The Story of Ab by Stanley Waterloo

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Not long to wait had the cave man, but the men who had been with him were
already distant. The shadows were growing long now, but the light was
still from the sunshine of the early afternoon. The man lying along the
limb, knife in hand, could hear no sound save the soft swish of leaves
against each other as the breeze of later day pushed its way through the
forest, or the alarmed cries of knowing birds who saw on the ground
beneath them a huge thing slip along with scarce a sound from the impact
of his fearfully clawed but padded feet as he sought the meal he had
prepared for himself. The great beast was approaching. The great man
aloft was waiting.

Into the open along the path came the tiger, and Ab, gripping the limb
more firmly, looked down upon the thing so closely and in daylight for
the first time in his life. Ab was certainly brave, and he was calm and
wise and thinking beyond his time, but when he saw plainly this beast
which had slipped so easily and silently from the forest, safe though he
was upon his perch, he was more than startled. The thing was so huge and
with an aspect so terrible to look upon!

The great cat's head moved slowly from side to side; the baleful eyes
blazed up and down the pathway and the tawny muzzle was lifted to catch
what burden there might be on the air. The beast seemed satisfied,
emerging fairly into the sunlight. Immense of size but with the graceful
lankness of the tigers of to-day, Sabre-Tooth somewhat resembled them,
though, beside him, the largest inmate of the Indian jungle would appear
but puny. The creature Ab looked upon that day so long ago was beautiful,
in his way. He was beautiful as is the peacock or the banded rattlesnake.
There were color contrasts and fine blendings. The stripes upon him were
wonderfully rich, and as he came creeping toward the body, he was as
splendid as he was dreadful.

With every nerve strained, but with his first impulse of something like
terror gone, Ab watched the devourer beneath him while his sharp flint
knife, hard gripped, bore lightly against the taut rhinoceros-hide rope.
The tiger began his ghastly meal but was not quite beneath the suspended
spear. Then came some distant sound in the forest and he raised his head
and shifted his position.

[Illustration: UPON THE STRONG SHAFT OF ASH THE MONSTER WAS IMPALED]

He was fairly under the spear now. The knife pressed firmly against the
rawhide was drawn back and forth noiselessly but with effectiveness.
Suddenly the last tissue parted and the enormously weighted spear fell
like a lightning-stroke. The broad flint head struck the tiger fairly
between the shoulders, and, impelled by such a weight, passed through his
huge body as if it had met no obstacle. Upon the strong shaft of ash the
monster was impaled. There echoed and reechoed through the forest a roar
so fearful that even the hunters whom Ab had sent far away from the scene
of the tragedy clambered to the trees for refuge. The struggles of the
pierced brute were tremendous beyond description, but no strength could
avail it now; it had received its death wound and soon the great tiger
lay still, as harmless as the squirrel, frightened and hidden in his
nest. In wild triumph Ab slid to the ground and then the long cry to
summon his party went echoing through the wood. When the others found him
he had withdrawn the spear and was already engaged, flint knife in hand,
in stripping from the huge body the glorious robe it wore.

There was excitement and rejoicing. The terror had been slain! The Shell
People were frantic in their exultation. Meanwhile Ab had called upon his
own people to assist him and the wonderful skin of the tiger was soon
stretched out upon the ground, a glorious possession for a cave man.

"I will have half of it," declared Boarface, and he and Ab faced each
other menacingly. "It shall not be cut," was the fierce retort. "It is
mine. I killed the tiger!"

Strong hands gripped stone axes and there was chance of deadly fray then
and there, but the Shell People interfered and the Shell People excelled
in number, and were a potent influence for peace. Ab carried away the
splendid trophy, but as Boarface and his men departed, there were black
faces and threatening words.

CHAPTER XXVII.

LITTLE MOK.

Among all the children of Ab--and remarkable it was for the age--the best
loved was Little Mok, the eldest son. When the child, strong and joyous,
was scarcely two years old, he fell from a ledge off the cliff where he
had climbed to play, and both his legs were broken. Strange to say he
survived the accident in that time when the law of the survival of the
fittest was almost invariable in its sternest and most purely physical
demonstration. The mother love of Lightfoot warded off the last pitiless
blow of nature, although the child, a hopeless cripple, never after
walked. The name Little Mok was naturally given him, and before long the
child had won the heart, as well as the name, of the limping old maker of
axes, spearheads and arrows.

