Лондон Джек. Before Adam

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.

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.





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.