Part 17 (1/2)
On the open, gra.s.sy level before the cave mouth, the two great fires burned steadily in the sun. The giant Ook-ootsk, hideous with his ape-like forehead, his upturned, flaring nostrils, his protruding jaw, his s.h.a.ggy, clay-colored torso, and his short, ma.s.sive, grotesquely bowed legs--of which one was twisted so that the toes pointed almost backwards--lay sprawling and chuckling benevolently near the entrance, while a swarm of little ones, A-ya's two among them, clambered over him. The old men and the old women most of them dozed in the shade, save two or three of the most diligent, who occupied their gnarled fingers in twisting thin strips of hide into bow-strings, or las.h.i.+ng slivers of stone into the heads of spears. A-ya sat cross-legged a little apart, beside a tiny fire, laboriously fas.h.i.+oning her bows and arrows by charring the wood in the embers and then rubbing it between two rough stones. With her head bent low over her work, the heavy, tangled ma.s.ses of her hair fell upon it and got in her way, and from time to time she shook them aside impatiently. It was a picture of primeval peace.
But peace, in the days when earth was young, was something more precarious than a bubble.
From around the green shoulder of the hill came a sound of trampling hooves and labored breathing. A-ya sprang to her feet, s.n.a.t.c.hing up her own well-tried bow and fitting an arrow to the string. At the same time she gave a sharp alarm-cry, at which the lame slave, Ook-ootsk, arose, shaking off the swarm of children, and came hobbling towards her with his weapons in both hands. An old woman pounced upon the startled, wide-eyed children, and in a twinkling had them shepherded into the cave-mouth, out of sight. The old men, springing from their sleep, and blinking, hurried forth into the sunlight, with such spears or clubs as they could lay instant hand upon.
A breathless moment, while all stood waiting for they knew not what.
Then around the corner appeared a tall, wide-antlered elk, its eyes showing the whites with terror, its dilated nostrils spattering b.l.o.o.d.y froth. A long, raking wound ran scarlet down one flank. Staggering from weariness or loss of blood, it came on straight toward the cave-mouth, so blinded by its terror that it seemed not to see the human creatures awaiting it, or even the fires before them.
A-ya fetched a deep breath of relief when she saw that this was no ravening monster. Her immediate thought was the hunter's thought. She drew her bow to the full length of her shaft, and as the panting beast went by she let drive. The arrow pierced to half its span, just behind the straining fore-shoulder. Blood burst from the animal's nostrils.
It fell on its knees, struggled up again, blundered on for half a dozen strides, and dropped half-way across the second fire.
There was a chorus of triumphant shouts from the old men and women; and A-ya started forward with the intention of dragging her prize from the fire. But a look of apprehension and warning in the keen little eyes of Ook-ootsk, who had by this time hobbled to her side, checked her. In a flash the meaning of it came to her.
”What do you suppose was chasing it, Ook-ootsk?” she queried; and whipped about, without waiting for his answer, to stare anxiously at the green shoulder of the hillside.
”Black lion, maybe,” said Ook-ootsk, in his harsh, clucking voice, dropping his spear and club beside him and setting a long arrow to the string of his ma.s.sive bow.
But the words were hardly out of his throat, when his guess was proved wrong. Around the turn came lumbering, with huge heads hung low and slavering, half-open jaws a pair of those colossal red bears of the caves which had always been A-ya's peculiar terror.
”Hide the children!” she yelled, and then let fly an arrow, almost without aim, at the foremost of the monsters. She was the best shot in the tribe, and the shaft sped even too true. It struck the bear full in the snout, and pierced through the palate and into the throat--a wound which, though likely to prove mortal after a time, only made the beast more dangerous for the moment. It paused, coughing, and tried to paw the torment from its jaws, and then rushed forward, screaming hideously.
In that pause, however, though it was but for a second or two, the second bear had forged ahead of its companion. It was greeted instantly by an arrow from the ma.s.sive bow of Ook-ootsk, aimed with cool deliberation. The long shaft of hickory, delivered thus at close range, caught the enemy in the front of the right shoulder and drove clean in to the joint, so that the leg gave way and the gigantic brute almost fell upon its side. With a roar, it bit off the protruding half of the tough hickory, and then came on again, on three legs. From A-ya's nimble bow it got another arrow, which went half-way through its neck; but to this deadly wound, which sent the blood gus.h.i.+ng from its mouth, it seemed to pay no heed whatever. A-ya's next shot missed; and then, screaming for the old men to come into the fray, she s.n.a.t.c.hed up her stone-headed spear and ran around behind the nearest fire, expecting the bears to follow her and be led away from the hiding-place of the children.
