n. This continued for some days. It took a long while to
get acquainted with her, but finally it was accomplished and
she joined us sometimes in our play.
I liked her from the first. She was of most pleasing
appearance. She was very mild. Her eyes were the mildest I had
ever seen. In this she was quite unlike the rest of the girls
and women of the Folk, who were born viragos. She never made
harsh, angry cries, and it seemed to be her nature to flee away
from trouble rather than to remain and fight.
The mildness I have mentioned seemed to emanate from her
whole being. Her bodily as well as facial appearance was the
cause of this. Her eyes were larger than most of her kind, and
they were not so deep-set, while the lashes were longer and
more regular. Nor was her nose so thick and squat. It had quite
a bridge, and the nostrils opened downward. Her incisors were
not large, nor was her upper lip long and down-hanging, nor her
lower lip protruding. She was not very hairy, except on the
outsides of arms and legs and across the shoulders; and while
she was thin-hipped, her calves were not twisted and gnarly.
I have often wondered, looking back upon her from the
twentieth century through the medium of my dreams, and it has
always occurred to me that possibly she may have been related
to the Fire People. Her father, or mother, might well have come
from that higher stock. While such things were not common,
still they did occur, and I have seen the proof of them with my
own eyes, even to the extent of members of the horde turning
renegade and going to live with the Tree People.
All of which is neither here nor there. The Swift One was
radically different from any of the females of the horde, and I
had a liking for her from the first. Her mildness and
gentleness attracted me. She was never rough, and she never
fought. She always ran away, and right here may be noted the
significance of the naming of her. She was a better climber
than Lop-Ear or I. When we played tag we could never catch her
except by accident, while she could catch us at will. She was
remarkably swift in all her movements, and she had a genius for
judging distances that was equalled only by her daring.
Excessively timid in all other matters, she was without fear
when it came to climbing or running through the trees, and
Lop-Ear and I were awkward and lumbering and cowardly in
comparison.
She was an orphan. We never saw her with any one, and
there was no telling how long she had lived alone in the world.
She must have learned early in her helpless childhood that
safety lay only in flight. She was very wise and very discreet.
It became a sort of game with Lop-Ear and me to try to find
where she lived. It was certain that she had a tree-shelter
somewhere, and not very far away; but trail her as we would, we
could never find it. She was willing enough to join with us at
play in the day-time, but the secret of her abiding-place she
guarded jealously.
CHAPTER XI
It must be remembered that the description I have just
given of the Swift One is not the description that would have
been given by Big-Tooth, my other self of my dreams, my
prehistoric ancestor. It is by the medium of my dreams that I,
the modern man, look through the eyes of Big-Tooth and see.
And so it is with much that I narrate of the events of
that far-off time. There is a duality about my impressions that
is too confusing to inflict upon my readers. I shall merely
pause here in my narrative to indicate this duality, this
perplexing mixing of personality. It is I, the modern, who look
back across the centuries and weigh and analyze the emotions
and motives of Big-Tooth, my other self. He did not bother to
weigh and analyze. He was simplicity itself. He just lived
events, without ever pondering why he lived them in his
particular and often erratic way.
As I, my real self, grew older, I entered more and more
into the substance of my dreams. One may dream, and even in the
midst of the dream be aware that he is dreaming, and if the
dream be bad, comfort himself with the thought that it is only
a dream. This is a common experience with all of us. And so it
was that I, the modern, often entered into my dreaming, and in
the consequent strange dual personality was both actor and
spectator. And right often have I, the modern, been perturbed
and vexed by the foolishness, illogic, obtuseness, and general
all-round stupendous stupidity of myself, the primitive.
And one thing more, before I end this digression. Have you
ever dreamed that you dreamed? Dogs dream, horses dream, all
animals dream. In Big-Tooth's day the half-men dreamed, and
when the dreams were bad they howled in their sleep. Now I, the
modern, have lain down with Big-Tooth and dreamed his dreams.
This is getting almost beyond the grip of the intellect, I
know; but I do know that I have done this thing. And let me
tell you that the flying and crawling dreams of Big-Tooth were
as vivid to him as the falling-through-space dream is to you.
