The Story of Ab | Page 7

The huge stone ax went crashing into the brain
of the quivering brute, and that was the end of the incident. Mother and
child leaped down together, and the man and woman went chattering
toward their cave. This was not a particularly eventful day with them;
they were accustomed to such things.
They went strolling off through the beech glades, the strong, hairy,
heavy-jawed man, the muscular but more lightly built woman and the
child, perched firmly and chattering blithely upon her shoulder as they
walked, or, rather, half trotted along the river side and toward the cave.
They were light of foot and light of thought, but there was ever that
almost unconscious alertness appertaining to their time. Their flexible
ears twitched, and turned, now forward now backward, to catch the

slightest sound. Their nostrils were open for dangerous scents, or for
the scent of that which might give them food, either animal or
vegetable, and as for the eyes, well, they were the sharpest existent
within the history of the human race. They were keen of vision at long
distance and close at hand, and ever were they in motion, swiftly turned
sidewise this way and that, peering far ahead or looking backward to
note what enemies of the wood might be upon the trail. So, swiftly
along the glade and ever alert, went the father and mother of Ab,
carrying the strong child with them.
There came no new alarm, and soon the cave was reached, though on
the way there was a momentary deviation from the path, to gather up
the nuts and berries the woman had found in the afternoon while the
babe was lying sleeping. The fruitage was held in a great leaf, a pliant
thing pulled together at the edges, tied stoutly with a strand of tough
grass, and making a handy pouch containing a quart or two of the food,
which was the woman's contribution to the evening meal. As for the
father, he had more to offer, as was evident when the cave was reached.
The man and woman crept through the narrow entrance and stood erect
in a recess in the rocks twenty feet square, at least, and perhaps fifteen
feet in height. Looking upward one could see a gleam of light from the
outer world. The orifice through which the light came was the chimney,
dug downward with much travail from the level of the land above.
Directly underneath the opening was the fireplace, for men had learned
thoroughly the use of fire, and had even some fancies as to getting rid
of smoke. There were smoldering embers upon the hearth, embers of
the hardest of wood, the wood which would preserve a fire for the
greatest length of time, for the cave man had neither flint and steel nor
matches, and when a fire expired it was a matter of some difficulty to
secure a flame again. On this occasion there was no trouble. The
embers were beaten up easily into glowing coals and twigs and dry
dead limbs cast upon them made soon a roaring flame. As the cave was
lighted the proprietor pointed laughingly to the abundance of meat he
had secured. It was food of the finest sort and in such quantity that even
this stalwart being's strength must have been exceptionally tested in
bringing the burden to the cave. It was something in quality for an

epicure of the day and there was enough of it to make the cave man's
family easy for a week, at least. It was a hind quarter of a wild horse.
CHAPTER III.
A FAMILY DINNER.
Despite the hyena and baby incident, the day had been a satisfactory
one for this cave family. Of course, had the woman failed to reach just
when she did the hollow in which her babe was left there would have
come a tragedy in the extinction of a young and promising cave child,
and the two would have been mourning, as even wild beasts mourn for
their lost young. But there was little reversion to past possibilities in the
minds of the cave people. The couple were not worrying over what
might have been. The mother had found food of one sort in abundance,
and the father's fortune had been royal. He had tossed a rock from a
precipice a hundred feet in height down into a passing herd of the little
wild horses, and great luck had followed, for one of them had been
killed, and so this was a holiday in the cave. The man and wife were at
ease and had each an appetite.
The nuts gathered by the woman were tossed in a heap among the ashes
and live coals were raked upon them, and the popping which followed
showed