddled, and Red-Eye kept
as close as he could to us by following along the  shore.  Then
he  discovered  larger  rocks.  Such  ammunition  increased his
range. One fragment, fully five pounds in  weight,  crashed  on
the log
      alongside  of me, and such was its impact that it drove a
score of splinters, like fiery needles, into  my  leg.  Had  it
struck me it would have killed me.

     And  then  the  river current caught us. So wildly were we
paddling that Red-Eye was the first to notice it, and our first
warning was his yell of triumph. Where the edge of the  current
struck  the  slough-water  was  a  series  of  eddies  or small
whirlpools. These caught our clumsy logs and whirled  them  end
for  end,  back  and  forth  and  around.  We quit paddling and
devoted our whole energy to holding the logs together alongside
each other. In the meanwhile Red-Eye continued to  bombard  us,
the rock fragments falling about us, splashing water on us, and
menacing our lives. At the same time he gloated over us, wildly
and vociferously.

     It  happened  that  there was a sharp turn in the river at
the point where the slough entered, and the whole main  current
of  the  river was deflected to the other bank. And toward that
bank, which was the north bank, we drifted rapidly, at the same
time going down-stream. This quickly took us out  of  range  of
Red-Eye,  and  the last we saw of him was far out on a point of
land, where he was jumping up and down and chanting a paean  of
victory.

     

     Beyond  holding  the  two logs together, Lop-Ear and I did
nothing. We were resigned to our fate, and we remained resigned
until we aroused to the fact that we were  drifting  along  the
north shore not a hundred feet away. We began to paddle for it.
Here  the  main  force of the current was flung back toward the
south shore, and the result of our paddling was that we crossed
the current where it was swiftest and narrowest. Before we were
aware, we were out of it and in a quiet eddy.

     Our logs drifted slowly and at last grounded gently on the
bank. Lop-Ear and I crept ashore.The logs drifted on out of the
eddy and swept away down the stream. We looked at  each  other,
but we did not laugh. We were in a strange land, and it did not
enter  our  minds  that  we could return to our own land in the
same manner that we had come.

     We had learned how to cross a river,  though  we  did  not
know  it.  And  this was something that no one else of the Folk
had ever done. We were the first of the Folk to set foot on the
north bank of the river, and, for that matter,  I  believe  the
last.  That  they  would  have  done  so in the time to come is
undoubted; but the  migration  of  the  Fire  People,  and  the
consequent migration of the survivors of the Folk, set back our
evolution for centuries.

     Indeed,  there  is no telling how disastrous was to be the
outcome of the Fire People's migration. Personally, I am  prone
to  believe  that it brought about the destruction of the Folk;
that we, a branch of lower life budding toward the human,  were
nipped  short  off  and perished down by the roaring surf where
the river entered the sea. Of course, in such an eventuality, I
remain to be accounted for; but I outrun  my  story,  and  such
accounting will be made before I am done.





     I have no idea how long Lop-Ear and I wandered in the land
north  of  the river. We were like mariners wrecked on a desert
isle, so far as concerned the likelihood of  our  getting  home
again.  We  turned  our backs upon the river, and for weeks and
months adventured in that wilderness where there were no  Folk.
It  is very difficult for me to reconstruct our journeying, and
impossible to do it from day to day. Most of  it  is  hazy  and
indistinct, though here and there I have vivid recollections of
things that happened.

     Especially  do  I  remember  the  hunger we endured on the
mountains between Long Lake and  Far  Lake,  and  the  calf  we
caught sleeping in the thicket. Also, there are the Tree People
who dwelt in the forest between Long Lake and the mountains. It
was  they  who chased us into the mountains and compelled us to
travel on to Far Lake.


     

     First, after we left the river, we worked toward the  west
till  we came to a small stream that flowed through marshlands.
Here we turned away toward the north, skirting the marshes  and
after several days arriving at what I have called Long Lake. We
spent  some  time  around its upper end, where we found food in
plenty; and then, one day, in the forest, we ran  foul  of  the
Tree People. These creatures were ferocious apes, nothing more.
And  yet  they  were  not  so different from us. They were more
hairy, it is true; their legs were a trifle  more  twisted  and
gnarly, their eyes a bit smaller, their necks a bit thicker and
shorter, and their nostrils slightly more like orifices in a
      sunken  surface;  but they had no hair on their faces and
on the palms of their hands and the soles of  their  feet,  and
they   made  sounds  similar  to  ours  with  somewhat  similar
meanings. After all, the Tree People and the Folk were  not  so
unlike.

     I found him first, a little withered, dried-up old fellow,
wrinkled-faced  and  bleary-eyed and tottery. He was legitimate
prey. In our world there was no sympathy between the kinds, and
he was not our kind. He was a Tree-Man, and he was very old. He
was sitting at the foot of a tree--evidently his tree,  for  we
could  see the tattered nest in the branches, in which he slept
at night.

     I pointed him out to Lop-Ear, and we made a rush for  him.
He  started to climb, but was too slow. I caught him by the leg
and dragged him back. Then we had fun. We pinched  him,  pulled
his  hair,  tweaked his ears, and poked twigs into him, and all
the while we laughed with streaming eyes. His futile anger  was
most absurd. He was a comical sight, striving to fan into flame
the cold ashes of his youth, to resurrect his strength dead and
gone  through  the  oozing  of the years--making woful faces in
place of the ferocious ones  he  intended,  grinding  his  worn
teeth together, beating his meagre chest with feeble fists.

     Also,  he  had  a  cough,  and  he  gasped  and hacked and
spluttered prodigiously. Every time he tried to climb the  tree
we  pulled  him  back,  until  at  last  he  surrendered to his
weakness and did no more than sit and weep. And Lop-Ear  and  I
sat  with  him,  our arms around each other, and laughed at his
wretchedness.

     From weeping he went  to  whining,  and  from  whining  to
wailing,  until  at last he achieved a scream. This alarmed us,
but the more  we  tried  to  make  him  cease,  the  louder  he
screamed.  And  then,  from  not far away in the forest, came a
"Goek! Goek!" to our ears. To this there were answering  cries,
several  of  them,  and  from very far off we could hear a big,
bass "Goek! Goek! Goek!"  Also,  the  "Whoo-whoo  !"  call  was
rising in the forest all around us.

     Then  came  the  chase. It seemed it never would end. They
raced us through the trees, the whole tribe of them, and nearly
caught us. We were forced to take to the ground,  and  here  we
had  the  advantage,  for  they were truly the Tree People, and
while they out-climbed us we out-footed them on the ground.  We
broke  away  toward  the north, the tribe howling on our track.
Across the open spaces we gained, and in the brush they  caught
up  with us, and more than once it was nip and tuck. And as the
chase continued, we realized  that  we  were  not  their  kind,
either,  and  that  the  bonds  between  us  were  anything but
sympathetic.

     They ran us for hours. The forest seemed interminable.  We
kept  to  the glades as much as possible, but they always ended
in more thick forest. Sometimes we thought we had escaped,  and
sat  down  to  rest;  but  always,  before we could recover our
breath, we would hear the hateful "Whoo-whoo!"  cries  and  the
terrible  "Goek!  Goek! Goek!" This latter sometimes terminated
in a savage "Ha ha ha ha haaaaa!!!"

     And in this fashion were we hunted through the  forest  by
the  exasperated  Tree  People.  At last, by mid-afternoon, the
slopes began rising  higher  and  higher  and  the  trees  were
becoming  smaller. Then we came out on the grassy flanks of the
mountains. Here was where we could make time, and here the Tree
People gave up and returned to their forest.

     The mountains were bleak and inhospitable, and three times
that afternoon we tried to  regain  the  woods.  But  the  Tree
People  were lying in wait, and they drove us back. Lop-Ear and
I slept that night in a dwarf tree, no larger than a bush. Here
was no security, and we would  have  been  easy  prey  for  any
hunting animal that chanced along.

     In  the  morning,  what  of our new-gained respect for the
Tree People, we faced  into  the  mountains.  That  we  had  no
definite  plan,  or  even  idea, I am confident. We were merely
driven on by the danger  we  had  escaped.  Of  our  wanderings
through  the  mountains  I have only misty memories. We were in
that bleak region many days, and we suffered  much,  especially
from  fear,  it  was  all so new and strange. Also, we suffered
from the cold, and later from hunger.

     It--was a desolate land of rocks and foaming  streams  and
clattering  cataracts.  We climbed and descended mighty canyons
and gorges; and ever, from every view point, there  spread  out
before  us,  in all directions, range upon range, the unceasing
mountains. We slept at night in holes and crevices, and on  one
cold  night  we  perched on top a slender pinnacle of rock that
was almost like a tree.


     

     And then, at last, one hot midday, dizzy with  hunger,  we
gained  the  divide.  From  this high backbone of earth, to the
north, across the diminishing, down-falling ranges, we caught a
glimpse of a far lake. The sun shone upon it, and about it were
open, level grass-lands, while to the eastward we saw the  dark
line of a wide-stretching forest.

     We  were  two  days  in gaining the lake, and we were weak
with hunger; but on its shore, sleeping snugly in a thicket, we
found a part-grown calf. It gave us much trouble, for  we  knew
no  other  way  to kill than with our hands. When we had gorged
our fill, we carried the remainder of the meat to the  eastward
forest  and  hid  it in a tree. We never returned to that tree,
for the shore of the stream that drained Far  Lake  was  packed
thick with salmon that had come up from the sea to spawn.