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For Big-Tooth also had an other-self, and when he slept
that other-self dreamed back into the past, back to the winged
reptiles and the clash and the onset of dragons, and beyond
that to the scurrying, rodent-like life of the tiny mammals,
and far remoter still, to the shore-slime of the primeval sea.
I cannot, I dare not, say more. It is all too vague and
complicated and awful. I can only hint of those vast and
terrific vistas through which I have peered hazily at the
progression of life, not upward from the ape to man, but upward
from the worm.
And now to return to my tale. I, Big-Tooth, knew not the
Swift One as a creature of finer facial and bodily symmetry,
with long-lashed eyes and a bridge to her nose and down-opening
nostrils that made toward beauty. I knew her only as the
mild-eyed young female who made soft sounds and did not fight.
I liked to play with her, I knew not why, to seek food in her
company, and to go bird-nesting with her. And I must confess
she taught me things about tree-climbing. She was very wise,
very strong, and no clinging skirts impeded her movements.
It was about this time that a slight defection arose on
the part of Lop-Ear. He got into the habit of wandering off in
the direction of the tree where my mother lived. He had taken a
liking to my vicious sister, and the Chatterer had come to
tolerate him. Also, there were several other young people,
progeny of the monogamic couples that lived in the
neighborhood, and Lop-Ear played with these young people.
I could never get the Swift One to join with them.
Whenever I visited them she dropped behind and disappeared. I
remember once making a strong effort to persuade her. But she
cast backward, anxious glances, then retreated, calling to me
from a tree. So it was that I did not make a practice of
accompanying Lop-Ear when he went to visit his new friends. The
Swift One and I were good comrades, but, try as I would, I
could never find her tree-shelter. Undoubtedly, had nothing
happened, we would have soon mated, for our liking was mutual;
but the something did happen.
One morning, the Swift One not having put in an
appearance, Lop-Ear and I were down at the mouth of the slough
playing on the logs. We had scarcely got out on the water, when
we were startled by a roar of rage. It was Red-Eye. He was
crouching on the edge of the timber jam and glowering his
hatred at us. We were badly frightened, for here was no
narrow-mouthed cave for refuge. But the twenty feet of water
that intervened gave us temporary safety, and we plucked up
courage.
Red-Eye stood up erect and began beating his hairy chest
with his fist. Our two logs were side by side, and we sat on
them and laughed at him. At first our laughter was
half-hearted, tinged with fear, but as we became convinced of
his impotence we waxed uproarious. He raged and raged at us,
and ground his teeth in helpless fury. And in our fancied
security we mocked and mocked him. We were ever short-sighted,
we Folk.
Red-Eye abruptly ceased his breast-beating and
tooth-grinding, and ran across the timber-jam to the shore. And
just as abruptly our merriment gave way to consternation. It
was not Red-Eye's way to forego revenge so easily. We waited in
fear and trembling for whatever was to happen. It never struck
us to paddle away. He came back with great leaps across the
jam, one huge hand filled with round, water-washed pebbles. I
am glad that he was unable to find larger missiles, say stones
weighing two or three pounds, for we were no more than a score
of feet away, and he surely would have killed us.
As it was, we were in no small danger. Zip! A tiny pebble
whirred past with the force almost of a bullet. Lop-Ear and I
began paddling frantically. Whiz-zip-bang ! Lop-Ear screamed
with sudden anguish. The pebble had struck him between the
shoulders. Then I got one and yelled. The only thing that saved
us was the exhausting of Red-Eye's ammunition. He dashed back
to the gravel-bed for more, while Lop-Ear and I paddled away.
Gradually we drew out of range, though Red-Eye continued
making trips for more ammunition and the pebbles continued to
whiz about us. Out in the centre of the slough there was a
slight current, and in our excitement we failed to notice that
it was drifting us into the river. We paddled, and Red-Eye kept
as close as he could to us by following along the shore. Then
he discovered larger rocks. Such ammunition increased his
range. One fragment, fully five pounds in weight, crashed on
the log
alongside of me, and such was its impact that it drove a
score of splinters, like fiery needles, into my leg. Had it
struck me it would have killed me.