But she had forgotten that the slave, Ook-ootsk, with his twisted and shrunken leg, could not run. That valiant savage, blinking his little eyes rapidly and blowing defiantly through his upturned nostrils as he saw his doom rus.h.i.+ng upon him, let drive one more of his long shafts into the red, towering bulk, then dropped his bow, sank upon one knee, and held up his spear slantingly before him, with its b.u.t.t firmly braced upon the ground. As the monster reared itself and fell upon him, the jagged point of the spear was forced deep into its belly, straight up till it reached the backbone. Then the shaft snapped, Ook-ootsk sprawled forward upon his face, and the monster, in the paroxysm of its amazement and agony, leapt onward and plunged right over him, involuntarily hurling him aside and clawing most of the flesh off his back with a kick of one gigantic hind paw.
He clenched his teeth stoically, shut his eyes, folded his long, hairy arms about his head, and rolled himself into a ball, confidently expecting in the next moment to feel the life crunched out of him.
But just as the monster, recovering itself, was turning madly to finish off its insignificant but torturing opponent, A-ya came leaping back to the rescue, with a blazing and sparkling f.a.ggot in each hand, and the old men, some with fire-brands, some with spears, clamoring resolutely behind her. With fearless dexterity, she thrust the fire straight into the monster's eyeb.a.l.l.s, totally blinding him. As he wheeled to strike her down, she slipped aside with a mocking laugh, and threw one of the brands between his jaws, where he crunched upon it savagely before he felt the torment of it and spat it out.
Depending now upon his ears, the monster blundered straight forward in the direction of the shouting voices. He had quite forgotten Ook-ootsk. He raged to come at this last intolerable foe, who had scorched the light from his eyes. He made for her voice straight enough; but it chanced that exactly in his path lay the second fire--that into which the body of the elk had fallen. Already too maddened with the anguish of his wounds to notice the fire at once, he stumbled upon the body. Here, surely, was one of his foes.
He fell to rending the carcase with his claws, and biting it, crawling forward upon it to reach its throat with the fire licking up derisively about his head; till at length the flames were drawn deep into his laboring lungs, searing them and sealing them so that they could no more perform their office. With a shallow, screeching gasp he threw himself backwards out of the fire, rolled upon the turf, and lay there fighting the air with his paws as he strangled swiftly and convulsively.
The second bear, meanwhile, wallowing with astonis.h.i.+ng nimbleness on three legs, had charged roaring into the group of old men. In a twinkling he had three or four spears sticking into him; but the arms that hurled the spears were weak, and the monster ramped on unheeding.
Several fire-brands fell upon him, scorching his long, red fur, but he shook them off, too maddened to remember his natural dread of the flames.
The group scattered in all directions. But one brave old gray-beard, who had marked A-ya's success, lingered in the path, and tried to thrust his blazing f.a.ggot into the monster's eyes, as she had done. He was not quick enough. The monster threw up its muzzle, dodging the stroke, and the next moment it had struck down its feeble adversary and crushed his head between its tremendous jaws.
In its folly, it now forgot its other enemies, and fell to wreaking its madness on the lifeless victim. But in another second or two it was fairly overwhelmed with the red brands descending upon its head.
A-ya, with all the force of her strong young arms, drove her short spear half-way through its loins. Then, with one eye blinded and its long fur smouldering, its rage gave way suddenly into panic. Lifting its giant head high into the air, as if thus to escape its fiery a.s.sailants, it turned and scuttled back the way it had come, while the old men swarmed after it, belaboring and jabbing its elephantine rump with their live brands.
A-ya, racing like a deer and screaming with exultation, ran round the pack of old men and stabbed the frantic brute in the neck, with her spear held short in both hands. Shrinking abjectly from this attack, he swerved off toward the left. It was his left eye that was blinded, and the other was full of smoke and ashes. He missed the path, therefore, and plunged squalling over the edge of the bluff, which at this point dropped about a hundred feet, almost perpendicularly, to the beach. Rolling over and over, and bouncing out into s.p.a.ce every time he struck the cliff face he fell to the bottom amid a shower of stones and dust, and lay there as shapeless as a fur rug dropped from an upper window.
The old men, jabbering in triumph, craned their s.h.a.ggy gray heads out over the brink to grin down upon him, while A-ya, with a wild light in her eyes and her strong white teeth gleaming savagely, turned back to tend the wounds of her slave, Ook-ootsk.
II