The closer ties of family life, as we know them now, existed but in their
outlines to the cave man. The man and woman were faithful to each other
with the fidelity of the higher animals and their children were cared for
with rough tenderness in their infancy. The time of absolute dependence
was made very short, though, and children very early were required to
find some of their own food, and taught by necessity to protect
themselves. But Little Mok, unable to take up for himself the burden of
an independent existence, was not slain nor left to die of neglect as
might have been another child thus crippled in the time in which he
lived. He, once spared, grew into the wild hearts of those closest to him
and became the guarded and cherished one of the rude home of Ab and
Lightfoot, and to him was thus given the continuous love and care which
the strong-limbed boys and girls of the family lost and never missed.

It was a strange thing for the time. The child had qualities other than
the negative ones of helplessness and weakness with which to bind to him
the hearts of those around him, but the primary fact of his entire
dependence upon them was what made him the center of the little circle of
untaught, untamed cave people who lived in the Fire Valley. He may have
been the first child ever so cherished from such impulse.

From his mother the child inherited a joyous disposition which nothing
could subdue. Often on the return home from some little expedition on
which it had been practicable to take him, sitting on Lightfoot's
shoulder, or on the still stronger arm of old One-Ear, his silent,
somewhat brooding grandfather, the little brown boy made the woods ring
with shrill bird calls, or the mimicry of animals, and ever his laughter
filled the spaces in between these sounds. Other children flocked around
the merry youngster, seeking to emulate his play of voice and the
oldsters smiled as they saw and heard the joyous confusion about the tiny
reveler. The excursions to the river were Little Mok's chief delight from
his early childhood. He entered into the preparations for them with a
zest and keen enjoyment born of the presence of an adventurous spirit in
a maimed body, and when the fishing party left the Fire Camp it was
incomplete if Little Mok was not carried lightly at the van, the life and
joy of the occasion.

No one ever forgot the day when Little Mok, then about six years old,
caught his first fish. His joy and pride infected all as he exhibited his
prize and boasted of what he would catch in the river next, and when, on
the return, Old Mok saluted him as the "Great Fisherman," the elf's
elation became too great for any expression. His little chest heaved, his
eyes flashed, and then he wriggled from Lightfoot's arms into the lap of
Old Mok, snuggled down into the old man's furs and hid his face there;
and the two understood each other.

It was soon after this great event of the first fish-catching that
Red-Spot, Ab's mother, died. She had never quite adapted herself to the
new life in the Fire Valley, and after a time she began to grow old very
fast. At last a fever attacked her and the end of her patient, busy life
came. After her death One-Ear was much in Old Mok's cave, the two had so
long been friends. There with them the crippled boy was often to be
found. He was not always gay and joyous. Sometimes he lay for days on his
bed of leaves at home, in weakness and pain, silent and unlike himself.
Then when Lightfoot's care had given him back a little strength, he would
beg to be taken to Old Mok's cave. There he could sleep, he said, away
from the noise and the lights of the outside world, and finally he
claimed and was allowed a nest of his own in the warmest and darkest nook
of Old Mok's den, where he slept every night, and sometimes a good part
of the day, when one of his times of pain and weakness was upon him. Here
during many a long hour of work, experiment and argument, the wide eyes
and quick ears of Little Mok saw and heard, while Ab, Mok and One-Ear
bent over their work at arrowhead or spear point, and talked of what
might be done to improve the weapons upon which so much depended. Here,
when no one else remained in the weary darkness of night and the half
light of stormy days Old Mok beguiled the time with stories, and
sometimes in a hoarse voice even attempted to chant to his little hearer
snatches of the wild singing tales of the Shell People, for the Shell
People had a sort of story song.

