The Story of Ab by Stanley Waterloo

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The bow was about Ab's shoulders instantly, and then this preposterous
young gentleman of the period turned to the woman and laughed, and caught
her in one of his arms a little closer, and drew her up against him and
laid his cheek against her own for a moment and drew it away and laughed
again. The kiss, it is believed, had not fully developed itself in the
cave man's time, but there were substitutes. Then, releasing her, he said
gleefully and chucklingly, "follow me;" and they clambered down the bole
of the beech together until they reached the biggest and very lowest limb
of all. It was perhaps twenty feet above the ground. A little below their
dangling feet the hungry bears, hitherto more patient, now, with their
expected prey so close at hand, becoming desperately excited, ran about,
frothing and foaming and red-eyed, uprearing themselves in awful
nearness, at times, in their eagerness to reach the prey which they had
so awaited and which, to their intelligence, seemed about falling into
their jaws. They had so driven into trees before, and finally consumed
exhausted cave men and women. As bears went, they were doubtless logical
animals. They could not know that there had come into possession of this
particular pair of creatures of the sort they had occasionally eaten, a
trifling thing of wood and sinew string and flint point, which was
destined henceforth to make a decided change in the relative condition of
the biped and quadruped hunters of the time. How could they know that
something small and sharp would fly down and sting them more deeply than
they had ever been stung before, that it would sting so deeply that their
arteries might be cut, or their hearts pierced and that then they must
lie down and die? The well-thrown spear had been, in other ages, a vast
surprise to the carnivora of the period, but there was something yet to
learn.

When they had reached the huge branch so near the ground both Ab and
Lightfoot were for a moment startled and lifted their feet instinctively,
but it was only for a moment in the case of the man. He knew that he was
perfectly safe and that he had with him an engine of death. He selected
his best and strongest arrow, he fitted it carefully to the string and
then, as his mother had done years before above the hyena which sought
her child, he reached one foot down as far as he could, and swung it back
and forth tantalizingly, just above the larger of the hungry beasts
below. The monster, fierce with hunger and the desire for prey, roared
aloud and upreared himself by the tree trunk and tore the bark with his
strong claws, throwing back his great head as he looked upward at the
quarry so near him and yet just beyond his reach. This was the man's
opportunity. Ab drew back the arrow till the flint head rested close by
his out-straining hand and the tough wood of the bow creaked under the
thrust of his muscled arm. Then he released the shaft. So close together
were man and bear that archer's skill of aim was not required. The brown
target could not be missed. The arrow struck with a tear and the flint
head drove through skin and tissue till its point protruded at the back
of the great brute's neck. The bear fell suddenly backward, then rose
again and reached blindly at its neck with its huge fore-paws, while from
where the arrow had entered the blood came out in spurts. Suddenly the
bear ceased its appalling roars and started for the cave. There had come
to it the instinct which makes such great beasts seek to die alone. It
rushed at the narrow entrance but its course was scarcely noted by the
couple in the tree. The other bear, the female, was seeking to reach them
in no less savage mood than had animated her stricken mate.

Not often, when the cave man first learned the use of the bow, came to
him such fortune with a first strong shot as that which had so come to
Ab. Again he selected a good arrow, again shot his strongest and best,
but the shaft only buried itself in the shoulder and served but to drive
to absolute madness the raging creature thus sorely hurt. The forest
echoed with the roaring of the infuriated animal, and as she reared
herself clambering against the tree the tough fiber was rended away in
great slivers, and the man and woman were glad that the trunk was thick
and that they owned a natural citadel. Again and again did Ab discharge
his arrows and still fail to reach a vital part of the terror below. She
fairly bristled with the shafts. It was inevitable that she must die, but
when the last shot had sped she was still infuriate and, apparently, as
strong as ever. The archer looked down upon her with some measure of
despondency in his face, but by no means with despair. He and his bride
must wait. That was all, and this he told to Lightfoot. That intelligent
and reliable young helpmate of a few hours, who had looked upon what had
occurred with an awed admiration, did not exhibit any depression. Her
husband, fortunate Benedict, had produced a great effect upon her by his
feat. She felt herself something like a queen. Had she known enough and
had the fancies of the Ruth of some thousands of decades later she would
have told him how completely thenceforth his people were her people and
his gods her gods.

