"All right," said Ab; "let's go it with a rush."

The slim brown bodies dropped lightly to the ground together, each of the boys clasping one of the clamsh.e.l.ls. Side by side they darted down the slope and across through the deep gra.s.s until the clump of trees was reached, when, like two young apes, they scrambled into the safety of the branches.

The tree up which they had clambered was the largest of the group and of dense foliage. It was one of the huge conifers of the age, but its branches extended to within perhaps thirty feet of the ground, and from the greatest of these side branches reached out, growing so close together as to make almost a platform. It was but the work of a half hour for these boys, with their arboreal gifts, to twine additional limbs together and to construct for themselves a solid nest and lookout where they might rest at ease, at a distance above the greatest leap of any beast existing. In this nest they curled themselves down and, after much clucking debate, formulated their plan of operation. Only one boy should dig at a time, the other must remain in the nest as a lookout.

Swift to act in those days were men, because necessity had made it a habit to them, and swifter still, as a matter of course, were impulsive boys. Their tree nest fairly made, work, they decided, must begin at once. The only point to be determined upon was regarding the location of the pit. There was a tempting spread of green herbage some hundred feet to the north and east of the tree, a place where the gra.s.s was high but not so high as it was elsewhere. It had been grazed already by the wandering horses and it was likely that they would visit the tempting area again. There, it was finally settled, should the pit be dug. It was quite a distance from the tree, but the increased chances of securing a wild horse by making the pit in that particular place more than offset, in the estimation of the boys, the added danger of a longer run for safety in an emergency. The only question remaining was as to who should do the first digging and who be the first lookout? There was a violent debate upon this subject.

"I will go and dig and you shall keep watch," said Oak.

"No, I'll dig and you shall watch," was Ab's response. "I can run faster than you."

Oak hesitated and was reluctant. He was st.u.r.dy, this young gentleman, but Ab possessed, somehow, the mastering spirit. It was settled finally that Ab should dig and Oak should watch. And so Ab slid down the tree, clamsh.e.l.l in hand, and began laboring vigorously at the spot agreed upon.

It was not a difficult task for a strong boy to cut through tough gra.s.s roots with the keen edge of the clamsh.e.l.l. He outlined roughly and rapidly the boundaries of the pit to be dug and then began chopping out sods just as the workman preparing to garnish some park or lawn begins his work to-day. Meanwhile, Oak, all eyes, was peering in every direction. His place was one of great responsibility, and he recognized the fact. It was a tremendous moment for the youngsters.

CHAPTER VI.

A DANGEROUS VISITOR.

It was not alone necessary for the plans of Ab and Oak that there should be made a deep hole in the ground. It was quite as essential for their purposes that the earth removed should not be visible upon the adjacent surface. The location of the pit, as has been explained, was some yards to the northeast of the tree in which the lookout had been made. A few yards southwest of the tree was a slight declivity and damp hollow, for from that point the land sloped, in a reed-grown marsh toward the river.

It was decided to throw into this marsh all the excavated soil, and so, when Ab had outlined the pit and cut up its surface into sods, he carried them one by one to the bank and cast them down among the reeds where the water still made little puddles. In time of flood the river spread out into a lake, reaching even as far as here. The sod removed, there was exposed a rectangle of black soil, for the earth was of alluvial deposit and easy of digging. Sh.e.l.lful after sh.e.l.lful of the dirt did Ab carry from where the pit was to be, trotting patiently back and forth, but the work was wearisome and there was a great waste of energy. It was Oak who gave an inspiration.

"We must carry more at a time," he called out. And then he tossed down to Ab a wolfskin which had been given him by his father as a protection on cold nights and which he had brought along, tied about his waist, quite incidentally, for, ordinarily, these boys wore no clothing in warm weather. Clothing, in the cave time, appertained only to manhood and womanhood, save in winter. But Oak had brought the skin along because he had noticed a vast acorn crop upon his way to and from the rendezvous and had in mind to carry back to his own home cave some of the nuts. The pelt was now to serve an immediately useful purpose.