Once, when Lightfoot sat by Old Mok's fire, she told them of the time
when she and Ab found themselves outside their cave, unarmed, with a bear
to be eaten through before they could get into their door, and Little Mok
surprised his mother and Old Mok by an outburst of laughter at the tale.
He had a glimmering of humor, and saw the droll side of the adventure, a
view which had not occurred to Lightfoot, nor to Ab. The little lad, of
the world, yet not in it, saw vaguely the surprises, lights and shades
and contrasts of existence, and sometimes they made him laugh. The laugh
of the cave man was not a common event, and when it came was likely to be
sober and sardonic, at least it was so when not simply an evidence of
rude health and high animal spirits. Humor is one of the latest, as it is
one of the most precious, grains shaken out of Time's hour-glass, but
Little Mok somehow caught a tiny bit of the rainbow gift, long before its
time in the world, and soon, with him, it was to disappear for centuries
to come.

One day when Little Mok was brought back from an expedition to the river,
he told Old Mok how he had sat long on the bank, too tired to fish, and
had just rested and feasted his eyes on the wood, the stream, the small
darting creatures in it, the birds, and the animals which came to drink.
Describing a herd of reindeer which had passed near him, Little Mok took
up a piece of Old Mok's red chalkstone and on the wall of the cave drew a
picture of the animal. The veteran stared in surprise. The picture was
wonderfully life-like in grasp and detail. The child owned that great
gift, the memory of sight, and his hand was cunning. Encouraged by his
success, the boy drew on, delighting Old Mok with his singular fidelity
and skill. Then came hours and days of sketching and etching in the old
man's cave. The master was delighted. He brought out from their hiding
places his choicest pieces of mammoth tusk or teeth of the river-horse
for Little Mok's etchings and carvings. And, as time passed, the young
artist excelled the old one, and became the pride and boast of his friend
and teacher. Sometimes the little lad would work far into the night, for
he could not pause when he had begun a thing until it was complete--but
then he would sleep in his warm nest until noon the next day, crawling
out to cook a bit of meat for himself at the nearest fire, or sharing Old
Mok's meal, as was more convenient.

While everything else in the Fire Valley was growing, developing and
flourishing, Little Mok's frail body had ever grown but slowly, and about
the beginning of his twelfth year there appeared a change in him. He
became permanently weak and grew more and more helpless day by day. His
cherished excursions to the river, even his little journeys on old
One-Ear's strong arm to the cliff top, from whence he could see the whole
world at once, had all to be abandoned.

When the winter snows began to whirl in the air Little Mok was lying
quietly on his bed, his great eyes looking wistfully up at Lightfoot, who
in vain taxed her limited skill and resources to tempt him to eat and
become more sturdy. She hovered over him like a distressed mother bird
over its youngling fallen from the nest, but, with all her efforts, she
could not bring back even his usual slight measure of health and strength
to the poor Little Mok. Ab came sometimes and looked sadly at the two and
then walked moodily away, a great weight on his breast. Old Mok was
always at work, and yet always ready to give Little Mok water or turn his
weary little frame on its rude bed, or spread the furs over the wasted
body, and always Lightfoot waited and hoped and feared.

And at last Little Mok died, and was buried under the stones, and the
snow fell over the lonely cairn under the fir trees outside the Fire
Valley where his grave was made.

Lightfoot was silent and sad, and could not smile nor laugh any more. She
longed for Little Mok, and did not eat or sleep. One night Ab, trying to
comfort her, said, "You will see him again."

"What do you mean?" cried Lightfoot. And Ab only answered, "You will see
him; he will come at night. Go to sleep, and you will see him."

But Lightfoot could not sleep yet and for many a night her eyes closed
only when extreme fatigue compelled sleep toward the morning.

And at last, after many days and nights, Lightfoot, when asleep, saw
Little Mok. Just as in life, she saw him, with all his familiar looks and
motions. But he did not stay long. And again and again she saw him, and
it comforted her somewhat because he smiled. There had come to her such a
heartache about him, lying out there under the snow and stones, with no
one to care for him, that the smile warmed her heavy heart and she told
Ab that she had seen Little Mok, only whispering it to him--for it was
not well, she knew, to talk about such things--and she whispered to Ab,
too, her anguish that Little Mok only came at night, and never when it
was day, but she did not complain. She only said: "I want to see him in
the daytime."

And Ab could think of nothing to say. But that made him think more and
more. He felt drawn closer to Lightfoot, his wife, no longer a young
girl, but the mother of Little Mok, who was dead, and of all his
children.