The she bear became finally somewhat quieted; she tore less angrily at
the tree and made less of the terrible clamor which had for the moment
driven from the immediate region all the inmates of the wood, for none
save the cave tiger cared to be in the immediate neighborhood of the cave
bear. Her roars changed into roaring growls, and she wandered
staggeringly about. At last she started blindly and weakly toward the
forest, and just as she had passed beneath its shadow, paused, weaved
back and forth for a moment, and then fell over heavily. She was dead.

Not an action of the beast had escaped the eyes of Ab. Well he knew the
ways of wounded things. As the bear toppled over he gave utterance to a
whoop and, with a word to the girl beside him, slid lightly to the
ground, she following him at once. It was very good to be upon the earth
again. Ab stamped with his feet and stretched his arms, and the woman
danced upon the grass and laughed gleefully. But this was only for a
moment or so. Ab started toward the cave, and as he reached the entrance,
gave a great cry of rage and dismay. Lightfoot ran to his side and even
her ready laugh failed her when she looked upon his perplexed and stormy
countenance and saw what had happened. The rump of the monster he bear
was what she looked upon. The beast, in his instinctive effort to crawl
into some dark place to die, had fairly driven himself into the cave's
entrance, dislodging some of the stones Ab had placed there, had wedged
himself in firmly, and had died before he could extricate his great
carcass. The two human beings were homeless and, with all the arrows
gone, weaponless, in the midst of a region so dangerously infested that
any movement afoot was but inviting death. They were hungry, too, for
many hours had passed since they had tasted food. It was not matter of
surprise that even the stout-hearted cave man stood aghast.

The occasion for Ab's alarm was fully verified. From the spot where the
cave bear lay at the forest's edge came a sharp, snapping growl. The
lurking hyenas had found the food, and a long, inquiring howl from
another direction told that the wolves had scented it and were gathering.
For the instant Ab was himself almost helpless with fear. The woman was
simply nerveless. Then the man, so accustomed to physical danger,
recovered himself. He sprang forward, seized a stout fragment of limb
which might serve as a sort of weapon, and, turning to the woman, said
only the one word "fire."

Lightfoot understood and life came to her again. None in all the region
could make a fire more swiftly than she. Her quick eye detected just the
base she wanted in a punkish fragment of wood and the harder and pointed
bit of limb to be used in making the friction. In a time scarcely worth
the noting the point was whirling about and burning into the wooden base,
twirling with a skill and velocity not comprehensible by us to-day, for
the cave people had perfected wonderfully this greatest manual art of the
time, and Lightfoot, muscular and enduring, was, as already said, in this
thing the cleverest among the clever. Ab, with ready club in hand,
advanced cautiously toward the point at the wood's edge where lay the
body of the bear. He paused as he came near enough to see what was
happening. Four great hyenas were tearing eagerly at the flesh of the
dead brute, and behind them, deeper in the wood, were shining eyes, and
Ab knew that the wolf pack was gathering. The bear consumed, the man and
woman, without defense, would surely be devoured. It was a desperate
strait, but, though he was weaponless, there was the cave man's great
resort, the fire, and there might be a chance for life. To seek the tree
tops would be dangerous even now, and once ensconced in such harborage,
only starvation was awaiting. He moved back noiselessly, with as little
apparent motion as possible, for he did not want to attract the attention
of the gleaming eyes in the distance, until he came near Lightfoot again,
and then he abandoned caution of movement and began tearing frantically
at the limbs and debris of the great dead conifer, and to build a
semicircular fence in front of the cave entrance. He did the swift work
of half a score of men in his desperation and anxiety, his great strength
serving him well in his compelling strait.

Meanwhile the stick twirled and rasped in the hands of the brown woman
seated on the ground, and at last a tiny thread of smoke arose. The
continued friction had done its work. Deft himself at fire-making, Ab
knew just what was wanted at this moment and ran to his wife's side with
punk from the dead tree, rubbed to a powder in his hard hands. The
powder, poured gently down upon the point where the increasing heat had
brought the gleam of fire, burst, almost at once, into a little flame.
What followed was simple and easy. Dry twigs made the slight flame a
greater one and then, at a dozen different points, the wall which Ab had
built was fired. They were safe, for the time at least. Behind them was
the uprearing rock in which was the cave and before them, almost
encircling them completely, was the ring of fire which no wild beast
would cross. At one end, close to the rock, a space had been left by Ab,
that he and Lightfoot might, through it, reach the vast store of fuel
which lay there ready to the hand and so close that there was no danger
in visiting it. Hardly had the flame extended itself along the slight
wooden barrier than the whole wood and clearing resounded with terrifying
sounds. The wolf pack had increased until strong enough to battle with
the hyenas for the remainder of the feast in the wood, and their fight
was on.