And then the river current caught us. So wildly were we
paddling that Red-Eye was the first to notice it, and our first
warning was his yell of triumph. Where the edge of the current
struck the slough-water was a series of eddies or small
whirlpools. These caught our clumsy logs and whirled them end
for end, back and forth and around. We quit paddling and
devoted our whole energy to holding the logs together alongside
each other. In the meanwhile Red-Eye continued to bombard us,
the rock fragments falling about us, splashing water on us, and
menacing our lives. At the same time he gloated over us, wildly
and vociferously.
It happened that there was a sharp turn in the river at
the point where the slough entered, and the whole main current
of the river was deflected to the other bank. And toward that
bank, which was the north bank, we drifted rapidly, at the same
time going down-stream. This quickly took us out of range of
Red-Eye, and the last we saw of him was far out on a point of
land, where he was jumping up and down and chanting a paean of
victory.
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Beyond holding the two logs together, Lop-Ear and I did
nothing. We were resigned to our fate, and we remained resigned
until we aroused to the fact that we were drifting along the
north shore not a hundred feet away. We began to paddle for it.
Here the main force of the current was flung back toward the
south shore, and the result of our paddling was that we crossed
the current where it was swiftest and narrowest. Before we were
aware, we were out of it and in a quiet eddy.
Our logs drifted slowly and at last grounded gently on the
bank. Lop-Ear and I crept ashore.The logs drifted on out of the
eddy and swept away down the stream. We looked at each other,
but we did not laugh. We were in a strange land, and it did not
enter our minds that we could return to our own land in the
same manner that we had come.
We had learned how to cross a river, though we did not
know it. And this was something that no one else of the Folk
had ever done. We were the first of the Folk to set foot on the
north bank of the river, and, for that matter, I believe the
last. That they would have done so in the time to come is
undoubted; but the migration of the Fire People, and the
consequent migration of the survivors of the Folk, set back our
evolution for centuries.
Indeed, there is no telling how disastrous was to be the
outcome of the Fire People's migration. Personally, I am prone
to believe that it brought about the destruction of the Folk;
that we, a branch of lower life budding toward the human, were
nipped short off and perished down by the roaring surf where
the river entered the sea. Of course, in such an eventuality, I
remain to be accounted for; but I outrun my story, and such
accounting will be made before I am done.
CHAPTER XII
I have no idea how long Lop-Ear and I wandered in the land
north of the river. We were like mariners wrecked on a desert
isle, so far as concerned the likelihood of our getting home
again. We turned our backs upon the river, and for weeks and
months adventured in that wilderness where there were no Folk.
It is very difficult for me to reconstruct our journeying, and
impossible to do it from day to day. Most of it is hazy and
indistinct, though here and there I have vivid recollections of
things that happened.
Especially do I remember the hunger we endured on the
mountains between Long Lake and Far Lake, and the calf we
caught sleeping in the thicket. Also, there are the Tree People
who dwelt in the forest between Long Lake and the mountains. It
was they who chased us into the mountains and compelled us to
travel on to Far Lake.
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First, after we left the river, we worked toward the west
till we came to a small stream that flowed through marshlands.
Here we turned away toward the north, skirting the marshes and
after several days arriving at what I have called Long Lake. We
spent some time around its upper end, where we found food in
plenty; and then, one day, in the forest, we ran foul of the
Tree People. These creatures were ferocious apes, nothing more.
And yet they were not so different from us. They were more
hairy, it is true; their legs were a trifle more twisted and
gnarly, their eyes a bit smaller, their necks a bit thicker and
shorter, and their nostrils slightly more like orifices in a
sunken surface; but they had no hair on their faces and
on the palms of their hands and the soles of their feet, and
they made sounds similar to ours with somewhat similar
meanings. After all, the Tree People and the Folk were not so
unlike.
I found him first, a little withered, dried-up old fellow,
wrinkled-faced and bleary-eyed and tottery. He was legitimate
prey. In our world there was no sympathy between the kinds, and
he was not our kind. He was a Tree-Man, and he was very old. He
was sitting at the foot of a tree--evidently his tree, for we
could see the tattered nest in the branches, in which he slept
at night.