In his mind arose, vaguely obscure, yet persistent, the idea that brute
strength and vigor, keen senses and reckless bravery were not, after all,
the sole qualities that make and influence men. Old Mok, crippled and
disabled for the hunt and defense, was nevertheless a power not to be
despised, and Little Mok, the helpless child, had been still strong
enough to win and keep the love of all the stalwart and rough cave
people. Ab was sorry for Lightfoot. When in the spring the forlorn mother
held in her arms a baby girl a little brightness came into her eyes
again, and Ab, seeing this, was glad, but neither Ab nor Lightfoot ever
forgot their eldest and dearest, Little Mok.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE BATTLE OF THE BARRIERS.

While Ab had been occupied by home affairs trouble for him and his people
had been brewing. By no means unknown to each other before the tiger hunt
were Ab and Boarface. They had hunted together and once Boarface, with
half a dozen companions, had visited the Fire Valley and had noted its
many attractions and advantages. Now Boarface had gone away angry and
muttering, and he was not a man to be thought of lightly. His rage over
the memory of Ab's trophy did not decrease with the return to his own
region. Why should this cave man of the West have sole possession of that
valley, which was warm and green throughout the winter and where the wild
beasts could not enter? Why had he, this Ab, been allowed to go away with
all the tiger's skin? Brooding enlarged into resolve and Boarface
gathered together his relations and adherents. "Let us go and take the
Fire Valley of Ab," he said to them, and, gradually, though objections
were made to the undertaking of an enterprise so fraught with danger, the
listeners were persuaded.

"There are other fires far down the river," said one old man. "Let us go
there, if it is fire we most need, and so we will not disturb nor anger
Ab, who has lived in his valley for many years. Why battle with Ab and
all his people?"

But Boarface laughed aloud: "There are many other earth fires," he said.
"I know them well, but there is no other fire which chances to make a
flaming fence about a valley close to the great rocks, and which has
water within the space it surrounds and which makes a wall against all
the wild beasts. We will fight and win the valley of Ab."

And so they were led into the venture. They sought, too, the aid of the
Shell People in this raid, but were not successful. The Shell People were
not unfriendly to those of the Fire Valley, and had not Ab been really
the one to kill the tiger? Besides, it was not wise for the waterside
dwellers to engage in any controversy between the forest factions, for
the hill people had memories and heavy axes. A few of the younger and
more adventurous joined the force of Boarface, but the alliance had no
tribal sanction. Still, the force of the swarthy leader of the Eastern
cave men was by no means insignificant. It contained good fighting men,
and, when runners had gone far and wide in the Eastern country, there
were gathered nearly ten score of hunters who could throw the spear or
wield the ax and who were not fearful of their lives. The band led by
Boarface started for the Fire Country, intending to surprise the people
in the valley. They moved swiftly, but not so swiftly as a fleet young
man from the Shell People who preceded them. He was sent by the elders a
day before the time fixed for the assault, and so Ab learned all about
the intended raid. Then went forth runners from the valley; then the
matron Lightfoot's eyes became fiery, since Ab was threatened; then old
Hilltop looked carefully over his spears, and poised thoughtfully his
great stone ax; then Moonface smote her children and gathered together
certain weapons, and then Old Mok went into his cave and stayed there,
working at none knew what.

They came from all about, the Western cave men, for never in the valley
had food or shelter been refused to any and the Eastern cave men were not
loved. Many a quarrel over game had taken place between the raging
hunters of the different tribes, and many a bloody single-handed
encounter had come in the depths of the forest. The band was not a large
one, the Eastern men being far more numerous, but the outlook was not as
fine as it might be for the advancing Boarface. The force assembled
inside the valley was, in point of numbers, but little more than half his
own, but it was entrenched and well-armed, and there were those among the
defenders whom it was not well to meet in fight. But Boarface was
confident and was not dismayed when his force crept into the open only to
find the ordinary valley entrance barred and all preparations made for
giving him a welcome of the warmer sort. There was what could not be
thoroughly barricaded in so brief a time, the entrance where the brook
issued at the west. This pass must be forced, for the straight, uprising
wall between the flames and across the opening to the north was something
relatively unassailable. It was too narrow and too high and sheer and
there were too many holes in the wall through which could be sent those
piercing arrows which the Western cave men knew how to use so well. The
battle must be up along the bed of the little creek. The water was low at
this season, so low that a man might wade easily anywhere, and there had
been erected only a slight barrier, enough to keep wild beasts away, for
Ab had never thought of invasion by human beings. The creek tumbled
downward, through passages, between straight-sided, ruggedly built stone
heaps, with spaces between wide enough to admit a man, but not any great
beast of prey. There was no place where, by a man, the wall could not
easily be mounted and, above, there was no really good place of vantage
for the defenders.