The feeling of terror had passed away from this young bride and groom,
with the assurance of present safety, and Ab felt the need of eating.
"There is meat," he said, as he pointed toward the haunches of the bear,
half-protruding from the rock, "and there is fire. The fire will cook the
meat, and, besides, we are safe. We will eat!"

The bridegroom of but a day or two said this somewhat grandiloquently,
but he was not disposed to be vain or grandiloquent a little later. He
put his hand to the belt of his furry garb and found no sharp flint knife
there! It had been lost in his late tree clambering. He put his hand into
the pouch of his cloak and found only the flint skin scraper, the scraper
with which he had improved the arrow's notch, though it was not
originally intended for such use. It was all that remained to him of
weapon or utensil. But it would cut or tear, though with infinite effort,
and the man, to reassure the woman, laughed, and assailed the brown
haunch before him. Even with his strength, it was difficult for Ab to
penetrate the tough skin of the bear with an implement intended for
scraping, not for cutting, and it was only after he had finally cut, or
rather dug, away enough to enable him to get his fingers under the skin
and tear away an area of it by sheer main strength that the flesh was
made available. That end once attained, there followed a hard transverse
digging with the scraper, a grasp about tissue of strong, impressed
fingers, and a shred of flesh came away. It was tossed at once to a young
person who, long twig in hand, stood eagerly waiting. She caught the
shred as she had caught the fine bit of mammoth when first she and Ab had
met, and it was at once impaled and thrust into the flames. It was
withdrawn, it is to be feared, a trifle underdone, and then it
disappeared, as did other shreds of excellent bear's meat which came
following. It was a sight for a dyspeptic to note the eating of this
belle-matron of the region on this somewhat exceptional occasion.

Strip after strip did Ab tear away and toss to his wife until the
expression on her face became a shade more peaceful and then it dawned
upon him that she was eating and that he was not. There was clamor in his
stomach. He sprang away from the bear, gave Lightfoot the scraper and
commanded her to get food for him as he had done for her. The girl
complied and did as well as had done the man in digging away the meat. He
ate as she had done, and, at last, partly gorged and content, allowed her
to take her place at the fire and again eat to his serving. He had shown
what, from the standard of the time, must be counted as most gallant and
generous and courteous demeanor. He had thought a little of the woman.

A tiny rill of cold water trickled down on one side of the outer door of
their cave. With this their thirst was slaked, and they ate and ate. The
shadows lengthened and Ab replenished again and again the fire. From the
semicircle of forest all about came the sound of footsteps rustling in
the leaves. But the two people inside the fire fence, hungry no longer,
were content. Ab talked to his wife:

"The fire will keep the man-eating things away," he said. "I ran not long
ago with things behind me, and I would have been eaten had I not come
upon a ring of fire like the one we have made. I leaped it and the eaters
could not reach me. But, for the fire I leaped there was no wood. It came
out of a crack in the ground. Some day we will go there and I will show
you that thing which is so strange."

The woman listened, delighted, but, at last, there was a nodding of the
head. She lay back upon the grass a sleepy being. Ab looked at her and
thought deeply. Where was safety? As they were, one of them must be awake
all the time to keep the fire replenished. Until he could enter the cave
again he must be weaponless. Only the fire could protect the two. They
had heat and food and nothing to fear for the moment, but they must
fairly eat their way into a safety which would be permanent!

He kept the fire alight far into the darkness, and then, piling the fuel
high all along the line of defense, he aroused the sleeping woman and
told her she must keep the flames bright while he slept in his turn. She
was just the wife for such an emergency as this, and rose uncomplainingly
to do her part of the guarding work. From the forest all about came
snarling sounds or threatening growls, and eyes blazed in the somber
depths beneath the trees. There were hungry things out there and they
wanted to eat a man and woman, but fire they feared. The woman was not
afraid.

After hours had passed the man awoke and took the woman's place and she
slept in his stead. Morning came and the sounds from the forest died away
partly, but the man and woman knew of the fierce creatures still lurking
there. They knew what was before them. They must delve and eat their way
into the cave as soon as possible.