Spreading the skin upon the gra.s.s beside him, Ab heaped it with the dirt until there had acc.u.mulated as much as he could carry, when, gathering the corners together, he struggled with the enclosed load manfully to the bank and spilled it down into the mora.s.s. The digging went on rapidly until Ab, out of breath and tired, threw down the skin and climbed into the treetop and became the watchman, while Oak a.s.sumed his labor. So they worked alternately in treetop and upon the ground until the sun's rays shot red and slanting from the west. Wiser than to linger until dusk had too far deepened were these youngsters of the period. The clamsh.e.l.ls were left in the pit. The lookout above declared nothing in sight, then slid to the ground and joined his friend, and another dash was made to the hill and the safety of its treetops. It was in great spirits that the boys separated to seek their respective homes. They felt that they were personages of consequence. They had no doubt of the success of the enterprise in which they had embarked, and the next day found them together again at an early hour, when the digging was enthusiastically resumed.

Many a load of dirt was carried on the second day from the pit to the marsh's edge, and only once did the lookout have occasion to suggest to his working companion that he had better climb the tree. A movement in the high gra.s.s some hundred yards away had aroused suspicion; some wild animal had pa.s.sed, but, whatever it was, it did not approach the clump of trees and work was resumed at once. When dusk came the moist black soil found in the pit had all been carried away and the boys had reached, to their intense disgust, a stratum of hard packed gravel. That meant infinitely more difficult work for them and the use of some new utensil.

There was nothing daunting in the new problem. When it came to the mere matter of securing a tool for digging the hard gravel, both Ab and Oak were easily at home. The cave dwellers, haunting the river side for centuries, had learned how to deal with gravel, and when Ab returned to the scene the next day he brought with him a st.u.r.dy oaken stave some six feet in length, sharpened to a point and hardened in the fire until it was almost iron-like in its quality. Plunged into the gravel as far as the force of a blow could drive it, and pulled backward with the leverage obtained, the gravel was loosened and pried upward either in ma.s.ses which could be lifted out entire, or so crumbled that it could be easily dished out with the clamsh.e.l.l. The work went on more slowly, but not less steadily nor hopefully than on the days preceding, and, for some time, was uninterrupted by any striking incident. The boys were becoming buoyant. They decided that the gra.s.sy valley was almost uninfested by things dangerous. They became reckless sometimes, and would work in the pit together. As a rule, though, they were cautious--this was an inherent and necessary quality of a cave being--and it was well for them that it was so, for when an emergency came only one of them was in the pit, while the other was aloft in the lookout and alert.

It was about three o'clock one afternoon when Ab, whose turn it chanced to be, was working valiantly in the pit, while Oak, all eyes, was perched aloft. Suddenly there came from the treetop a yell which was no boyish expression of exuberance of spirits. It was something which made Ab leap from the excavation as he heard it and reach the side of Oak as the latter came literally tumbling down the bole of the tree of watching.

"Run!" Oak said, and the two darted across the valley and reached the forest and clambered into safe hiding among the cl.u.s.tering branches.

Then, in the intervals between his gasping breath, Oak managed to again articulate a word:

"Look!" he said.

Ab looked and, in an instant, realized how wise had been Oak's alarming cry and how well it was for them that they were so distant from the clump of trees so near the river. What he saw was that which would have made the boys' fathers flee as swiftly had they been in their children's place. Yet what Ab looked upon was only a waving, in sinuous regularity, of the rushes between the tree clump and the river and the lifting of a head some ten or fifteen feet above the reed-tops. What had so alarmed the boys was what would have disturbed a whole tribe of their kinsmen, even though they had chanced to be a.s.sembled, armed to the teeth with such weapons as they then possessed. What they saw was not of the common.

Very rarely indeed, along the Thames, had occurred such an invasion. The father of Oak had never seen the thing at all, and the father of Ab had seen it but once, and that many years before. It was the great serpent of the seas!

