Lop-Ear got married. It was
the second winter after our adventure-journey,
and it was most unexpected. He
gave me no warning. The first
I knew was one twilight when
I climbed the cliff to our cave.
I squeezed into the entrance
and there I stopped. There was
no room for me. Lop-Ear and his
mate were in possession, and
she was none other than my sister,
the daughter of my step-father,
the Chatterer.
I tried to force my way in.
There was space only for two,
and that space was already occupied.
Also, they had me at a disadvantage,
and, what of the scratching and
hair-pulling I received, I was
glad to retreat. I slept that
night, and for many nights, in
the connecting passage of the
double-cave. From my experience
it seemed reasonably safe. As
the two Folk had dodged old Saber-Tooth,
and as I had dodged Red-Eye,
so it seemed to me that I could
dodge the hunting animals by
going back and forth between
the two caves.
I had forgotten the wild dogs.
They were small enough to go
through any passage that I could
squeeze through. One night they
nosed me out. Had they entered
both caves at the same time they
would have got me. As it was,
followed by some of them through
the passage, I dashed out the
mouth of the other cave. Outside
were the rest of the wild dogs.
They sprang for me as I sprang
for the cliff-wall and began
to climb. One of them, a lean
and hungry brute, caught me in
mid-leap. His teeth sank into
my thigh-muscles, and he nearly
dragged me back. He held on,
but I made no effort to dislodge
him, devoting my whole effort
to climbing out of reach of the
rest of the brutes.
Not until I was safe from them
did I turn my attention to that
live agony on my thigh. And then,
a dozen feet above the snapping
pack that leaped and scrambled
against the wall and fell back,
I got the dog by the throat and
slowly throttled him. I was a
long time doing it. He clawed
and ripped my hair and hide with
his hind-paws, and ever he jerked
and lunged with his weight to
drag me from the wall.
At last his teeth opened and
released my torn flesh. I carried
his body up the cliff with me,
and perched out the night in
the entrance of my old cave,
wherein were Lop-Ear and my sister.
But first I had to endure a storm
of abuse from the aroused horde
for being the cause of the disturbance.
I had my revenge. From time to
time, as the noise of the pack
below eased down, I dropped a
rock and started it up again.
Whereupon, from all around, the
abuse of the exasperated Folk
began afresh. In the morning
I shared the dog with Lop-Ear
and his wife, and for several
days the three of us were neither
vegetarians nor fruitarians.
Lop-Ear's marriage was not
a happy one, and the consolation
about it is that it did not last
very long. Neither he nor I was
happy during that period. I was
lonely. I suffered the inconvenience
of being cast out of my safe
little cave, and somehow I did
not make it up with any other
of the young males. I suppose
my long-continued chumming with
Lop-Ear had become a habit.
I might have married, it is
true; and most likely I should
have married had it not been
for the dearth of females in
the horde. This dearth, it is
fair to assume, was caused by
the exorbitance of Red-Eye, and
it illustrates the menace he
was to the existence of the horde.
Then there was the Swift One,
whom I had not forgotten.
At any rate, during the period
of Lop-Ear's marriage I knocked
about from pillar to post, in
danger every night that I slept,
and never comfortable. One of
the Folk died, and his widow
was taken into the cave of another
one of the Folk. I took possession
of the abandoned cave, but it
was wide-mouthed, and after Red-Eye
nearly trapped me in it one day,
I returned to sleeping in the
passage of the double-cave. During
the summer, however, I used to
stay away from the caves for
weeks, sleeping in a tree-shelter
I made near the mouth of the
slough.
I have said that Lop-Ear was
not happy. My sister was the
daughter of the Chatterer, and
she made Lop-Ear's life miserable
for him. In no other cave was
there so much squabbling and
bickering. If Red-Eye was a Bluebeard,
Lop-Ear was hen-pecked; and I
imagine that Red-Eye was too
shrewd ever to covet Lop-Ear's
wife.
Fortunately for Lop-Ear, she
died. An unusual thing happened
that summer. Late, almost at
the end of it, a second crop
of the stringy-rooted carrots
sprang up. These unexpected second-crop
roots were young and juicy and
tender, and for some time the
carrot-patch was the favorite
feeding-place of the horde. One
morning, early, several score
of us were there making our breakfast.
On one side of me was the Hairless
One. Beyond him were his father
and son, old Marrow-Bone and
Long-Lip. On the other side of
me were my sister and Lop-Ear,
she being next to me.
There was no warning. On the
sudden, both the Hairless One
and my sister sprang and screamed.
At the same instant I heard the
thud of the arrows that transfixed
them. The next instant they were
down on the ground, floundering
and gasping, and the rest of
us were stampeding for the trees.
An arrow drove past me and entered
the ground, its feathered shaft
vibrating and oscillating from
the impact of its arrested flight.
I remember clearly how I swerved
as I ran, to go past it, and
that I gave it a needlessly wide
berth. I must have shied at it
as a horse shies at an object
it fears.