I pointed him out to Lop-Ear, and we made a rush for him.
He started to climb, but was too slow. I caught him by the leg
and dragged him back. Then we had fun. We pinched him, pulled
his hair, tweaked his ears, and poked twigs into him, and all
the while we laughed with streaming eyes. His futile anger was
most absurd. He was a comical sight, striving to fan into flame
the cold ashes of his youth, to resurrect his strength dead and
gone through the oozing of the years--making woful faces in
place of the ferocious ones he intended, grinding his worn
teeth together, beating his meagre chest with feeble fists.
Also, he had a cough, and he gasped and hacked and
spluttered prodigiously. Every time he tried to climb the tree
we pulled him back, until at last he surrendered to his
weakness and did no more than sit and weep. And Lop-Ear and I
sat with him, our arms around each other, and laughed at his
wretchedness.
From weeping he went to whining, and from whining to
wailing, until at last he achieved a scream. This alarmed us,
but the more we tried to make him cease, the louder he
screamed. And then, from not far away in the forest, came a
"Goek! Goek!" to our ears. To this there were answering cries,
several of them, and from very far off we could hear a big,
bass "Goek! Goek! Goek!" Also, the "Whoo-whoo !" call was
rising in the forest all around us.
Then came the chase. It seemed it never would end. They
raced us through the trees, the whole tribe of them, and nearly
caught us. We were forced to take to the ground, and here we
had the advantage, for they were truly the Tree People, and
while they out-climbed us we out-footed them on the ground. We
broke away toward the north, the tribe howling on our track.
Across the open spaces we gained, and in the brush they caught
up with us, and more than once it was nip and tuck. And as the
chase continued, we realized that we were not their kind,
either, and that the bonds between us were anything but
sympathetic.
They ran us for hours. The forest seemed interminable. We
kept to the glades as much as possible, but they always ended
in more thick forest. Sometimes we thought we had escaped, and
sat down to rest; but always, before we could recover our
breath, we would hear the hateful "Whoo-whoo!" cries and the
terrible "Goek! Goek! Goek!" This latter sometimes terminated
in a savage "Ha ha ha ha haaaaa!!!"
And in this fashion were we hunted through the forest by
the exasperated Tree People. At last, by mid-afternoon, the
slopes began rising higher and higher and the trees were
becoming smaller. Then we came out on the grassy flanks of the
mountains. Here was where we could make time, and here the Tree
People gave up and returned to their forest.
The mountains were bleak and inhospitable, and three times
that afternoon we tried to regain the woods. But the Tree
People were lying in wait, and they drove us back. Lop-Ear and
I slept that night in a dwarf tree, no larger than a bush. Here
was no security, and we would have been easy prey for any
hunting animal that chanced along.
In the morning, what of our new-gained respect for the
Tree People, we faced into the mountains. That we had no
definite plan, or even idea, I am confident. We were merely
driven on by the danger we had escaped. Of our wanderings
through the mountains I have only misty memories. We were in
that bleak region many days, and we suffered much, especially
from fear, it was all so new and strange. Also, we suffered
from the cold, and later from hunger.
It--was a desolate land of rocks and foaming streams and
clattering cataracts. We climbed and descended mighty canyons
and gorges; and ever, from every view point, there spread out
before us, in all directions, range upon range, the unceasing
mountains. We slept at night in holes and crevices, and on one
cold night we perched on top a slender pinnacle of rock that
was almost like a tree.
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And then, at last, one hot midday, dizzy with hunger, we
gained the divide. From this high backbone of earth, to the
north, across the diminishing, down-falling ranges, we caught a
glimpse of a far lake. The sun shone upon it, and about it were
open, level grass-lands, while to the eastward we saw the dark
line of a wide-stretching forest.
We were two days in gaining the lake, and we were weak
with hunger; but on its shore, sleeping snugly in a thicket, we
found a part-grown calf. It gave us much trouble, for we knew
no other way to kill than with our hands. When we had gorged
our fill, we carried the remainder of the meat to the eastward
forest and hid it in a tree. We never returned to that tree,
for the shore of the stream that drained Far Lake was packed
thick with salmon that had come up from the sea to spawn.