Safely concealed in the branches of a tree overlooking the little valley, the boys soon recovered their normal breathing capacity and were able to converse again. Not more than a couple of minutes, at the utmost, had pa.s.sed between their departure from their place of labor and their establishment in this same tree. The creature which had so alarmed them was still gliding swiftly across the mora.s.s between the lowland and the river. It came forward through the marsh undeviatingly toward the tree clump, the tall reeds quivering as it pa.s.sed, but its approach indicated by no sound or other token of disturbance. The slight bank reached, there was uplifted a great serpent head, and then, without hesitation, the monster swept forward to the trees and soon hung dangling from the branches of the largest one, its great coils twined loosely about trunk and limb, its head swinging gently back and forth just below the lower branch. It was a serpent at least sixty feet in length, and two feet or more in breadth at its huge middle. It was queerly but not brilliantly spotted, and its head was very nearly that of the anaconda of to-day.

Already the sea-serpent had become amphibious. It had already acquired the knowledge it has transmitted to the anaconda, that it might leave the stream, and, from some vantage point upon the sh.o.r.e, find more surely a victim than in the waters of the sea or river. This monster serpent was but waiting for the advent of any land animal, save perhaps those so great as the mammoth or the great elk, or, possibly, even the cave bear or the cave tiger. The mammoth was, of course, an impossibility, even to the sea-serpent. The elk, with its size and vast antlers, was, to put it at the mildest, a perplexing thing to swallow. The rhinoceros was dangerous, and as for the cave bear and the cave tiger, they were uncomfortable customers for anything alive. But there were the cattle, the aurochs and the urus, and the little horses and deer, and wild hog and a score of other creatures which, in the estimation of the sea-serpent, were extremely edible. A tidbit to the serpent was a man, but he did not get one in half a century.

Not long did the boys remain even in a harborage so distant. Each fled homeward with his story.

CHAPTER VII.

THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS.

It was with scant breath, when they reached their respective caves, that the boys told the story of the dread which had invaded the marsh-land.

What they reported was no light event and, the next morning, their fathers were with them in the treetop at the safe distance which the wooded crest afforded and watching with apprehensive eyes the movements of the monster settled in the rugged valley tree. There was slight movement to note. Coiled easily around the bole, just above where the branches began, and resting a portion of its body upon a thick, extending limb, its head and perhaps ten or fifteen feet of its length swinging downward, the great serpent still hung awaiting its prey, ready to launch itself upon any hapless victim which might come within its reach. That its appet.i.te would soon be gratified admitted of little doubt. Profiting by the absence of the boys, who while at work made no effort to conceal themselves, groups of wild horses were already feeding in the lowlands, and the elk and wild ox were visible here and there. The group in the treetop on the crest realized that it had business on hand. The sea-serpent was a terror to the cave people, and when one appeared to haunt the river the word was swiftly spread, and they gathered to accomplish its end if possible. With warnings to the boys they left behind them, the fathers sped away in different directions, one up, the other down, the river's bank, Stripe-Face to seek the help of some of the cave people and One-Ear to arouse the Sh.e.l.l people, as they were called, whose home was beside a creek some miles below. Into the home of the little colony One-Ear went swinging a little later, demanding to see the head man of the fishing village, and there ensued an earnest conversation of short sentences, but one which caused immediate commotion. To the hill dwellers the rare advent of a sea-serpent was comparatively a small matter, but it was a serious thing to the Sh.e.l.l folk. The sea-serpent might come up the creek and be among them at any moment, ravaging their community. The Sh.e.l.l people were grateful for the warning, but there were few of them at home, and less than a dozen could be mustered to go with One-Ear to the rendezvous.

They were too late, the hardy people who came up to a.s.sail the serpent, because the serpent had not waited for them. The two boys roosting in the treetop on the height had beheld what was not pleasant to look upon, for they had seen a yearling of the aurochs enveloped by the thing, which whipped down suddenly from the branches, and the crushed quadruped had been swallowed in the serpent's way. But the dinner which might suffice it for weeks had not, in all entirety, the effect upon it which would follow the swallowing of a wild deer by its degenerate descendants of the Amazonian or Indian forests.