     Westward from the lake stretched the grass-lands, and here
were  multitudes of bison and wild cattle. Also were there many
packs of wild dogs, and as there were no trees  it  was  not  a
safe place for us. We followed north along the stream for days.
Then,  and  for what reason I do not know, we abruptly left the
stream and swung to  the  east,  and  then  to  the  southeast,
through  a great forest. I shall not bore you with our journey.
I but indicate it to show how we finally arrived  at  the  Fire
People's country.

     We came out upon the river, but we did not know it for our
river.  We had been lost so long that we had come to accept the
condition of being lost as habitual.  As  I  look  back  I  see
clearly  how  our  lives and destinies are shaped by the merest
chance. We did not know it was our river--there was no  way  of
telling;  and if we had never crossed it we would most probably
have never returned to  the  horde;  and  I,  the  modern,  the
thousand centuries yet to be born, would never have been born .

     And  yet  Lop-Ear  and  I wanted greatly to return. We had
experienced homesickness on our journey, the yearning  for  our
own  kind  and  land;  and often had I had recollections of the
Swift One, the young female who made soft sounds, whom  it  was
good to be with, and who lived by herself nobody knew where. My
recollections  of her were accompanied by sensations of hunger,
and these I felt when I was not hungry  and  when  I  had  just
eaten.

     But  to  come  back  to  the  river.  Food  was plentiful,
principally berries and succulent roots, and on the river  bank
we  played  and  lingered  for  days. And then the idea came to
Lop-Ear. It was a visible process, the coming of  the  idea.  I
saw  it.  The  expression  in  his  eyes  became  plaintive and
querulous, and he was greatly perturbed.  Then  his  eyes  went
muddy, as if he had lost his grip on the inchoate thought. This
was followed by the plaintive, querulous expression as the idea
persisted  and he clutched it anew. He looked at me, and at the
river and the far shore. He tried to speak, but had  no  sounds
with which to express the idea. The result was a gibberish that
made me laugh. This angered him, and he grabbed me suddenly and
threw  me  on  my  back.  Of course we fought, and in the end I
chased him up a tree, where he secured a long branch and  poked
me every time I tried to get at him.

     And  the  idea had gone glimmering. I did not know, and he
had forgotten. But the next morning  it  awoke  in  him  again.
Perhaps it was the homing instinct in him asserting itself that
made  the  idea  persist. At any rate it was there, and clearer
than before. He led me down to  the  water,  where  a  log  had
grounded in an eddy. I thought he was minded to play, as we had
played  in the mouth of the slough. Nor did I change my mind as
I watched him tow up a second log from farther down the shore.

     It was not until we were on the logs,  side  by  side  and
holding  them  together,  and had paddled out into the current,
that I learned his intention. He paused to  point  at  the  far
shore, and resumed his paddling, at the same time uttering loud
and   encouraging   cries.   I   understood,   and  we  paddled
energetically. The swift current caught us, flung us toward the
south shore, but before we could make a landing flung  us  back
toward the north shore.

     Here  arose  dissension. Seeing the north shore so near, I
began to paddle for it. Lop-Ear tried to paddle for  the  south
shore.  The  logs  swung around in circles, and we got nowhere,
and all the time the forest was flashing  past  as  we  drifted
down the stream. We could not fight. We knew better than to let
go the grips of hands and feet that held the logs together. But
we  chattered  and abused each other with our tongues until the
current flung us toward the south bank again. That was now  the
nearest  goal,  and together and amicably we paddled for it. We
landed in an eddy, and  climbed  directly  into  the  trees  to
reconnoitre.

     



     It  was  not until the night of our first day on the south
bank of the river that we discovered the Fire People. What must
have been a band of wandering hunters went into  camp  not  far
from  the  tree in which Lop-Ear and I had elected to roost for
the night. The voices of the Fire People at first  alarmed  us,
but  later,  when  darkness  had come, we were attracted by the
fire. We crept cautiously and silently from tree to  tree  till
we got a good view of the scene.


     In  an  open space among the trees, near to the river, the
fire was burning. About it were half a dozen Fire-Men.  Lop-Ear
clutched  me  suddenly,  and I could feel him tremble. I looked
more closely, and saw the wizened little  old  hunter  who  had
shot  Broken-Tooth out of the tree years before. When he got up
and walked about, throwing fresh wood upon the fire, I saw that
he limped with his crippled leg. Whatever  it  was,  it  was  a
permanent  injury.  He  seemed  more  dried up and wizened than
ever, and the hair on his face was quite gray.

     The other hunters were young men. I noted, lying near them
on the ground, their bows and arrows, and I  knew  the  weapons
for what they were. The Fire-Men wore animal skins around their
waists  and  across  their  shoulders.  Their  arms  and  legs,
however, were bare, and they wore no footgear. As I  have  said
before,  they  were  not quite so hairy as we of the Folk. They
did not have large heads, and between them and the  Folk  there
was  very  little  difference in the degree of the slant of the
head back from the eyes.

     They were less stooped than  we,  less  springy  in  their
movements. Their backbones and hips and knee-joints seemed more
rigid.  Their  arms  were not so long as ours either, and I did
not notice that they ever balanced themselves when they walked,
by touching the ground on either side with their  hands.  Also,
their  muscles were more rounded and symmetrical than ours, and
their faces were more  pleasing.  Their  nose  orifices  opened
downward;  likewise  the  bridges  of  their  noses  were  more
developed, did not look so squat nor  crushed  as  ours.  Their
lips  were less flabby and pendent, and their eye-teeth did not
look  so  much  like  fangs.  However,  they  were   quite   as
thin-hipped  as we, and did not weigh much more. Take it all in
all, they were less different from us than  were  we  from  the
Tree  People.  Certainly, all three kinds were related, and not
so remotely related at that.

     The fire around which they sat was especially  attractive.
Lop-Ear  and I sat for hours, watching the flames and smoke. It
was most fascinating when fresh fuel was thrown on and  showers
of  sparks went flying upward. I wanted to come closer and look
at the fire, but there was no way. We  were  crouching  in  the
forks  of  a tree on the edge of the open space, and we did not
dare run the risk of being discovered.

     The Fire-Men squatted around the fire and slept with their
heads bowed forward on their knees. They did not sleep soundly.
Their ears twitched in their sleep,  and  they  were  restless.
Every  little  while  one or another got up and threw more wood
upon the fire. About the circle of light in the forest, in  the
darkness  beyond,  roamed  hunting animals. Lop-Ear and I could
tell them by their sounds. There were wild dogs  and  a  hyena,
and  for  a  time  there  was a great yelping and snarling that
awakened on the instant the whole circle of sleeping Fire-Men.


     

     Once a lion and a lioness stood beneath our tree and gazed
out with bristling hair and blinking eyes. The lion licked  his
chops  and  was  nervous  with eagerness, as if he wanted to go
forward and make a meal. But the lioness was more cautious.  It
was she that discovered us, and the pair stood and looked up at
us,  silently,  with  twitching,  scenting  nostrils. Then they
growled, looked once again at the fire, and  turned  away  into
the forest.

     For a much longer time Lop-Ear and I remained and watched.
Now and again we could hear the crashing of heavy bodies in the
thickets  and  underbrush,  and  from the darkness of the other
side, across the circle, we could  see  eyes  gleaming  in  the
firelight.  In  the distance we heard a lion roar, and from far
off came the scream of  some  stricken  animal,  splashing  and
floundering  in  a drinking-place. Also, from the river, came a
great grunting of rhinoceroses.

     In the morning, after having had our sleep, we crept  back
to  the  fire.  It was still smouldering, and the Fire-Men were
gone. We made a circle through the forest  to  make  sure,  and
then  we ran to the fire. I wanted to see what it was like, and
between thumb and finger I picked up a glowing coal. My cry  of
pain  and  fear,  as  I  dropped it, stampeded Lop-Ear into the
trees, and his flight frightened me after him.

     The next time we came back more cautiously, and we avoided
the glowing coals.  We  fell  to  imitating  the  Fire-Men.  We
squatted  down  by the fire, and with heads bent forward on our
knees, made believe to sleep. Then we  mimicked  their  speech,
talking  to  each  other  in  their  fashion and making a great
gibberish. I remembered seeing the wizened old hunter poke  the
fire  with  a  stick. I poked the fire with a stick, turning up
masses of live coals and clouds of white ashes. This was  great
sport, and soon we were coated white with the ashes.

     It  was  inevitable that we should imitate the Fire-Men in
replenishing the fire. We tried it first with small  pieces  of
wood. It was a success. The wood flamed up and crackled, and we
danced  and  gibbered  with  delight. Then we began to throw on
larger pieces of wood. We put on more and more, until we had  a
mighty  fire. We dashed excitedly back and forth, dragging dead
limbs and branches from  out  the  forest.  The  flames  soared
higher  and higher, and the smoke-column out-towered the trees.
There was a tremendous snapping and crackling and  roaring.  It
was  the  most  monumental  work  we had ever effected with our
hands, and we were proud of it.  We,  too,  were  Fire-Men,  we
thought, as we danced there, white gnomes in the conflagration.

     The dried grass and underbrush caught fire, but we did not
notice  it. Suddenly a great tree on the edge of the open space
burst into flames.

     

     We looked at it with startled eyes. The heat of  it  drove
us  back.  Another  tree  caught,  and another, and then half a
dozen. We were frightened. The monster  had  broken  loose.  We
crouched down in fear, while the fire ate around the circle and
hemmed  us in. Into Lop-Ear's eyes came the plaintive look that
always accompanied incomprehension, and I know that in my  eyes
must  have been the same look. We huddled, with our arms around
each other, until the heat began to reach us and  the  odor  of
burning  hair  was  in our nostrils. Then we made a dash of it,
and fled away westward through the  forest,  looking  back  and
laughing as we ran.