Ab scraped at the bear's huge body with his inefficient bit of flint and
dug away food in abundance, which he heaped up in a little red mound
inside the fire, but the bear was a monstrous beast and it was a long way
from tail to head. The days of the honeymoon passed with a degree of
travail, for there was no moment when one of the two must not be awake
feeding the guarding fire or digging at the bear. They ate still heartily
on the second day but it is simple, truthful history to admit that on the
sixth day bear's meat palled somewhat on the happy couple. To have eaten
thirty quails in thirty days or, at a pinch, thirty quails in two days
would have been nothing to either of them, but bear's meat eaten as part
of what might be called a tunneling exploit ceased, finally, to possess
an attractive flavor. There was a degree of shade cast by all these
obtrusive circumstances across this honeymoon, but there came a day and
hour when the bear was largely eaten, and fairly dug away as to much of
the rest of him, and then, quite suddenly, his head and fore-quarters
toppled forward into the cave, leaving the passage free, and when Ab and
Lightfoot followed, one shouting and the other laughing, one coming again
to his fortress and his weapons and his power, and the other to her
hearth and duties.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FIRE COUNTRY AGAIN.

The sun rose brightly the next morning and when Ab, armed and watchful,
rolled the big stone away and passed the smoldering fire and issued from
the cave into the open, the scene he looked upon was fair in every way.
Of what had been left of the great bear not a trace remained. Even the
bones had been dragged into the forest by the ravening creatures who had
fed there during the night. There were birds singing and there were no
enemies in sight. Ab called to Lightfoot and the two went forth together,
loving and brave, but no longer careless in that too interesting region.

And so began the home life of these two people. It was, in its way and
relatively, as sweet and delicious as the first home life of any loving
and appreciating man and woman of to-day. The two were very close, as the
conditions under which they lived demanded. They were the only human
beings within a radius of miles. The family of the cave man of the time
was serenely independent, each having its own territory, and depending
upon itself for its existence. And the two troubled themselves about
nothing. Who better than they could daily win the means of animal
subsistence?

Ab taught Lightfoot the art of cracking away the flakes of the flint
nodules and of the finer chipping and rasping which made perfect the
spear and arrowheads, and never was pupil swifter in the learning. He
taught her, too, the use of his new weapon, and in all his life he did no
wiser thing! It was not long before she became easily his superior with
the bow, so far as her strength would allow, and her strength was far
from insignificant. Her arrows flew with greater accuracy than his,
though the buzzing shaft had not as yet, and did not have for many
centuries later, the "gray goose" feather which made the doing of its
mission far more certain. Lightfoot brought to the cave the capercailzie
and willow grouse and other birds which were good things for the larder,
and Ab looked on admiringly. Even in their joint hunting, when there was
a half rivalry, he was happy in her. Somehow, the arrow sang more merrily
when it flew from Lightfoot's bow.

Better than Ab, too, could the young wife do rare climbing when in a nest
far out upon some branch were eggs good for roasting and which could be
reached only by a light-weight. And she learned the woods about them
well, and, though ever dreading when alone, found where were the trees
from which fell the greatest store of nuts and where, in the mud along
the river's side, her long and highly educated toes could reach the clams
which were excellent to feed upon.

But never did the hunter leave the cave without a fear. Ever, even in the
daytime, was there too much rustling among the leaves of the near forest.
Ever when day had gone was there the sound of padded feet on the sward
about the cave's blocked entrance. Ever, at night, looking out through
the narrow space between the heaped rocks, could the two inside the cave
see fierce and blazing eyes and there would come to them the sound of
snarls and growls as the beasts of different quality met one another. Yet
the two cared little for these fearful surroundings of the darkness. They
were safe enough. In the morning there were no signs of the lurking
beasts of prey. They were somewhere near, though, and waiting, and so Ab
and Lightfoot had the strain of constant watchfulness upon them.

It may be that because of this ever present peril the two grew closer
together. It could not well be otherwise with human beings thus bound and
isolated and facing and living upon the rest of nature, part of it
seeking always their own lives. They became a wonderfully loving couple,
as love went in that rude time. Despite the too wearing outlook imposed
upon them, because they were in so dangerous a locality, they were very
happy. Yet, one day, came a difference and a hurt.