Lop-Ear took a smashing fall
as he ran beside me. An arrow
had driven through the calf of
his leg and tripped him. He tried
to run, but was tripped and thrown
by it a second time. He sat up,
crouching, trembling with fear,
and called to me pleadingly.
I dashed back. He showed me the
arrow. I caught hold of it to
pull it out, but the consequent
hurt made him seize my hand and
stop me. A flying arrow passed
between us. Another struck a
rock, splintered, and fell to
the ground. This was too much.
I pulled, suddenly, with all
my might. Lop-Ear screamed as
the arrow came out, and struck
at me angrily. But the next moment
we were in full flight again.
I looked back. Old Marrow-Bone,
deserted and far behind, was
tottering silently along in his
handicapped race with death.
Sometimes he almost fell, and
once he did fall; but no more
arrows were coming. He scrambled
weakly to his feet. Age burdened
him heavily, but he did not want
to die. The three Fire-Men, who
were now running forward from
their forest ambush, could easily
have got him, but they did not
try. Perhaps he was too old and
tough. But they did want the
Hairless One and my sister, for
as I looked back from the trees
I could see the Fire-Men beating
in their heads with rocks. One
of the Fire-Men was the wizened
old hunter who limped.
We went on through the trees
toward the caves--an excited
and disorderly mob that drove
before it to their holes all
the small life of the forest,
and that set the blue-jays screaming
impudently. Now that there was
no immediate danger, Long-Lip
waited for his grand-father,
Marrow-Bone; and with the gap
of a generation between them,
the old fellow and the youth
brought up our rear.
And so it was that Lop-Ear
became a bachelor once more.
That night I slept with him in
the old cave, and our old life
of chumming began again. The
loss of his mate seemed to cause
him no grief. At least he showed
no signs of it, nor of need for
her. It was the wound in his
leg that seemed to bother him,
and it was all of a week before
he got back again to his old
spryness.
Marrow-Bone was the only old
member in the horde. Sometimes,
on looking back upon him, when
the vision of him is most clear,
I note a striking resemblance
between him and the father of
my father's gardener. The gardener's
father was very old, very wrinkled
and withered; and for all the
world, when he peered through
his tiny, bleary eyes and mumbled
with his toothless gums, he looked
and acted like old Marrow-Bone.
This resemblance, as a child,
used to frighten me. I always
ran when I saw the old man tottering
along on his two canes. Old Marrow-Bone
even had a bit of sparse and
straggly white beard that seemed
identical with the whiskers of
the old man.
As I have said, Marrow-Bone
was the only old member of the
horde. He was an exception. The
Folk never lived to old age.
Middle age was fairly rare. Death
by violence was the common way
of death. They died as my father
had died, as Broken-Tooth had
died, as my sister and the Hairless
One had just died--abruptly and
brutally, in the full possession
of their faculties, in the full
swing and rush of life. Natural
death? To die violently was the
natural way of dying in those
days.
No one died of old age among
the Folk. I never knew of a case.
Even Marrow-Bone did not die
that way, and he was the only
one in my generation who had
the chance. A bad rippling, any
serious accidental or temporary
impairment of the faculties,
meant swift death. As a rule,
these deaths were not witnessed.
Members of the horde simply
dropped out of sight. They left
the caves in the morning, and
they never came back. They disappeared--into
the ravenous maws of the hunting
creatures.
This inroad of the Fire People
on the carrot-patch was the beginning
of the end, though we did not
know it. The hunters of the Fire
People began to appear more frequently
as the time went by. They came
in twos and threes, creeping
silently through the forest,
with their flying arrows able
to annihilate distance and bring
down prey from the top of the
loftiest tree without themselves
climbing into it. The bow and
arrow was like an enormous extension
of their leaping and striking
muscles, so that, virtually,
they could leap and kill at a
hundred feet and more. This made
them far more terrible than Saber-Tooth
himself. And then they were very
wise. They had speech that enabled
them more effectively to reason,
and in addition they understood
cooperation.
We Folk came to be very circumspect
when we were in the forest. We
were more alert and vigilant
and timid. No longer were the
trees a protection to be relied
upon. No longer could we perch
on a branch and laugh down at
our carnivorous enemies on the
ground. The Fire People were
carnivorous, with claws and fangs
a hundred feet long, the most
terrible of all the hunting animals
that ranged the primeval world.
One morning, before the Folk
had dispersed to the forest,
there was a panic among the water-carriers
and those who had gone down to
the river to drink. The whole
horde fled to the caves. It was
our habit, at such times, to
flee first and investigate afterward.
We waited in the mouths of our
caves and watched. After some
time a Fire-Man stepped cautiously
into the open space. It was the
little wizened old hunter. He
stood for a long time and watched
us, looking our caves and the
cliff-wall up and down. He descended
one of the run-ways to a drinking-place,
returning a few minutes later
by another run-way. Again he
stood and watched us carefully,
for a long time. Then he turned
on his heel and limped into the
forest, leaving us calling querulously
and plaintively to one another
from the cave-mouths.
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