     By  the middle of the day we came to a neck of land, made,
as we afterward discovered, by a great curve of the river  that
almost  completed  a  circle. Right across the neck lay bunched
several low and partly wooded hills.  Over  these  we  climbed,
looking  backward at the forest which had become a sea of flame
that swept eastward before a rising wind. We continued  to  the
west,  following  the river bank, and before we knew it we were
in the midst of the abiding-place of the Fire People.

     This abiding-place was a splendid strategic selection.  It
was a peninsula, protected on three sides by the curving river.
On only one side was it accessible by land. This was the narrow
neck  of  the  peninsula, and here the several low hills were a
natural obstacle. Practically isolated from  the  rest  of  the
world, the Fire People must have here lived and prospered for a
long  time.  In  fact, I think it was their prosperity that was
responsible for  the  subsequent  migration  that  worked  such
calamity  upon the Folk. The Fire People must have increased in
numbers until they pressed uncomfortably against the bounds  of
their  habitat. They were expanding, and in the course of their
expanding they drove the Folk before  them,  and  settled  down
themselves  in the caves and occupied the territory that we had
occupied.

     But Lop-Ear and I little dreamed of all this when we found
ourselves in the Fire People's stronghold. We had but one idea,
and that was to get away, though we could not forbear  humoring
our  curiosity  by  peeping out upon the village. For the first
time we saw the women and children  of  the  Fire  People.  The
latter  ran  for  the  most  part naked, though the former wore
skins of wild animals.

     The Fire People, like ourselves, lived in caves. The  open
space  in  front  of the caves sloped down to the river, and in
the open space burned many small fires. But whether or not  the
Fire People cooked their food, I do not know. Lop-Ear and I did
not  see  them cook. Yet it is my opinion that they surely must
have performed some sort of rude cookery. Like us, they carried
water in gourds from the  river.  There  was  much  coming  and
going,  and  loud  cries  made  by  the women and children. The
latter played about and cut up antics quite in the same way  as
did  the  children  of the Folk, and they more nearly resembled
the children of  the  Folk  than  did  the  grown  Fire  People
resemble the grown Folk.

     Lop-Ear  and  I  did  not  linger long. We saw some of the
part-grown boys shooting with bow and  arrow,  and  we  sneaked
back into the thicker forest and made our way to the river. And
there  we  found  a  catamaran, a real catamaran, one evidently
made by some Fire-Man. The two logs were  small  and  straight,
and   were   lashed  together  by  means  of  tough  roots  and
crosspieces of wood.

     This time the idea occurred simultaneously to us. We  were
trying  to  escape  out  of  the  Fire People's territory. What
better way than by crossing the river on these logs? We climbed
on board  and  shoved  off.  A  sudden  something  gripped  the
catamaran  and  flung it downstream violently against the bank.
The abrupt stoppage almost whipped us off into the  water.  The
catamaran  was  tied to a tree by a rope of twisted roots. This
we untied before shoving off again.

     By the time we had paddled well out into the  current,  we
had  drifted so far downstream that we were in full view of the
Fire People's abiding-place.  So  occupied  were  we  with  our
paddling,  our  eyes  fixed  upon  the other bank, that we knew
nothing until aroused by a  yell  from  the  shore.  We  looked
around. There were the Fire People, many of them, looking at us
and pointing at us, and more were crawling out of the caves. We
sat  up  to  watch,  and forgot all about paddling. There was a
great hullabaloo on the shore. Some of the Fire-Men  discharged
their bows at us, and a few of the arrows fell near us, but the
range was too great.


     

     It  was  a  great  day for Lop-Ear and me. To the east the
conflagration we had started was  filling  half  the  sky  with
smoke.  And  here  we were, perfectly safe in the middle of the
river, encircling the Fire  People's  stronghold.  We  sat  and
laughed  at them as we dashed by, swinging south, and southeast
to east, and even to northeast, and then east again,  southeast
and south and on around to the west, a great double curve where
the river nearly tied a knot in itself.

     As  we swept on to the west, the Fire People far behind, a
familiar  scene  flashed  upon  our  eyes.  It  was  the  great
drinking-place,  where  we  had wandered once or twice to watch
the circus of the animals when they came down to drink.  Beyond
it,  we  knew,  was the carrot patch, and beyond that the caves
and the abiding-place of the horde. We began to paddle for  the
bank that slid swiftly past, and before we knew it we were down
upon  the  drinking-places  used  by  the horde. There were the
women and children, the  water  carriers,  a  number  of  them,
filling  their  gourds.  At sight of us they stampeded madly up
the run-ways, leaving behind them a trail of  gourds  they  had
dropped.

     We  landed,  and  of  course  we  neglected  to tie up the
catamaran, which floated off down the river.  Right  cautiously
we  crept up a run-way. The Folk had all disappeared into their
holes, though here and there we could see a face peering out at
us. There was no sign of Red-Eye. We were home again. And  that
night  we  slept  in  our own little cave high up on the cliff,
though first we had to evict a couple of pugnacious  youngsters
who had taken possession.




     The  months  came  and  went. The drama and tragedy of the
future were yet to come upon the stage, and in the meantime  we
pounded  nuts  and  lived. It--vas a good year, I remember, for
nuts. We used to fill gourds with nuts and carry  them  to  the
pounding-places.  We  placed  them  in depressions in the rock,
and, with a piece of rock in our hands, we cracked them and ate
them as we cracked.

     It was the fall of the year when Lop-Ear  and  I  returned
from  our  long adventure-journey, and the winter that followed
was mild. I made frequent trips to the neighborhood of  my  old
home-tree,  and  frequently I searched the whole territory that
lay between the blueberry swamp and the  mouth  of  the  slough
where Lop-Ear and I had learned navigation, but no clew could I
get  of the Swift One. She had disappeared. And I wanted her. I
was impelled by that hunger which I have mentioned,  and  which
was  akin to physical hunger, albeit it came often upon me when
my stomach was full. But all my search was vain.

     Life was not monotonous at the caves, however.  There  was
Red-Eye  to  be considered. Lop-Ear and I never knew a moment's
peace except when we were in our own little cave. In  spite  of
the  enlargement  of  the  entrance we had made, it was still a
tight squeeze for us to get in. And though from time to time we
continued to enlarge, it was  still  too  small  for  Red-Eye's
monstrous  body.  But  he  never stormed our cave again. He had
learned the lesson well, and he carried on his neck  a  bulging
lump to show where I had hit him with the rock. This lump never
went  away,  and  it  was  prominent  enough  to  be  seen at a
distance. I often took great delight in watching that  evidence
of  my  handiwork;  and  sometimes, when I was myself assuredly
safe, the sight of it caused me to laugh.

     While the other Folk would not have come to our rescue had
Red-Eye proceeded to tear Lop-Ear and me to pieces before their
eyes, nevertheless they sympathized with us.  Possibly  it  was
not  sympathy  but  the  way  they  expressed  their hatred for
Red-Eye; at any rate they always warned  us  of  his  approach.
Whether  in  the forest, at the drinking-places, or in the open
space before the caves, they were always quick to warn us. Thus
we had the advantage of many eyes in our feud with Red-Eye, the
atavism.

     Once he nearly got me. It was early in  the  morning,  and
the  Folk were not yet up. The surprise was complete. I was cut
off from the way up the cliff to my cave. Before I  knew  it  I
had  dashed  into  the double-cave,--the cave where Lop-Ear had
first eluded me long years before, and  where  old  Saber-Tooth
had  come  to discomfiture when he pursued the two Folk. By the
time I had got through the connecting passage between  the  two
caves, I discovered that Red-Eye was not following me. The next
moment  he  charged  into  the cave from the outside. I slipped
back through the passage, and he charged out and around and  in
upon  me  again.  I  merely repeated my performance of slipping
through the passage.

     He kept me there half a day before he gave up. After that,
when  Lop-Ear  and  I  were  reasonably  sure  of  gaining  the
double-cave,  we  did  not retreat up the cliff to our own cave
when Red-Eye came upon the scene. All we did was to keep an eye
on him and see that he did not cut across our line of retreat.

     It was during this winter that Red-Eye killed  his  latest
wife  with  abuse  and  repeated beatings. I have called him an
atavism, but in this he was worse  than  an  atavism,  for  the
males  of  the  lower  animals do not maltreat and murder their
mates. In this  I  take  it  that  Red-Eye,  in  spite  of  his
tremendous  atavistic  tendencies,  foreshadowed  the coming of
man, for it is the males of the human species only that  murder
their mates.

     As  was  to  be  expected, with the doing away of one wife
Red-Eye proceeded to get another. He decided upon  the  Singing
One.  She  was  the  granddaughter  of old Marrow-Bone, and the
daughter of the Hairless One. She was a  young  thing,  greatly
given  to singing at the mouth of her cave in the twilight, and
she had but recently mated with Crooked-Leg.  He  was  a  quiet
individual,  molesting  no  one and not given to bickering with
his fellows. He was no fighter anyway. He was small  and  lean,
and not so active on his legs as the rest of us.

     Red-Eye  never committed a more outrageous deed. It was in
the quiet at the end of the day, when we began to congregate in
the open space before climbing into  our  caves.  Suddenly  the
Singing  One dashed up a run-way from a drinking-place, pursued
by Red-Eye. She ran to her husband. Poor little Crooked-Leg was
terribly scared. But he was a hero. He knew that death was upon
him, yet he did not run  away.  He  stood  up,  and  chattered,
bristled, and showed his teeth.