Westward from the lake stretched the grass-lands, and here
were multitudes of bison and wild cattle. Also were there many
packs of wild dogs, and as there were no trees it was not a
safe place for us. We followed north along the stream for days.
Then, and for what reason I do not know, we abruptly left the
stream and swung to the east, and then to the southeast,
through a great forest. I shall not bore you with our journey.
I but indicate it to show how we finally arrived at the Fire
People's country.
We came out upon the river, but we did not know it for our
river. We had been lost so long that we had come to accept the
condition of being lost as habitual. As I look back I see
clearly how our lives and destinies are shaped by the merest
chance. We did not know it was our river--there was no way of
telling; and if we had never crossed it we would most probably
have never returned to the horde; and I, the modern, the
thousand centuries yet to be born, would never have been born .
And yet Lop-Ear and I wanted greatly to return. We had
experienced homesickness on our journey, the yearning for our
own kind and land; and often had I had recollections of the
Swift One, the young female who made soft sounds, whom it was
good to be with, and who lived by herself nobody knew where. My
recollections of her were accompanied by sensations of hunger,
and these I felt when I was not hungry and when I had just
eaten.
But to come back to the river. Food was plentiful,
principally berries and succulent roots, and on the river bank
we played and lingered for days. And then the idea came to
Lop-Ear. It was a visible process, the coming of the idea. I
saw it. The expression in his eyes became plaintive and
querulous, and he was greatly perturbed. Then his eyes went
muddy, as if he had lost his grip on the inchoate thought. This
was followed by the plaintive, querulous expression as the idea
persisted and he clutched it anew. He looked at me, and at the
river and the far shore. He tried to speak, but had no sounds
with which to express the idea. The result was a gibberish that
made me laugh. This angered him, and he grabbed me suddenly and
threw me on my back. Of course we fought, and in the end I
chased him up a tree, where he secured a long branch and poked
me every time I tried to get at him.
And the idea had gone glimmering. I did not know, and he
had forgotten. But the next morning it awoke in him again.
Perhaps it was the homing instinct in him asserting itself that
made the idea persist. At any rate it was there, and clearer
than before. He led me down to the water, where a log had
grounded in an eddy. I thought he was minded to play, as we had
played in the mouth of the slough. Nor did I change my mind as
I watched him tow up a second log from farther down the shore.
It was not until we were on the logs, side by side and
holding them together, and had paddled out into the current,
that I learned his intention. He paused to point at the far
shore, and resumed his paddling, at the same time uttering loud
and encouraging cries. I understood, and we paddled
energetically. The swift current caught us, flung us toward the
south shore, but before we could make a landing flung us back
toward the north shore.
Here arose dissension. Seeing the north shore so near, I
began to paddle for it. Lop-Ear tried to paddle for the south
shore. The logs swung around in circles, and we got nowhere,
and all the time the forest was flashing past as we drifted
down the stream. We could not fight. We knew better than to let
go the grips of hands and feet that held the logs together. But
we chattered and abused each other with our tongues until the
current flung us toward the south bank again. That was now the
nearest goal, and together and amicably we paddled for it. We
landed in an eddy, and climbed directly into the trees to
reconnoitre.
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CHAPTER XIII
It was not until the night of our first day on the south
bank of the river that we discovered the Fire People. What must
have been a band of wandering hunters went into camp not far
from the tree in which Lop-Ear and I had elected to roost for
the night. The voices of the Fire People at first alarmed us,
but later, when darkness had come, we were attracted by the
fire. We crept cautiously and silently from tree to tree till
we got a good view of the scene.
In an open space among the trees, near to the river, the
fire was burning. About it were half a dozen Fire-Men. Lop-Ear
clutched me suddenly, and I could feel him tremble. I looked
more closely, and saw the wizened little old hunter who had
shot Broken-Tooth out of the tree years before. When he got up
and walked about, throwing fresh wood upon the fire, I saw that
he limped with his crippled leg. Whatever it was, it was a
permanent injury. He seemed more dried up and wizened than
ever, and the hair on his face was quite gray.