Oak, apparently forgotten by others, was remembered by Ab, though never
spoken of. Sometimes the man had tossed upon his bed of leaves and had
muttered in his sleep, and the one word he had most often spoken in this
troubled dreaming was the name of Oak. Early in their married life
Lightfoot, to whom the memory of the dead man, so little had she known
him, was a far less haunting thing than to her husband, had suddenly
broken a silence, saying "Where is Oak?" There was no answer, but the
look of the man of whom she had asked the question was such that she was
glad to creep from his sight unharmed. Yet once again, months later, she
forgot herself and mocked Ab when he had been boastful over some exploit
of strength and courage and when he had seemed to say that he knew no
fear. She, but to tease him, sprang up with a face convulsed and
agonized, and with staring eyes and hands opening and shutting, had cried
out "Oak! Oak!" as she had seen Ab do at night. Her mimic terror was
changed on the moment into reality. With a shudder and then with a glare
in his eyes the man leaped toward her, snatching his great ax from his
belt and swinging it above her head. The woman shrieked and shrank to the
ground. The man whirled the weapon aloft and then, his face twitching
convulsively, checked its descent. He may, in that moment, have thought
of what followed the slaying of the other who had been close to him.
There was no death done, but, thenceforth, Lightfoot never uttered aloud
the name of Oak. She became more sedate and grave of bearing.

The episode was but a passing, though not a forgotten one in the lives of
the two. The months went by and there were tranquil hours in the cave as,
at night, the weapons were shaped, and Lightfoot boasted of the
arrowheads she had learned to make so well. Sometimes Old Mok would be
rowed up the river to them by the sturdy and venturesome Bark, who had
grown into a particularly fine youth and who now cared for nothing more
than his big brother's admiration. Between Old Mok and Lightfoot, to Ab's
great delight, grew up the warmest friendship. The old man taught the
woman more of the details of good arrow-making and all he knew of
woodcraft in all ways, and the lord of the place soon found his wife
giving opinions with an air of the utmost knowledge and authority.
Whatever came to him from her and Old Mok pleased him, and when she told
him of some of the finer points of arrow-making he stretched out his
brawny arms and laughed.

But there came, in time, a shade upon the face of the man. The incident
of the talk of Oak may have brought to his mind again more freshly and
keenly the memory of the Fire Country. There he had found safety and
great comfort. Why should not he and Lightfoot seize upon this home and
live there? It was a wonderful place and warm, and there were forests at
hand. He became so absorbed in his own thoughts on this great theme that
the woman who was his could not understand his mood, but, one day, he
told her of what he had been thinking and of what he had resolved upon.
"I am going to the Fire Country," he said.

Armed, this time with spear and ax and bow and arrow, and with food
abundant in the pouch of his skin garb, Ab left the cave in which
Lightfoot was now to stay most of the time, well barricaded, for that she
was to hunt afar alone in such a region was not even to be thought of.
What thoughts came to the man as he traversed again the forest paths
where he had so pondered as he once ran before can be but guessed at.
Certainly he had learned no more of Oak.

Lightfoot, left alone in the cave, became at once a most discreet and
careful personage, for one of her buoyant and daring temperament. She had
often taken risks since her marriage, but there was always the chance of
finding within the sound of her voice her big mate, Ab, should danger
overtake her. She remained close to the cave, and when early dusk came
she lugged the stone barriers into place and built a night-fire within
the entrance. The fierce and hungry beasts of the wood came, as usual,
lurking and sniffing harshly about the entrance, and when she ventured
there and peered outside she saw the wicked and leering eyes. Alone and a
little alarmed, she became more vengeful than she would have been with
the big, careless Ab beside her. She would have sport with her bow. The
advantage of the bow is that it requires no swing of space for its work
as is demanded of the flung spear. An arrow may be sent through a mere
loophole with no probable demerit as to what it will accomplish. So the
woman brought her strongest bow--and far beyond the rough bow of Ab's
first make was the bow they now possessed--and gathered together many of
the arrows she could make so well and use so well, and, thus equipped,
went again to the cave's entrance, and through the space between the
heaped rocks of the doorway sent toward the eyes of wolf, or cave hyena,
shafts to which they were unaccustomed, but which, somehow, pierced and
could find mid-body quite as well as the cave man's spear. There was a
certain comfort in the work, though it could not affect her condition in
one way or another. It was only something of a gain to drive the eyes
away.

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