     Red-Eye  roared  with  rage. It was an offence to him that
any of the Folk should dare to withstand him. His hand shot out
and clutched Crooked-Leg by the neck. The latter sank his teeth
into Red-Eye's arm; but the next moment, with  a  broken  neck,
Crooked-Leg  was  floundering  and squirming on the ground. The
Singing One screeched and gibbered. Red-Eye seized her  by  the
hair  of  her  head and dragged her toward his cave. He handled
her roughly when the climb began, and he dragged and hauled her
up into the cave.

     We were very angry, insanely, vociferously angry.  Beating
our  chests,  bristling,  and  gnashing  our teeth, we gathered
together in our rage. We felt the prod of gregarious  instinct,
the  drawing  together as though for united action, the impulse
toward cooperation. In dim ways this need for united action was
impressed upon us. But there was no way to achieve  it  because
there  was no way to express it. We did not turn to, all of us,
and destroy Red-Eye, because we lacked a  vocabulary.  We  were
vaguely   thinking   thoughts   for   which   there   were   no
thought-symbols. These thought-symbols were yet  to  be  slowly
and painfully invented.

     We  tried  to  freight  sound with the vague thoughts that
flitted like shadows through our  consciousness.  The  Hairless
One  began  to chatter loudly. By his noises he expressed anger
against Red-Eye and desire to hurt Red-Eye. Thus  far  he  got,
and  thus  far  we understood. But when he tried to express the
cooperative impulse that stirred within him, his noises  became
gibberish.    Then    Big-Face,    with    brow-bristling   and
chest-pounding, began to  chatter.  One  after  another  of  us
joined  in  the  orgy  of  rage, until even old Marrow-Bone was
mumbling and spluttering with his cracked  voice  and  withered
lips.  Some  one  seized a stick and began pounding a log. In a
moment he had struck a rhythm.  Unconsciously,  our  yells  and
exclamations  yielded  to this rhythm. It had a soothing effect
upon us; and before we knew it, our rage forgotten, we were  in
the full swing of a hee-hee council.

     These   hee-hee   councils   splendidly   illustrate   the
inconsecutiveness and inconsequentiality of the Folk. Here were
we, drawn together  by  mutual  rage  and  the  impulse  toward
cooperation, led off into forgetfulness by the establishment of
a  rude  rhythm.  We  were  sociable  and gregarious, and these
singing and laughing councils satisfied us. In ways the hee-hee
council was an adumbration of the councils  of  primitive  man,
and   of   the  great  national  assemblies  and  international
conventions of latter-day man. But we Folk of the Younger World
lacked speech, and  whenever  we  were  so  drawn  together  we
precipitated  babel,  out  of which arose a unanimity of rhythm
that contained within itself the essentials of art yet to come.
It was art nascent.

     There was nothing long-continued about these rhythms  that
we  struck.  A  rhythm  was  soon lost, and pandemonium reigned
until we could find the  rhythm  again  or  start  a  new  one.
Sometimes    half   a   dozen   rhythms   would   be   swinging
simultaneously, each rhythm  backed  by  a  group  that  strove
ardently to drown out the other rhythms.


     

     In  the  intervals of pandemonium, each chattered, cut up,
hooted, screeched, and danced, himself sufficient unto himself,
filled with his own ideas and volitions to the exclusion of all
others, a veritable centre of the universe,  divorced  for  the
time  being  from any unanimity with the other universe-centres
leaping and yelling around him. Then would come  the  rhythm--a
clapping  of  hands;  the  beating  of  a stick upon a log; the
example of one that leaped with repetitions; or the chanting of
one that uttered, explosively and  regularly,  with  inflection
that rose and fell, "A-bang, a-bang! A-bang, a-bang!" One after
another  of  the  self-centred Folk would yield to it, and soon
all would be dancing or  chanting  in  chorus.  "Ha-ah,  ha-ah,
ha-ah-ha!"  was  one of our favorite choruses, and another was,
"Eh-wah, eh-wah, eh-wah-hah!"

     And  so,  with   mad   antics,   leaping,   reeling,   and
over-balancing,  we  danced  and sang in the sombre twilight of
the   primeval   world,   inducing   forgetfulness,   achieving
unanimity,  and  working ourselves up into sensuous frenzy. And
so it was that our rage against Red-Eye  was  soothed  away  by
art,  and  we screamed the wild choruses of the hee-hee council
until the night warned us of its terrors, and we crept away  to
our  holes  in  the rocks, calling softly to one another, while
the stars came out and darkness settled down.

     We were afraid only of  the  dark.  We  had  no  germs  of
religion,  no  conceptions of an unseen world. We knew only the
real world, and the things we feared were the real things,  the
concrete  dangers,  the flesh-and-blood animals that preyed. It
was they that made us afraid of the dark, for darkness was  the
time  of the hunting animals. It was then that they came out of
their lairs and pounced upon one from  the  dark  wherein  they
lurked invisible.

     Possibly  it  was out of this fear of the real denizens of
the dark that the fear of the  unreal  denizens  was  later  to
develop and to culminate in a whole and mighty unseen world. As
imagination  grew it is likely that the fear of death increased
until the Folk that were to come projected this fear  into  the
dark  and  peopled it with spirits. I think the Fire People had
already begun to be afraid of the dark in this fashion; but the
reasons we Folk had for breaking up our  hee-hee  councils  and
fleeing  to  our  holes were old Saber-Tooth, the lions and the
jackals, the wild dogs and the  wolves,  and  all  the  hungry,
meat-eating breeds.




     Lop-Ear  got  married.  It was the second winter after our
adventure-journey, and it was most unexpected. He  gave  me  no
warning.  The  first I knew was one twilight when I climbed the
cliff to our cave. I squeezed into the  entrance  and  there  I
stopped. There was no room for me. Lop-Ear and his mate were in
possession, and she was none other than my sister, the daughter
of my step-father, the Chatterer.

     I  tried to force my way in. There was space only for two,
and that space was already occupied. Also, they  had  me  at  a
disadvantage,  and,  what  of the scratching and hair-pulling I
received, I was glad to retreat. I slept that  night,  and  for
many nights, in the connecting passage of the double-cave. From
my  experience  it  seemed reasonably safe. As the two Folk had
dodged old Saber-Tooth, and as I  had  dodged  Red-Eye,  so  it
seemed  to  me  that I could dodge the hunting animals by going
back and forth between the two caves.

     

     I had forgotten the wild dogs. They were small  enough  to
go  through any passage that I could squeeze through. One night
they nosed me out. Had they entered both caves at the same time
they would have got me. As it was, followed  by  some  of  them
through  the passage, I dashed out the mouth of the other cave.
Outside were the rest of the wild dogs. They sprang for me as I
sprang for the cliff-wall and began to climb. One  of  them,  a
lean  and  hungry  brute, caught me in mid-leap. His teeth sank
into my thigh-muscles, and he nearly dragged me back.  He  held
on,  but  I  made  no effort to dislodge him, devoting my whole
effort to climbing out of reach of the rest of the brutes.

     Not until I was safe from them did I turn my attention  to
that  live  agony on my thigh. And then, a dozen feet above the
snapping pack that leaped and scrambled against  the  wall  and
fell  back,  I  got  the dog by the throat and slowly throttled
him. I was a long time doing it. He clawed and ripped  my  hair
and hide with his hind-paws, and ever he jerked and lunged with
his weight to drag me from the wall.

     At  last  his  teeth  opened and released my torn flesh. I
carried his body up the cliff with  me,  and  perched  out  the
night  in the entrance of my old cave, wherein were Lop-Ear and
my sister. But first I had to endure a storm of abuse from  the
aroused  horde for being the cause of the disturbance. I had my
revenge. From time to time, as the  noise  of  the  pack  below
eased  down,  I  dropped  a  rock  and  started  it  up  again.
Whereupon, from all around, the abuse of the  exasperated  Folk
began  afresh. In the morning I shared the dog with Lop-Ear and
his wife, and for several days the three  of  us  were  neither
vegetarians nor fruitarians.

     Lop-Ear's   marriage   was   not  a  happy  one,  and  the
consolation about it is that it did not last very long. Neither
he nor I was happy during that period. I was lonely. I suffered
the inconvenience of being cast out of my safe little cave, and
somehow I did not make it up with any other of the young males.
I suppose my long-continued chumming with Lop-Ear had become  a
habit.

     I might have married, it is true; and most likely I should
have  married  had it not been for the dearth of females in the
horde. This dearth, it is fair to assume,  was  caused  by  the
exorbitance of Red-Eye, and it illustrates the menace he was to
the  existence of the horde. Then there was the Swift One, whom
I had not forgotten.

     At any rate, during the period  of  Lop-Ear's  marriage  I
knocked about from pillar to post, in danger every night that I
slept,  and  never  comfortable.  One of the Folk died, and his
widow was taken into the cave of another one  of  the  Folk.  I
took possession of the abandoned cave, but it was wide-mouthed,
and  after  Red-Eye nearly trapped me in it one day, I returned
to sleeping in the  passage  of  the  double-cave.  During  the
summer,  however, I used to stay away from the caves for weeks,
sleeping in a tree-shelter I made near the mouth of the slough.

     I have said that Lop-Ear was not happy. My sister was  the
daughter   of  the  Chatterer,  and  she  made  Lop-Ear's  life
miserable  for  him.  In  no  other  cave  was  there  so  much
squabbling  and  bickering. If Red-Eye was a Bluebeard, Lop-Ear
was hen-pecked; and I imagine that Red-Eye was too shrewd  ever
to covet Lop-Ear's wife.