The other hunters were young men. I noted, lying near them
on the ground, their bows and arrows, and I knew the weapons
for what they were. The Fire-Men wore animal skins around their
waists and across their shoulders. Their arms and legs,
however, were bare, and they wore no footgear. As I have said
before, they were not quite so hairy as we of the Folk. They
did not have large heads, and between them and the Folk there
was very little difference in the degree of the slant of the
head back from the eyes.
They were less stooped than we, less springy in their
movements. Their backbones and hips and knee-joints seemed more
rigid. Their arms were not so long as ours either, and I did
not notice that they ever balanced themselves when they walked,
by touching the ground on either side with their hands. Also,
their muscles were more rounded and symmetrical than ours, and
their faces were more pleasing. Their nose orifices opened
downward; likewise the bridges of their noses were more
developed, did not look so squat nor crushed as ours. Their
lips were less flabby and pendent, and their eye-teeth did not
look so much like fangs. However, they were quite as
thin-hipped as we, and did not weigh much more. Take it all in
all, they were less different from us than were we from the
Tree People. Certainly, all three kinds were related, and not
so remotely related at that.
The fire around which they sat was especially attractive.
Lop-Ear and I sat for hours, watching the flames and smoke. It
was most fascinating when fresh fuel was thrown on and showers
of sparks went flying upward. I wanted to come closer and look
at the fire, but there was no way. We were crouching in the
forks of a tree on the edge of the open space, and we did not
dare run the risk of being discovered.
The Fire-Men squatted around the fire and slept with their
heads bowed forward on their knees. They did not sleep soundly.
Their ears twitched in their sleep, and they were restless.
Every little while one or another got up and threw more wood
upon the fire. About the circle of light in the forest, in the
darkness beyond, roamed hunting animals. Lop-Ear and I could
tell them by their sounds. There were wild dogs and a hyena,
and for a time there was a great yelping and snarling that
awakened on the instant the whole circle of sleeping Fire-Men.
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Once a lion and a lioness stood beneath our tree and gazed
out with bristling hair and blinking eyes. The lion licked his
chops and was nervous with eagerness, as if he wanted to go
forward and make a meal. But the lioness was more cautious. It
was she that discovered us, and the pair stood and looked up at
us, silently, with twitching, scenting nostrils. Then they
growled, looked once again at the fire, and turned away into
the forest.
For a much longer time Lop-Ear and I remained and watched.
Now and again we could hear the crashing of heavy bodies in the
thickets and underbrush, and from the darkness of the other
side, across the circle, we could see eyes gleaming in the
firelight. In the distance we heard a lion roar, and from far
off came the scream of some stricken animal, splashing and
floundering in a drinking-place. Also, from the river, came a
great grunting of rhinoceroses.
In the morning, after having had our sleep, we crept back
to the fire. It was still smouldering, and the Fire-Men were
gone. We made a circle through the forest to make sure, and
then we ran to the fire. I wanted to see what it was like, and
between thumb and finger I picked up a glowing coal. My cry of
pain and fear, as I dropped it, stampeded Lop-Ear into the
trees, and his flight frightened me after him.
The next time we came back more cautiously, and we avoided
the glowing coals. We fell to imitating the Fire-Men. We
squatted down by the fire, and with heads bent forward on our
knees, made believe to sleep. Then we mimicked their speech,
talking to each other in their fashion and making a great
gibberish. I remembered seeing the wizened old hunter poke the
fire with a stick. I poked the fire with a stick, turning up
masses of live coals and clouds of white ashes. This was great
sport, and soon we were coated white with the ashes.
It was inevitable that we should imitate the Fire-Men in
replenishing the fire. We tried it first with small pieces of
wood. It was a success. The wood flamed up and crackled, and we
danced and gibbered with delight. Then we began to throw on
larger pieces of wood. We put on more and more, until we had a
mighty fire. We dashed excitedly back and forth, dragging dead
limbs and branches from out the forest. The flames soared
higher and higher, and the smoke-column out-towered the trees.