So the invading force, concealment of action being no longer necessary,
ranged themselves along the banks of the creek to the west of the valley
and prepared for a rush. They had certain chances in their favor. They
were strong men, who knew how to use their weapons well, and they were in
numbers almost as two to one. Meanwhile, inside the valley, where the
approach and plans of the enemy had been seen and understood, there had
gone on swiftly, under Ab's stern direction, such preparation for the
fray as seemed most adequate with the means at hand.

The great advantage possessed was that the defenders, on firm footing
themselves, could meet men climbing, and so, a little further up the
creek than the beast-opposing wall, had been thrown up what was little
more than a rude platform of rock, wide and with a broad expanse of top,
on which all the valley's force might cluster in an emergency. Upon this
the people were to gather, defending the first pass, if they could, by
flights of spears and arrows and here, at the end, to win or lose. This
was the general preparation for the onslaught, but there had been
precautions taken more personal and more involving the course of the most
important of the people of the valley.

At the left of the gorge, where must come the invaders, the rock rose
sheerly and at one place extended outward a shelf, high up, but reached
easily from the Fire Valley side. There were consultations between Ab and
the angry and anxious and almost tearful Lightfoot. That charming lady,
now easily the best archer of the tribe, had developed at once into a
fighting creature and now demanded that her place be assigned to her.
With her own bow, and with arrows in quantity, it was decided that she
should occupy the ledge and do all she could. Upon the ledge was
comparative safety in the fray, and Ab directed that she should go there.
Old Hilltop said but little. It was understood, almost as a matter of
course, that he would be upon the barrier and there face, with Ab, the
greatest issue. The old man was by no means unsatisfactory to look upon
as he moved silently about and got ready the weapons he might have to
use. Gaunt, strong-muscled and resolute, he was worthy of admiration.
Ever following him with her eyes, when not engaged in the chastisement of
one of her swart brood, was Moonface, for Moonface had long since learned
to regard her grizzled lord with love as well as much respect.

There were other good fighting men and other women beside these mentioned
who would do their best, but these few were the dominant figures.
Meanwhile, Boarface and his strong band had decided upon their plan of
attack and would soon rush up the bed of the shallow stream with all the
bravery and ferocity of those who were accustomed to face death lightly
and to seize that which they wanted.

The invaders came clambering up the creek's course, openly and with
menacing and defiant shouts, for any concealment was now out of the
question. They had but few bows and could, under the conditions, send no
arrow flight which would be of avail, but they had thews and sinews and
spears and axes. As they came with such rush as men might make up a
tumbling waterway with slipping pebbles beneath the feet and forced
themselves one by one between the heaped stone piles and fairly in front
of the barrier there was a discharge of arrows and more than one man,
impaled by a stone-headed shaft, fell, to dabble feebly in the water, and
did not rise again. But there came a time in the fight when the bow must
be abandoned.

The assault was good and the demeanor of the men behind the barrier was
good as well. Not more gallant was one group than the other for there
were splendid fighters in both ranks. The boasted short sword of the
Romans, in times effeminate, as compared with these, afforded not in its
wielding a greater test of personal courage than the handling of the
flint-headed spear or the stone knife or chipped ax. There, all along the
barrier, was the real grappling of man and man, with further existence as
the issue.

The invaders, losing many of their number, for arrows flew steadily and a
mass so large could not easily be missed even by the most bungling of
those strong archers, swept upward to the barrier and then was a
muscular, deadly tumult worth the seeing. To the south and nearest the
side where Lightfoot was perched with her bow and great bunch of arrows
Ab stood in front, while to his right and near the other end of the rude
stone rampart was stationed old Hilltop, and he hurled his spears and
slew men as they came. The fight became simply a death struggle, with the
advantage of position upon one side and of numbers on the other. And Ab
and Boarface were each seeking the other.

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