     Fortunately  for  Lop-Ear,  she  died.  An  unusual  thing
happened that summer. Late, almost at the end of it,  a  second
crop  of the stringy-rooted carrots sprang up. These unexpected
second-crop roots were young and juicy and tender, and for some
time the carrot-patch was the  favorite  feeding-place  of  the
horde.  One  morning,  early,  several  score  of us were there
making our breakfast. On one side of me was the  Hairless  One.
Beyond  him  were  his  father  and  son,  old  Marrow-Bone and
Long-Lip. On the other side of me were my sister  and  Lop-Ear,
she being next to me.

     There was no warning. On the sudden, both the Hairless One
and my  sister sprang and screamed. At the same instant I heard
the thud of the arrows that transfixed them. The  next  instant
they  were down on the ground, floundering and gasping, and the
rest of us were stampeding for the trees. An arrow  drove  past
me  and  entered  the ground, its feathered shaft vibrating and
oscillating from the impact of its arrested flight. I  remember
clearly  how I swerved as I ran, to go past it, and that I gave
it a needlessly wide berth. I must have shied at it as a  horse
shies at an object it fears.

     Lop-Ear took a smashing fall as he ran beside me. An arrow
had driven  through  the  calf  of  his leg and tripped him. He
tried to run, but was tripped and thrown by it a  second  time.
He  sat  up,  crouching,  trembling with fear, and called to me
pleadingly. I dashed back. He showed me  the  arrow.  I  caught
hold  of  it  to  pull it out, but the consequent hurt made him
seize my hand and stop me. A flying arrow  passed  between  us.
Another struck a rock, splintered, and fell to the ground. This
was  too  much.  I pulled, suddenly, with all my might. Lop-Ear
screamed as the arrow came out, and struck at me  angrily.  But
the next moment we were in full flight again.

     I  looked  back. Old Marrow-Bone, deserted and far behind,
was tottering silently  along  in  his  handicapped  race  with
death.  Sometimes  he almost fell, and once he did fall; but no
more arrows were coming. He scrambled weakly to his  feet.  Age
burdened  him  heavily,  but  he did not want to die. The three
Fire-Men, who  were  now  running  forward  from  their  forest
ambush,  could  easily  have  got  him,  but  they did not try.
Perhaps he was too  old  and  tough.  But  they  did  want  the
Hairless One and my sister, for as I looked back from the trees
I could see the Fire-Men beating in their heads with rocks. One
of the Fire-Men was the wizened old hunter who limped.

     We  went on through the trees toward the caves--an excited
and disorderly mob that drove before it to their holes all  the
small  life of the forest, and that set the blue-jays screaming
impudently. Now that there was no  immediate  danger,  Long-Lip
waited for his grand-father, Marrow-Bone; and with the gap of a
generation  between  them, the old fellow and the youth brought
up our rear.

     And so it was that Lop-Ear became a  bachelor  once  more.
That  night  I slept with him in the old cave, and our old life
of chumming began again. The loss of his mate seemed  to  cause
him  no  grief.  At least he showed no signs of it, nor of need
for her. It was the wound in his leg that seemed to bother him,
and it was all of a week before he got back again  to  his  old
spryness.

     Marrow-Bone   was  the  only  old  member  in  the  horde.
Sometimes, on looking back upon him, when the vision of him  is
most  clear,  I note a striking resemblance between him and the
father of my father's gardener. The gardener's father was  very
old, very wrinkled and withered; and for all the world, when he
peered  through  his  tiny,  bleary  eyes  and mumbled with his
toothless gums, he looked and acted like old Marrow-Bone.  This
resemblance, as a child, used to frighten me. I always ran when
I  saw  the  old  man  tottering  along  on  his two canes. Old
Marrow-Bone even had a bit of sparse and straggly  white  beard
that seemed identical with the whiskers of the old man.

     As I have said, Marrow-Bone was the only old member of the
horde.  He  was  an exception. The Folk never lived to old age.
Middle age was fairly rare. Death by violence  was  the  common
way  of death. They died as my father had died, as Broken-Tooth
had  died,  as  my  sister  and  the  Hairless  One  had   just
died--abruptly  and  brutally,  in the full possession of their
faculties, in the full swing and rush of life.  Natural  death?
To die violently was the natural way of dying in those days.

     No  one  died of old age among the Folk. I never knew of a
case. Even Marrow-Bone did not die that way,  and  he  was  the
only  one  in my generation who had the chance. A bad rippling,
any  serious  accidental  or  temporary   impairment   of   the
faculties,  meant swift death. As a rule, these deaths were not
witnessed.

     Members of the horde simply dropped  out  of  sight.  They
left  the  caves in the morning, and they never came back. They
disappeared--into the ravenous maws of the hunting creatures.


     

     This inroad of the Fire People on the carrot-patch was the
beginning of the end, though we did not know it. The hunters of
the Fire People began to appear more  frequently  as  the  time
went  by.  They  came  in  twos  and  threes, creeping silently
through the forest, with their flying arrows able to annihilate
distance and bring down prey from the top of the loftiest  tree
without themselves climbing into it. The bow and arrow was like
an enormous extension of their leaping and striking muscles, so
that, virtually, they could leap and kill at a hundred feet and
more.  This  made  them  far  more  terrible  than  Saber-Tooth
himself. And then they were very wise.  They  had  speech  that
enabled  them  more effectively to reason, and in addition they
understood cooperation.


     We Folk came to be very circumspect when we  were  in  the
forest.  We  were  more alert and vigilant and timid. No longer
were the trees a protection to be relied upon. No longer  could
we  perch on a branch and laugh down at our carnivorous enemies
on the ground. The Fire People were carnivorous, with claws and
fangs a hundred feet long, the most terrible of all the hunting
animals that ranged the primeval world.

     One morning, before the Folk had dispersed to the  forest,
there  was  a  panic among the water-carriers and those who had
gone down to the river to drink. The whole horde  fled  to  the
caves.  It  was  our  habit,  at  such times, to flee first and
investigate afterward. We waited in the mouths of our caves and
watched. After some time a Fire-Man stepped cautiously into the
open space. It was the little wizened old hunter. He stood  for
a  long  time  and  watched  us,  looking  our  caves  and  the
cliff-wall up and down. He descended one of the run-ways  to  a
drinking-place,  returning  a  few  minutes  later  by  another
run-way. Again he stood and watched us carefully,  for  a  long
time.  Then  he  turned on his heel and limped into the forest,
leaving us calling querulously and plaintively to  one  another
from the cave-mouths.



     I  found  her  down  in  the  old  neighborhood  near  the
blueberry swamp, where my mother lived and where Lop-Ear and  I
had  built our first tree-shelter. It was unexpected. As I came
under the tree I heard the familiar soft sound and  looked  up.
There  she  was,  the Swift One, sitting on a limb and swinging
her legs back and forth as she looked at me.

     I stood still for some time. The sight of her had made  me
very  happy. And then an unrest and a pain began to creep in on
this happiness. I started to climb the tree after her, and  she
retreated  slowly  out the limb. Just as I reached for her, she
sprang through the air and landed in the branches of  the  next
tree.  From  amid  the rustling leaves she peeped out at me and
made soft sounds. I leaped  straight  for  her,  and  after  an
exciting chase the situation was duplicated, for there she was,
making  soft  sounds and peeping out from the leaves of a third
tree.

     It was borne in upon me that somehow it was different  now
from  the  old  days  before  Lop-Ear  and  I  had  gone on our
adventure-journey. I wanted her, and I knew that I wanted  her.
And  she  knew  it, too. That was why she would not let me come
near her. I forgot that she was truly the Swift One,  and  that
in  the  art of climbing she had been my teacher. I pursued her
from tree to tree, and ever she eluded me, peeping back  at  me
with  kindly  eyes, making soft sounds, and dancing and leaping
and teetering before me just out of reach. The more she  eluded
me, the more I wanted to catch her, and the lengthening shadows
of the afternoon bore witness to the futility of my effort.

     As I pursued her, or sometimes rested in an adjoining tree
and watched  her,  I noticed the change in her. She was larger,
heavier, more grown-up. Her lines  were  rounder,  her  muscles
fuller,  and  there  was about her that indefinite something of
maturity that was new to her and  that  incited  me  on.  Three
years she had been gone--three years at the very least, and the
change in her was marked. I say three years; it is as near as I
can  measure  the time. A fourth year may have elapsed, which I
have confused with the happenings of the other three years. The
more I think of it, the more confident I am  that  it  must  be
four years that she was away.

     Where  she  went,  why  she went, and what happened to her
during that time, I do not know. There was no way  for  her  to
tell  me,  any  more than there was a way for Lop-Ear and me to
tell the Folk what we had seen when we were away. Like us,  the
chance  is  she  had  gone  off on an adventure-journey, and by
herself. On the other hand, it is  possible  that  Red-Eye  may
have  been  the cause of her going. It is quite certain that he
must have come upon her from time to  time,  wandering  in  the
woods;  and if he had pursued her there is no question but that
it  would  have  been  sufficient  to  drive  her  away.   From
subsequent  events,  I  am  led  to  believe that she must have
travelled far to the south, across a  range  of  mountains  and
down  to  the  banks  of  a strange river, away from any of her
kind. Many Tree People lived down there, and I  think  it  must
have  been  they who finally drove her back to the horde and to
me. My reasons for this I shall explain later.

     

     The shadows grew longer, and I pursued more ardently  than
ever,  and  still  I could not catch her. She made believe that
she was trying desperately to escape me, and all the  time  she
managed  to  keep just beyond reach. I forgot everything--time,
the oncoming of night, and my meat-eating enemies. I was insane
with love of her, and with--anger, too, because she  would  not
let  me come up with her. It was strange how this anger against
her seemed to be part of my desire for her.