The serpent did not lie a listless ma.s.s, helplessly digesting the product of the tragedy upon the spot of its occurrence, but crawled away slowly through the reeds, and instinctively to the water, into which it slid with scarce a splash, and then went drifting lazily away upon the current toward the sea. It had been years since one of these big water serpents had invaded the river at such a distance from its mouth and never came another up so far. There were causes promoting rapidly the extinction of their dreadful kind.

Three or four days were required before Ab and Oak realized, after what had taken place, that there were in the community any more important personages than they, and that they had work before them, if they were to continue in their glorious career. When everyday matters finally a.s.serted themselves, there was their pit not yet completed. Because of their absence, a greater aggregation of beasts was feeding in the little valley. Not only the aurochs, the ancient bison, the urus, the progenitor of the horned cattle of to-day, wild horse and great elk and reindeer were seen within short distances from each other, but the big, hairy rhinoceros of the time was crossing the valley again and rioting in its herbage or wallowing in the pools where the valley dipped downward to the marsh. The mammoth with its young had swung clumsily across the area of rich feed, and, lurking in its train, eyeing hungrily and bloodthirstily the mammoth's calf, had crept the great cave tiger. The monster cave bear had shambled through the high gra.s.s, seeking some small food in default of that which might follow the conquest of a beast of size. The uncomely hyenas had gone slinking here and there and had found something worthy their foul appet.i.te. All this change had come because the two boys, being boys and full of importance, had neglected their undertaking for about a week and had talked each in his own home with an air intended to be imposing, and had met each other with much dignity of bearing, at their favorite perching-place in the treetop on the hillside. When there came to them finally a consciousness that, to remain people of magnitude in the world, they must continue to do something, they went to work bravely.

The change which had come upon the valley in their brief absence tended to increase their confidence, for, as thus exhibited, early as was the age, the advent of the human being, young or old, somehow affected all animate nature and terrified it, and the boys saw this. Not that the great beasts did not prey upon man, but then, as now, the man to the great beast was something of a terror, and man, weak as he was, knew himself and recognized himself as the head of all creation. The mammoth, the huge, thick-coated rhinoceros, sabre-tooth, the monstrous tiger, or the bear, or the hyena, or the loping wolf, or short-bodied and vicious wolverine were to him, even then, but lower creatures. Man felt himself the master of the world, and his children inherited the perception.

Work in the pit progressed now rapidly and not a great number of days pa.s.sed before it had attained the depth required. The boy at work was compelled, when emerging, to climb a dried branch which rested against the pit's edge, and the lookout in the tree exercised an extra caution, since his comrade below could no longer attain safety in a moment. But the work was done at last, that is, the work of digging, and there remained but the completion of the pitfall, a delicate though not a difficult matter. Across the pit, and very close together, were laid criss-crosses of slender branches, brought in armfuls from the forest; over these dry gra.s.s was spread, thinly but evenly, and over this again dust and dirt and more gra.s.s and twigs, all precautions being observed to give the place a natural appearance. In this the boys succeeded very well. Shrewd must have been the animal of any sort which could detect the trap. Their chief work done, the boys must now wait wisely. The place was deserted again and no nearer approach was made to the pitfall than the treetops of the hillside. There the boys were to be found every day, eager and anxious and hopeful as boys are generally. There was not occasion for getting closer to the trap, for, from their distant perch, its surface was distinctly visible and they could distinguish if it had been broken in. Those were days of suppressed excitement for the two; they could see the buffalo and wild horses moving here and there, but fortune was still perverse and the trap was not approached. Before its occupation by them, the place where they had dug had appeared the favorite feeding-place; now, with all perversity, the wild horses and other animals grazed elsewhere, and the boys began to fear that they had left some traces of their work which revealed it to the wily beasts. On one day, for an hour or two, their hearts were in their mouths. There issued from the forest to the westward the stately Irish elk. It moved forward across the valley to the waters on the other side, and, after drinking its fill, began feeding directly toward the tree clump. It reached the immediate vicinity of the pitfall and stood beneath the trees, fairly outlined against the opening beyond, and affording to the almost breathless couple a splendid spectacle. A magnificent creature was the great elk of the time of the cave men, the Irish elk, as those who study the past have named it, because its bones have been found so frequently in what are now the preserving peat bogs of Ireland. But the elk pa.s.sed beyond the sight of the watchers, and so their bright hopes fell.