There was a tremendous snapping and crackling and roaring. It
was the most monumental work we had ever effected with our
hands, and we were proud of it. We, too, were Fire-Men, we
thought, as we danced there, white gnomes in the conflagration.
The dried grass and underbrush caught fire, but we did not
notice it. Suddenly a great tree on the edge of the open space
burst into flames.
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We looked at it with startled eyes. The heat of it drove
us back. Another tree caught, and another, and then half a
dozen. We were frightened. The monster had broken loose. We
crouched down in fear, while the fire ate around the circle and
hemmed us in. Into Lop-Ear's eyes came the plaintive look that
always accompanied incomprehension, and I know that in my eyes
must have been the same look. We huddled, with our arms around
each other, until the heat began to reach us and the odor of
burning hair was in our nostrils. Then we made a dash of it,
and fled away westward through the forest, looking back and
laughing as we ran.
By the middle of the day we came to a neck of land, made,
as we afterward discovered, by a great curve of the river that
almost completed a circle. Right across the neck lay bunched
several low and partly wooded hills. Over these we climbed,
looking backward at the forest which had become a sea of flame
that swept eastward before a rising wind. We continued to the
west, following the river bank, and before we knew it we were
in the midst of the abiding-place of the Fire People.
This abiding-place was a splendid strategic selection. It
was a peninsula, protected on three sides by the curving river.
On only one side was it accessible by land. This was the narrow
neck of the peninsula, and here the several low hills were a
natural obstacle. Practically isolated from the rest of the
world, the Fire People must have here lived and prospered for a
long time. In fact, I think it was their prosperity that was
responsible for the subsequent migration that worked such
calamity upon the Folk. The Fire People must have increased in
numbers until they pressed uncomfortably against the bounds of
their habitat. They were expanding, and in the course of their
expanding they drove the Folk before them, and settled down
themselves in the caves and occupied the territory that we had
occupied.
But Lop-Ear and I little dreamed of all this when we found
ourselves in the Fire People's stronghold. We had but one idea,
and that was to get away, though we could not forbear humoring
our curiosity by peeping out upon the village. For the first
time we saw the women and children of the Fire People. The
latter ran for the most part naked, though the former wore
skins of wild animals.
The Fire People, like ourselves, lived in caves. The open
space in front of the caves sloped down to the river, and in
the open space burned many small fires. But whether or not the
Fire People cooked their food, I do not know. Lop-Ear and I did
not see them cook. Yet it is my opinion that they surely must
have performed some sort of rude cookery. Like us, they carried
water in gourds from the river. There was much coming and
going, and loud cries made by the women and children. The
latter played about and cut up antics quite in the same way as
did the children of the Folk, and they more nearly resembled
the children of the Folk than did the grown Fire People
resemble the grown Folk.
Lop-Ear and I did not linger long. We saw some of the
part-grown boys shooting with bow and arrow, and we sneaked
back into the thicker forest and made our way to the river. And
there we found a catamaran, a real catamaran, one evidently
made by some Fire-Man. The two logs were small and straight,
and were lashed together by means of tough roots and
crosspieces of wood.
This time the idea occurred simultaneously to us. We were
trying to escape out of the Fire People's territory. What
better way than by crossing the river on these logs? We climbed
on board and shoved off. A sudden something gripped the
catamaran and flung it downstream violently against the bank.
The abrupt stoppage almost whipped us off into the water. The
catamaran was tied to a tree by a rope of twisted roots. This
we untied before shoving off again.
By the time we had paddled well out into the current, we
had drifted so far downstream that we were in full view of the
Fire People's abiding-place. So occupied were we with our
paddling, our eyes fixed upon the other bank, that we knew
nothing until aroused by a yell from the shore. We looked
around. There were the Fire People, many of them, looking at us
and pointing at us, and more were crawling out of the caves. We
sat up to watch, and forgot all about paddling. There was a
great hullabaloo on the shore. Some of the Fire-Men discharged
their bows at us, and a few of the arrows fell near us, but the
range was too great.