     As I have said, I forgot everything. In racing  across  an
open  space  I  ran full tilt upon a colony of snakes. They did
not deter me. I was mad. They struck at me, but  I  ducked  and
dodged  and  ran  on.  Then  there was a python that ordinarily
would have sent me screeching to a tree-top. He did run me into
a tree; but the Swift One was going out of sight, and I  sprang
back  to  the  ground  and  went on. It was a close shave. Then
there was my old enemy, the hyena. From my conduct he was  sure
something  was going to happen, and he followed me for an hour.
Once we exasperated a band of wild pigs, and  they  took  after
us.  The Swift One dared a wide leap between trees that was too
much for me. I had to take to the ground. There were the  pigs.
I  didn't care. I struck the earth within a yard of the nearest
one. They flanked me as I ran, and chased me into two different
trees out of the line  of  my  pursuit  of  the  Swift  One.  I
ventured  the  ground  again,  doubled back, and crossed a wide
open space,  with  the  whole  band  grunting,  bristling,  and
tusk-gnashing at my heels.

     If  I  had  tripped  or stumbled in that open space, there
would have been no chance for me. But I didn't.  And  I  didn't
care whether I did or not. I was in such mood that I would have
faced  old  Saber-Tooth  himself,  or a score of arrow-shooting
Fire People. Such was the madness of love...with me.  With  the
Swift One it was different. She was very wise. She did not take
any  real  risks,  and  I  remember, on looking back across the
centuries to that wild love-chase, that when the  pigs  delayed
me  she  did not run away very fast, but waited, rather, for me
to take up the pursuit again. Also, she  directed  her  retreat
before me, going always in the direction she wanted to go.

     At  last  came  the  dark.  She  led  me  around the mossy
shoulder of a canyon wall  that  out-jutted  among  the  trees.
After  that  we  penetrated  a  dense  mass  of underbrush that
scraped and ripped me in passing. But she never ruffled a hair.
She knew the way. In the midst of the thicket was a large  oak.
I  was very close to her when she climbed it; and in the forks,
in the nest-shelter I had sought so long and vainly,  I  caught
her.

     The  hyena  had taken our trail again, and he now sat down
on the ground and made hungry noises. But we did not mind,  and
we  laughed  at  him  when he snarled and went away through the
thicket. It was the spring-time, and the night noises were many
and varied. As was the custom at that time of the  year,  there
was  much  fighting  among  the animals. From the nest we could
hear the squealing and neighing of wild horses, the  trumpeting
of  elephants, and the roaring of lions. But the moon came out,
and the air was warm, and we laughed and were unafraid.



     

     I remember, next morning, that we came  upon  two  ruffled
cock-birds that fought so ardently that I went right up to them
and  caught  them  by their necks. Thus did the Swift One and I
get our wedding breakfast. They were delicious. It was easy  to
catch birds in the spring of the year. There was one night that
year  when two elk fought in the moonlight, while the Swift One
and I watched from the trees; and we saw  a  lion  and  lioness
crawl up to them unheeded, and kill them as they fought.

     There  is  no  telling how long we might have lived in the
Swift One's tree-shelter. But one day, while we were away,  the
tree  was  struck by lightning. Great limbs were riven, and the
nest was demolished. I started to rebuild, but  the  Swift  One
would  have  nothing  to do with it. As I was to learn, she was
greatly afraid of lightning, and I could not persuade her  back
into  the  tree.  So it came about, our honeymoon over, that we
went to the caves to live. As Lop-Ear had evicted me  from  the
cave  when he got married, I now evicted him; and the Swift One
and I settled down in it,  while  he  slept  at  night  in  the
connecting passage of the double cave.

     And  with  our coming to live with the horde came trouble.
Red-Eye had had I don't know how many wives since  the  Singing
One.  She  had  gone  the  way of the rest. At present he had a
little, soft, spiritless thing that whimpered and wept all  the
time,  whether  he  beat  her  or  not;  and  her passing was a
question of very little time. Before she passed, even,  Red-Eye
set  his  eyes  on  the  Swift  One;  and  when she passed, the
persecution of the Swift One began.

     Well for her that she was the Swift One, that she had that
amazing aptitude for swift flight through the trees. She needed
all her wisdom and daring in order to keep out of the  clutches
of  Red-Eye. I could not help her. He was so powerful a monster
that he could have torn me limb from limb. As  it  was,  to  my
death I carried an injured shoulder that ached and went lame in
rainy weather and that was a mark of is handiwork.

     The Swift One was sick at the time I received this injury.
It must  have  been  a  touch  of  the  malaria  from  which we
sometimes suffered; but whatever it was, it made her  dull  and
heavy.  She  did not have the accustomed spring to her muscles,
and was indeed in poor shape for flight when  Red-Eye  cornered
her  near  the  lair of the wild dogs, several miles south from
the caves. Usually, she would have circled around  him,  beaten
him  in  the  straight-away,  and  gained the protection of our
small-mouthed cave. But she could not circle him. She  was  too
dull and slow. Each time he headed her off, until she gave over
the  attempt  and devoted her energies wholly to keeping out of
his clutches.

     Had she not been sick it would have been child's play  for
her  to  elude  him; but as it was, it required all her caution
and cunning. It was to her advantage that she could  travel  on
thinner  branches  than he, and make wider leaps. Also, she was
an unerring judge of distance, and  she  had  an  instinct  for
knowing the strength of twigs, branches, and rotten limbs.

     It was an interminable chase. Round and round and back and
forth  for long stretches through the forest they dashed. There
was great excitement among the other Folk. They set up  a  wild
chattering,  that  was  loudest when Red-Eye was at a distance,
and that hushed when the chase led him near. They were impotent
onlookers. The females screeched and gibbered,  and  the  males
beat  their  chests  in  helpless rage. Big Face was especially
angry, and though he hushed his racket when Red-Eye drew  near,
he did not hush it to the extent the others did.


     As  for  me, I played no brave part. I know I was anything
but a hero. Besides, of what use would it have been for  me  to
encounter  Red-Eye?  He  was  the  mighty  monster, the abysmal
brute, and there was no hope for me in a conflict of  strength.
He  would have killed me, and the situation would have remained
unchanged. He would have caught the Swift One before she  could
have  gained  the  cave.  As  it  was,  I could only look on in
helpless fury, and dodge out of the way  and  cease  my  raging
when he came too near.

     The  hours  passed.  It  was late afternoon. And still the
chase went on. Red-Eye was bent upon exhausting the Swift  One.
He  deliberately  ran  her down. After a long time she began to
tire and could no longer maintain her headlong flight. Then  it
was  that  she  began  going  far out on the thinnest branches,
where he could not follow. Thus she might have got a  breathing
spell,  but  Red-Eye  was  fiendish.  Unable  to follow her, he
dislodged her by shaking her off. With  all  his  strength  and
weight,  he  would  shake  the  branch  back and forth until he
snapped her off as one would snap a fly from a  whip-lash.  The
first  time,  she  saved herself by falling into branches lower
down. Another time, though they  did  not  save  her  from  the
ground,  they  broke  her fall. Still another time, so fiercely
did he snap her from the branch, she was flung clear  across  a
gap  into  another tree. It was remarkable, the way she gripped
and saved herself. Only when driven to  it  did  she  seek  the
temporary  safety  of  the  thin branches. But she was so tired
that she could not otherwise avoid him, and time after time she
was compelled to take to the thin branches.

     

     Still the chase went on, and  still  the  Folk  screeched,
beat  their chests, and gnashed their teeth. Then came the end.
It was almost  twilight.  Trembling,  panting,  struggling  for
breath,  the Swift One clung pitiably to a high thin branch. It
was thirty feet to the ground, and nothing intervened.  Red-Eye
swung  back  and  forth on the branch farther down. It became a
pendulum, swinging wider and wider  with  every  lunge  of  his
weight.  Then  he  reversed  suddenly, just before the downward
swing was completed. Her grips were torn loose, and, screaming,
she was hurled toward the ground.

     But she righted herself  in  mid-air  and  descended  feet
first.  Ordinarily,  from such a height, the spring in her legs
would have eased the shock of impact with the ground.  But  she
was  exhausted.  She  could  not exercise this spring. Her legs
gave under her, having only  partly  met  the  shock,  and  she
crashed  on  over  on her side. This, as it turned out, did not
injure her, but it did knock the breath from her lungs. She lay
helpless and struggling for air.

     Red-Eye rushed upon her and seized her.  With  his  gnarly
fingers  twisted  into  the  hair  of her head, he stood up and
roared in triumph and defiance at the awed  Folk  that  watched
from the trees. Then it was that I went mad. Caution was thrown
to  the winds; forgotten was the will to live of my flesh. Even
as Red-Eye roared, from behind I dashed upon him. So unexpected
was my charge that I knocked him off his feet. I twined my arms
and legs around him and strove to hold  him  down.  This  would
have been impossible to accomplish had he not held tightly with
one hand to the Swift One's hair.

     Encouraged  by  my conduct, Big-Face became a sudden ally.
He charged in, sank his teeth in Red-Eye's arm, and ripped  and
tore at his face. This was the time for the rest of the Folk to
have  joined  in.  It  was the chance to do for Red-Eye for all
time. But they remained afraid in the trees.