The crispness of full autumn had come, one morning, when Ab and Oak met as usual and looked out across the valley to learn if anything had happened in the vicinity of the pitfall. The h.o.a.r frost, lying heavily on the herbage, made the valley resemble a sea of silver, checkered and spotted all over darkly. These dark spots and lines were the traces of such animals as had been in the valley during the night or toward early morning. Leading everywhere were heavy trails and light ones, telling the story of the night. But very little heed to these things was paid by the ardent boys. They were too full of their own affairs. As they swung into place together upon their favorite limb and looked across the valley, they uttered a simultaneous and joyous shout. Something had taken place at the pitfall!

All about the trap the surface of the ground was dark and the area of darkness extended even to the little bank of the swamp on the riverside.

Careless of danger, the boys dropped to the ground and, spears in hand, ran like deer toward the scene of their weeks of labor. Side by side they bounded to the edge of the excavation, which now yawned open to the sky.

They had triumphed at last! As they saw what the pitfall held, they yelled in unison, and danced wildly around the opening, in the very height of boyish triumph. The exultation was fully justified, for the pitfall held a young rhinoceros, a creature only a few months old, but so huge already that it nearly filled the excavation. It was utterly helpless in the position it occupied. It was wedged in, incapable of moving more than slightly in any direction. Its long snout, with its sprouting pair of horns, was almost level with the surface of the ground and its small bright eyes leered wickedly at its noisy enemies. It struggled clumsily upon their approach, but nothing could relieve the hopelessness of its plight.

All about the pitfall the earth was plowed in furrows and beaten down by the feet of some monstrous animal. Evidently the calf was in the company of its mother when it fell a victim to the art of the pitfall diggers. It was plain that the mother had spent most of the night about her young in a vain effort to release it. Well did the cave boys understand the signs, and, after their first wild outburst of joy over the capture, a sense of the delicacy, not to say danger, of their situation came upon them. It was not well to interfere with the family affairs of the rhinoceros.

Where had the mother gone? They looked about, but could see nothing to justify their fears. Only for a moment, though, did their sense of safety last; hardly had the echo of their shouting come back from the hillside than there was a splashing and rasping of bushes in the swamp and the rush of some huge animal toward the little ascent leading to the valley proper. There needed no word from either boy; the frightened couple bounded to the tree of refuge and had barely begun clambering up its trunk than there rose to view, mad with rage and charging viciously, the mother of the calf rhinoceros.

CHAPTER VIII.

SABRE-TOOTH AND RHINOCEROS.

The rhinoceros of the Stone Age was a monstrous creature, an animal varying in many respects from either species of the animal of the present day, though perhaps somewhat closely allied to the huge double-horned and now nearly extinct white rhinoceros of southern Africa. But the brute of the prehistoric age was a beast of greater size, and its skin, instead of being bare, was densely covered with a dingy colored, crinkly hair, almost a wool. It was something to be dreaded by most creatures even in this time of great, fierce animals. It turned aside for nothing; it was the personification of courage and senseless ferocity when aroused.