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It was a great day for Lop-Ear and me. To the east the
conflagration we had started was filling half the sky with
smoke. And here we were, perfectly safe in the middle of the
river, encircling the Fire People's stronghold. We sat and
laughed at them as we dashed by, swinging south, and southeast
to east, and even to northeast, and then east again, southeast
and south and on around to the west, a great double curve where
the river nearly tied a knot in itself.
As we swept on to the west, the Fire People far behind, a
familiar scene flashed upon our eyes. It was the great
drinking-place, where we had wandered once or twice to watch
the circus of the animals when they came down to drink. Beyond
it, we knew, was the carrot patch, and beyond that the caves
and the abiding-place of the horde. We began to paddle for the
bank that slid swiftly past, and before we knew it we were down
upon the drinking-places used by the horde. There were the
women and children, the water carriers, a number of them,
filling their gourds. At sight of us they stampeded madly up
the run-ways, leaving behind them a trail of gourds they had
dropped.
We landed, and of course we neglected to tie up the
catamaran, which floated off down the river. Right cautiously
we crept up a run-way. The Folk had all disappeared into their
holes, though here and there we could see a face peering out at
us. There was no sign of Red-Eye. We were home again. And that
night we slept in our own little cave high up on the cliff,
though first we had to evict a couple of pugnacious youngsters
who had taken possession.
CHAPTER XIV
The months came and went. The drama and tragedy of the
future were yet to come upon the stage, and in the meantime we
pounded nuts and lived. It--vas a good year, I remember, for
nuts. We used to fill gourds with nuts and carry them to the
pounding-places. We placed them in depressions in the rock,
and, with a piece of rock in our hands, we cracked them and ate
them as we cracked.
It was the fall of the year when Lop-Ear and I returned
from our long adventure-journey, and the winter that followed
was mild. I made frequent trips to the neighborhood of my old
home-tree, and frequently I searched the whole territory that
lay between the blueberry swamp and the mouth of the slough
where Lop-Ear and I had learned navigation, but no clew could I
get of the Swift One. She had disappeared. And I wanted her. I
was impelled by that hunger which I have mentioned, and which
was akin to physical hunger, albeit it came often upon me when
my stomach was full. But all my search was vain.
Life was not monotonous at the caves, however. There was
Red-Eye to be considered. Lop-Ear and I never knew a moment's
peace except when we were in our own little cave. In spite of
the enlargement of the entrance we had made, it was still a
tight squeeze for us to get in. And though from time to time we
continued to enlarge, it was still too small for Red-Eye's
monstrous body. But he never stormed our cave again. He had
learned the lesson well, and he carried on his neck a bulging
lump to show where I had hit him with the rock. This lump never
went away, and it was prominent enough to be seen at a
distance. I often took great delight in watching that evidence
of my handiwork; and sometimes, when I was myself assuredly
safe, the sight of it caused me to laugh.
While the other Folk would not have come to our rescue had
Red-Eye proceeded to tear Lop-Ear and me to pieces before their
eyes, nevertheless they sympathized with us. Possibly it was
not sympathy but the way they expressed their hatred for
Red-Eye; at any rate they always warned us of his approach.
Whether in the forest, at the drinking-places, or in the open
space before the caves, they were always quick to warn us. Thus
we had the advantage of many eyes in our feud with Red-Eye, the
atavism.
Once he nearly got me. It was early in the morning, and
the Folk were not yet up. The surprise was complete. I was cut
off from the way up the cliff to my cave. Before I knew it I
had dashed into the double-cave,--the cave where Lop-Ear had
first eluded me long years before, and where old Saber-Tooth
had come to discomfiture when he pursued the two Folk. By the
time I had got through the connecting passage between the two
caves, I discovered that Red-Eye was not following me. The next
moment he charged into the cave from the outside. I slipped
back through the passage, and he charged out and around and in
upon me again. I merely repeated my performance of slipping
through the passage.
He kept me there half a day before he gave up. After that,
when Lop-Ear and I were reasonably sure of gaining the
double-cave, we did not retreat up the cliff to our own cave
when Red-Eye came upon the scene. All we did was to keep an eye
on him and see that he