     It was inevitable that Red-Eye should win in the  struggle
against  the  two  of  us.  The reason he did not finish us off
immediately was that the Swift One clogged his  movements.  She
had  regained  her breath and was beginning to resist. He would
not release his clutch on her hair, and this  handicapped  him.
He  got  a  grip on my arm. It was the beginning of the end for
me. He began to draw me toward him into  a  position  where  he
could sink his teeth into my throat. His mouth was open, and he
was  grinning.  And  yet, though he had just begun to exert his
strength, in that moment he wrenched  my  shoulder  so  that  I
suffered from it for the remainder of my life.

     And  in  that  moment  something  happened.  There  was no
warning. A great body smashed down upon the four of  us  locked
together.  We  were  driven violently apart and rolled over and
over, and in the suddenness of surprise we released  our  holds
on  one  another. At the moment of the shock, Big-Face screamed
terribly. I did not know what had happened,  though  I  smelled
tiger  and  caught  a  glimpse of striped fur as I sprang for a
tree.

     It was old Saber-Tooth. Aroused in his lair by  the  noise
we  had  made,  he  had  crept upon us unnoticed. The Swift One
gained the next tree to mine, and I immediately joined  her.  I
put  my  arms  around  her  and  held her close to me while she
whimpered and cried softly. From the ground  came  a  snarling,
and  crunching  of  bones. It was Saber-Tooth making his supper
off of what had been Big-Face. From beyond, with inflamed  rims
and eyes, Red-Eye peered down. Here was a monster mightier than
he.  The  Swift  One and I turned and went away quietly through
the trees toward the cave, while the Folk gathered overhead and
showered down abuse and twigs and branches upon  their  ancient
enemy. He lashed his tail and snarled, but went on eating.

     And  in  such  fashion  were  we  saved.  It  was  a  mere
accident--the sheerest accident. Else would I have died,  there
in  Red-Eye's  clutch, and there would have been no bridging of
time to the tune of a thousand centuries down to a progeny that
reads newspapers and  rides  on  electric  cars--ay,  and  that
writes narratives of bygone happenings even as this is written.





     It  was  in  the  early fall of the following year that it
happened. After his failure to get the Swift One,  Red-Eye  had
taken  another  wife;  and,  strange  to  relate, she was still
alive.  Stranger  still,  they  had  a  baby   several   months
old--Red-Eye's  first child. His previous wives had never lived
long enough to bear him children. The year had  gone  well  for
all  of  us.  The  weather had been exceptionally mild and food
plentiful. I remember especially the turnips of that year.  The
nut  crop  was  also very heavy, and the wild plums were larger
and sweeter than usual.


     

     In short, it was a golden year. And then it  happened.  It
was  in  the early morning, and we were surprised in our caves.
In the chill gray light we awoke from sleep,  most  of  us,  to
encounter  death.  The  Swift  One  and  I  were  aroused  by a
pandemonium of screeching  and  gibbering.  Our  cave  was  the
highest  of  all  on  the  cliff, and we crept to the mouth and
peered down. The open space was filled with  the  Fire  People.
Their  cries  and  yells were added to the clamor, but they had
order and plan, while we Folk had none. Each one of  us  fought
and  acted for himself, and no one of us knew the extent of the
calamity that was befalling us.

     By the time we got to stone-throwing, the Fire People  had
massed  thick  at  the base of the cliff. Our first volley must
have mashed some heads, for when they  swerved  back  from  the
cliff  three  of  their number were left upon the ground. These
were struggling and floundering, and one was  trying  to  crawl
away. But we fixed them. By this time we males
      were  roaring  with  rage,  and  we rained rocks upon the
three men that were down. Several of the Fire-Men  returned  to
drag them into safety, but our rocks drove the rescuers back.

     The   Fire   People  became  enraged.  Also,  they  became
cautious. In spite  of  their  angry  yells,  they  kept  at  a
distance and sent flights of arrows against us. This put an end
to  the  rock-throwing. By the time half a dozen of us had been
killed and a score injured, the rest of us
      retreated inside our caves. I was not out of range in  my
lofty  cave,  but  the  distance  was  great  enough  to  spoil
effective shooting, and the Fire  People  did  not  waste  many
arrows  on  me.  Furthermore,  I  was curious. I wanted to see.
While the Swift One remained well inside  the  cave,  trembling
with  fear  and  making  low wailing sounds because I would not
come in, I crouched at the entrance and watched.

     The fighting had now become intermittent. It was a sort of
deadlock. We were in the caves, and the question with the  Fire
People  was  how to get us out. They did not dare come in after
us, and in general we  would  not  expose  ourselves  to  their
arrows.  Occasionally,  when  one  of them drew in close to the
base of the cliff, one or another of the  Folk  would  smash  a
rock  down.  In  return, he would be transfixed by half a dozen
arrows. This ruse worked well for some time,  but  finally  the
Folk  no  longer  were  inveigled  into showing themselves. The
deadlock was complete.

     Behind the Fire People I could see the little wizened  old
hunter  directing  it  all.  They obeyed him, and went here and
there at his commands. Some of them went into  the  forest  and
returned  with  loads  of  dry wood, leaves, and grass. All the
Fire People drew in closer. While most of them  stood  by  with
bows  and  arrows,  ready to shoot any of the Folk that exposed
themselves, several of the Fire-Men heaped the  dry  grass  and
wood  at  the  mouths  of the lower tier of caves. Out of these
heaps they conjured the  monster  we  feared--FIRE.  At  first,
wisps  of smoke arose and curled up the cliff. Then I could see
the red-tongued flames darting in and out through the wood like
tiny snakes. The smoke  grew  thicker  and  thicker,  at  times
shrouding the whole face of the cliff. But I was high up and it
did  not  bother  me much, though it stung my eyes and I rubbed
them with my knuckles.

     Old Marrow-Bone was the first to be smoked  out.  A  light
fan  of  air  drifted  the smoke away at the time so that I saw
clearly. He broke out through the smoke, stepping on a  burning
coal  and  screaming with the sudden hurt of it, and essayed to
climb up the cliff. The arrows showered about him. He came to a
pause on a ledge, clutching a knob of rock for support, gasping
and sneezing and shaking his head. He swayed  back  and  forth.
The  feathered ends of a dozen arrows were sticking out of him.
He was an old man, and he did not want to die. He swayed  wider
and  wider,  his  knees  giving  under him, and as he swayed he
wailed most plaintively. His hand  released  its  grip  and  he
lurched outward to the fall. His old bones must have been sadly
broken.  He  groaned  and strove feebly to rise, but a Fire-Man
rushed in upon him and brained him with a club.


     And as it happened with Marrow-Bone, so it  happened  with
many  of the Folk. Unable to endure the smoke-suffocation, they
rushed out to fall beneath the arrows. Some of  the  women  and
children  remained  in  the caves to strangle to death, but the
majority met death outside.

     When the Fire-Men had in this fashion  cleared  the  first
tier  of caves, they began making arrangements to duplicate the
operation on the second tier of caves. It was while  they  were
climbing  up  with their grass and wood, that Red-Eye, followed
by his wife, with the baby  holding  to  her  tightly,  made  a
successful   flight  up  the  cliff.  The  Fire-Men  must  have
concluded  that  in  the  interval  between   the   smoking-out
operations  we  would  remain  in  our caves; so that they were
unprepared, and their arrows did not begin to fly till  Red-Eye
and his wife were well up the wall. When he reached the top, he
turned  about  and glared down at them, roaring and beating his
chest. They arched their arrows  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 up the cliff, but most of them were  shot  off
the face of it as they strove to climb. I remember Long-Lip. He
got  as  far  as  my  ledge,  crying  piteously, an arrow clear
through his chest, the feathered shaft sticking out behind, the
bone head sticking out before, shot  through  the  back  as  he
climbed.  He  sank  down  on my ledge bleeding profusely at the
mouth.

     It was about this time that  the  upper  tiers  seemed  to
empty  themselves  spontaneously.  Nearly  all the Folk not yet
smoked out stampeded up the cliff at the same  time.  This  was
the saving of many. The Fire People could not shoot arrows fast
enough.  They  filled  the  air  with arrows, and scores of the
stricken Folk came tumbling down; but still there  were  a  few
who reached the top and got away.

     

     The  impulse  of  flight  was  now  stronger  in  me  than
curiosity. The arrows had ceased flying. The last of  the  Folk
seemed  gone,  though there may have been a few still hiding in
the upper caves. The Swift One and I started to make a scramble
for the cliff-top. At sight of us a great cry went up from  the
Fire  People.  This was not caused by me, but by the Swift One.
They were chattering excitedly 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  stopped
and looked down. She was afraid, and whimpered and urged me on.
So we went up over the top and plunged into the trees.

     This event has often caused me to wonder and speculate. If
she were  really  of  their  kind, she must have been lost from
them at a time when she was too young to remember,  else  would
she  not  have  been  afraid of them. On the other hand, it may
well have been that while she was their kind she had never been
lost from them; that she had been born in the wild  forest  far
from  their  haunts,  her father maybe a renegade Fire-Man, her
mother maybe one of my own kind, one of the Folk. But who shall
say? These things are beyond me, and the Swift One knew no more
about them than did I.

