Лондон Джек. Before Adam

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.

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.





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.





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.



CHAPTER XVI



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

I stood still for some time. The sight of her had made me
very happy. And then an unrest and a pain began to creep in on
this happiness. I started to climb the tree after her, and she
retreated slowly out the limb. Just as I reached for her, she
sprang through the air and landed in the branches of the next