Rarely seeking a conflict, it avoided none. The huge mammoth, a more peaceful pachyderm, would ordinarily hesitate before barring its path, while even the cave tiger, fiercest and most dreaded of the carnivora of the time, though it might prey upon the young rhinoceros when opportunity occurred, never voluntarily attacked the full-grown animal. From that almost impervious shield of leather hide, an inch or more in thickness, protected further by the woolly covering, even the terrible strokes of the tiger's claws glanced off with but a trifling rending, while one single lucky upward heave of the twin horns upon the great snout would pierce and rend, as if it were a trifling obstacle, the body of any animal existing. The lifting power of that prodigious neck was something almost beyond conception. It was an awful engine of death when its opportunity chanced to come. On the other hand, the rhinoceros of this ancient world had but a limited range of vision, and was as dull-witted and dangerously impulsive as its African prototype of today.

But short-sighted as it was, the boys clambering up the tree were near enough for the perception of the great beast which burst over the hummock, and it charged directly at them, the tree quivering when the shoulder of the monster struck it as it pa.s.sed, though the boys, already in the branches, were in safety. Checking herself a little distance beyond, the rhinoceros mother returned, snorting fiercely, and began walking round and round the calf imprisoned in the pitfall. The boys comprehended perfectly the story of the night. The calf once ensnared, the mother had sought in vain to rescue it, and, finally, wearied with her exertion, had retired just over the little descent, there to wallow and rest while still keeping guard over her imprisoned young. The spectacle now, as she walked around the trap, was something which would have been pitiful to a later race of man. The beast would get down upon her knees and plow the dirt about the calf with her long horns. She would seek to get her snout beneath its body sidewise, and so lift it, though each effort was necessarily futile. There was no room for any leverage, the calf fitted the cavity. The boys clung to their perches in safety, but in perplexity. Hours pa.s.sed, but the mother rhinoceros showed no inclination to depart. It was three o'clock in the afternoon when she went away to the wallow, returning once or twice to her young before descending the bank, and, even when she had reached the marsh, snorting querulously for some time before settling down to rest.

The boys waited until all was quiet in the marsh, and, as a matter of prudence, for some time longer. They wanted to feel a.s.sured that the monster was asleep, then, quietly, they slid down the tree trunk and, with noiseless step, stole by the pitfall and toward the hillside. A few yards further on their pace changed to a run, which did not cease until they reached the forest and its refuge, nor, even there, did they linger for any length of time. Each started for his home; for their adventure had again a.s.sumed a quality which demanded the consideration of older heads and the a.s.sistance of older hands. It was agreed that they should again bring their fathers with them--by a fortunate coincidence each knew where to find his parent on this particular day--and that they should meet as soon as possible. It was more than an hour later when the two fathers and two sons, the men armed with the best weapons they possessed, appeared upon the scene. So far as the watchers from the hillside could determine, all was quiet about the clump of trees and the vicinity of the pitfall. It was late in the afternoon now and the men decided that the best course to pursue would be to steal down across the valley, kill the imprisoned calf and then escape as soon as possible, leaving the mother to find her offspring dead; reasoning that she would then abandon it.

Afterward the calf could be taken out and there would be a feast of cave men upon the tender food and much benefit derived in utilization of the tough yet not, at its age, too thick hide of the uncommon quarry.

There was but one difficulty in the way of carrying out this enterprise: the wind was from the north and blew from the hunters toward the river, and the rhinoceros, though lacking much range of vision, was as acute of scent as the gray wolves which sometimes strayed like shadows through the forest or the hyenas which scented from afar the living or the dead.

Still, the venture was determined upon.

The four descended the hill, the two boys in the rear, treading with the lightness of the tiger cat, and went cautiously across the valley and toward the tree trunk. Certainly no sound they made could have reached the ear of the monster wallowing below the bank, but the wind carried to its nostrils the message of their coming. They were not half way across the valley when the rhinoceros floundered up to the level and charged wildly along the course of the wafted scent. There was a flight for the hillside, made none too soon, but yet in time for safety. Walking around in circles, snorting viciously, the great beast lingered in the vicinity for a time, then went back to its imprisoned calf, where it repeated the performance of earlier in the day and finally retired again to its hidden resting-place near by. It was dusk now and the shadows were deepening about the valley.

The men, well up in the tree with the boys, were undetermined what to do.