     We lived through a day of terror. Most  of  the  survivors
fled  toward  the blueberry swamp and took refuge in the forest
in that neighborhood. And all day hunting parties of  the  Fire
People ranged the forest, killing us wherever they found us. It
must  have been a deliberately executed plan. Increasing beyond
the limits 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 during that day, and
besides, I wanted to see. The Swift One and  I  never  remained
long  in  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 we turned 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 down out of the old home-tree. And I  am  afraid
that  at  the  sight  I did a bit of joyous teetering. Before I
leave this portion of my narrative, I must tell of Red-Eye.  He
was caught with his wife in a tree down by the blueberry swamp.
The  Swift  One and I stopped long enough in our flight to see.
The Fire-Men were too intent upon their work to notice us, and,
furthermore, we were well screened by the 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 not see 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 a hollow in the trunk. But his wife did not
win this shelter. An arrow brought her 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 and laughed at her--even as  Lop-Ear  and  I
had  laughed  at the old Tree-Man. And even as we had poked him
with twigs and sticks, so did the Fire-Men with Red-Eye's wife.
They poked her with the ends of their bows, and prodded her  in
the  ribs.  But she was poor fun. She would not fight. Nor, for
that matter, would she get angry. She continued to crouch  over
her  baby  and  to  plead. One of the Fire-Men stepped close to
her. In his hand was a club. She saw 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 stood together and debated for a while,  then  one
of  them  climbed into the tree. What happened up there I could
not tell, but I heard him yell and saw the excitement of  those
that  remained  beneath. After several minutes his body crashed
down to the ground. He did not move. They  looked  at  him  and
raised  his  head,  but  it  fell 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 arms around each  other,  waited
and  watched in the thicket. Sometimes they threw upon the fire
green branches with many leaves,  whereupon  the  smoke  became
very thick.

     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 gnarly fingers 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 managed to get hold of a club and began crushing  heads
like  eggshells.  He  was  too  much  for  them,  and they were
compelled to fall back again.  This  was  his  chance,  and  he
turned  his  back  upon  them  and  ran  for  it, still howling
wrathfully. A few arrows 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 of Fire-Men. They chased us into the blueberry
swamp, but we knew the tree-paths across the  farther  morasses
where  they  could not follow on the ground, and so we escaped.
We came out on the other side into a  narrow  strip  of  forest
that  separated  the  blueberry swamp from the great swamp that
extended westward. Here we met Lop-Ear. How he  had  escaped  I
cannot  imagine, unless he had not slept the preceding night at
the caves.

     Here,  in  the  strip  of  forest,  we  might  have  built
tree-shelters  and  settled  down;  but  the  Fire  People were
performing their  work  of  extermination  thoroughly.  In  the
afternoon, Hair-Face and his wife fled out from among the trees
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 heard the 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 its paths.  It  was  outside
our territory, and it had been always avoided by the Folk. None
had  ever  gone  into  it--at least, to return. In our minds it
represented mystery and fear, the terrible unknown. As  I  say,
we  stopped at the edge of it. We were afraid. The cries of the
Fire-Men  were  drawing  nearer.  We  looked  at  one  another.
Hair-Face  ran  out on the quaking morass and gained the firmer
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 beyond Hair-Face a hundred yards  and  gained  a
much  larger  hummock.  By the time Lop-Ear and 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. But
she ran blindly, without caution, and broke through the  crust.
We  turned  and  watched, and saw them shoot her with arrows as
she sank down in the mud. The arrows began  falling  about  us.
Hair-Face  had now joined us, and the four of us plunged on, we
knew not whither, deeper and deeper into the swamp.





     Of our wanderings in the  great  swamp  I  have  no  clear
knowledge.  When  I  strive  to  remember,  I  have  a  riot of
unrelated impressions and a loss of time-value. I have no  idea
of  how  long  we were in that vast everglade, but it must have
been for weeks. My memories of what  occurred  invariably  take
the  form  of  nightmare. For untold ages, oppressed by protean
fear, I am aware of wandering, endlessly wandering,  through  a
dank and soggy wilderness, where poisonous snakes struck at us,
and  animals  roared around us, and the mud quaked under us and
sucked at our heels.

     I know that we were turned from our course countless times
by streams and lakes and slimy seas. Then there were storms and
risings of the water over great areas of the  low-lying  lands;
and  there  were periods of hunger and misery when we were kept
prisoners in the trees for days and  days  by  these  transient
floods.

     Very  strong upon me is one picture. Large trees are about
us, and from their branches hang gray filaments of moss,  while
great creepers, like monstrous serpents, curl around the trunks
and  writhe  in  tangles  through the air. And all about is the
mud, soft mud, that bubbles forth gases, and  that  heaves  and
sighs  with  internal  agitations. And in the midst of all this
are a dozen of us. We are lean and wretched, and our bones show
through our tight-stretched skins. We do not sing  and  chatter
and  laugh.  We  play  no  pranks.  For  once  our volatile and
exuberant spirits are hopelessly subdued.  We  make  plaintive,
querulous  noises,  look  at  one  another,  and  cluster close
together. It is like the meeting of the  handful  of  survivors
after the day of the end of the world.

     This  event is without connection with the other events in
the swamp. How we ever managed to cross it, I do not know,  but
at  last we came out where a low range of hills ran down to the
bank of the river. It was our  river  emerging  like  ourselves
from  the  great  swamp. On the south bank, where the river had
broken 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's mouth. 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 the Folk  appeared.  They  dragged  themselves
from  the  swamp singly, and in twos and threes, more dead than
alive, mere perambulating skeletons, until at last  there  were
thirty of us. Then no more came from the swamp, and Red-Eye was
not  among  us. 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  happy abiding-place. The air was raw and
chill, and we suffered continually from coughing and colds.  We
could  not  survive  in  such  an  environment.  True,  we  had
children; but they had little hold  on  life  and  died  early,
while  we  died  faster  than  new  ones  were born. Our number
steadily diminished.


     

     Then the radical change in our diet was not good  for  us.
We got few vegetables and fruits, and became fish-eaters. There
were mussels and abalones and clams and rock-oysters, and great
ocean-crabs  that  were  thrown  upon  the  beaches  in  stormy
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   waxed   fat.   We  were  all  lean  and
dyspeptic-looking. It was in  getting  the  big  abalones  that
Lop-Ear  was  lost.  One  of  them  closed  upon his fingers at
low-tide, and then 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 closing  shell  of  an
abalone.

     The  Swift  One  and  I  managed  to bring up one child, a
boy--at least we managed to bring him along for several  years.
But  I  am  quite  confident  he could never have survived that
terrible climate. And then, one day, the Fire  People  appeared
again. They had come down the river, not on a catamaran, but in
a  rude  dug-out.  There were three of them that paddled in it,
and one of them was the little wizened old hunter. They  landed
on  our  beach,  and he limped across the sand and examined our
caves.

     They went away in a few minutes, but  the  Swift  One  was
badly  scared.  We  were  all frightened, but none of us to the
extent that she was. She whimpered and cried and  was  restless
all  that night. In the morning she took the child in her arms,
and by sharp cries, gestures, and example, started  me  on  our
second  long flight. There were eight of the Folk (all that was
left of the horde) that remained behind in the caves. There was
no hope for them. Without doubt, even if the  Fire  People  did
not  return, they must soon have perished. It was a bad climate
down there by the sea. The Folk were not  constituted  for  the
coast-dwelling life.

     We  travelled south, for days skirting the great swamp but
never venturing into it. Once we broke back  to  the  westward,
crossing a range of mountains and coming down to the coast. But
it  was  no  place  for  us.  There  were  no trees--only bleak
headlands, a thundering surf,  and  strong  winds  that  seemed
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  course  south and east. It was a pleasant land.
The air was warm, and we were again in the forest. Later on  we
crossed  a  low-lying  range of hills and found ourselves in an
even better forest country. The farther we penetrated from  the
coast  the  warmer  we found it, and we went on and on until we
came to a large river that seemed familiar to the Swift One. It
was where she must have come during  the  four  years'  absence
from  the harde. This river we crossed on logs, landing on side
at the large bluff. High up on the bluff we found our new  home
most difficult of access and quite hidden from any eye beneath.

     There  is  little  more of my tale to tell. Here the Swift
One and I lived and reared our family.  And  here  my  memories
end.  We never made another migration. I never dream beyond our
high, inaccessible cave. And here must have been born the child
that inherited the stuff of my dreams, that  had  moulded  into
its  being  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 often I am unable to tell what
age I am living in.

     I often wonder about this line of descent. I, the  modern,
am incontestably a man; yet I, Big-Tooth, the primitive, am not
a  man.  Somewhere,  and by straight line of descent, these two
parties to my dual personality were connected. Were  the  Folk,
before  their  destruction, in the process of becoming men? And
did I and mine carry through this process? On the  other  hand,
may not some descendant of 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 that Big-Tooth
did stamp into the cerebral constitution of one of his  progeny
all  the  impressions  of  his  life,  and  stamped  them in so
indelibly that the hosts of intervening generations have failed
to obliterate them.

     There is one other thing of which I must  speak  before  I
close.  It  is a dream that I dream often, and in point of time
the real event must have  occurred  during  the  period  of  my
living  in  the  high,  inaccessible  cave.  I  remember that I
wandered far in the forest toward the east. There I came upon a
tribe of Tree People. I crouched in a thicket and watched  them
at  play.  They were holding a laughing council, jumping up and
down and screeching rude choruses.

     Suddenly  they  hushed  their  noise  and   ceased   their
capering. They shrank down in fear, and quested anxiously about
with  their  eyes  for a way of retreat. Then Red-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, on stringy bended legs, supporting herself with knuckles
to  the ground on either side, walked an old female of the Tree
People, his latest wife. He  sat  down  in  the  midst  of  the
circle.  I can see him now, as I write this, scowling, his eyes
inflamed, as he peers about him  at  the  circle  of  the  Tree
People.  And  as  he peers he crooks one monstrous leg and with
his gnarly  toes  scratches  himself  on  the  stomach.  He  is
Red-Eye, the atavism.

Last-modified: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 06:09:59 GMT
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