put on more and more, until we had a mighty fire. We
dashed excitedly back and forth, dragging dead limbs
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and branches from out the forest. The flames soared
higher and higher, and the smoke-column out-towered the
trees. There was a tremendous snapping and crackling
and roaring. It was the most monumental work we had
ever effected with our hands, and we were proud of it.
We, too, were Fire-Men, we thought, as we danced there,
white gnomes in the conflagration.
The dried grass and underbrush caught fire, but we did
not notice it. Suddenly a great tree on the edge of
the open space burst into flames.
We looked at it with startled eyes. The heat of it
drove us back. Another tree caught, and another, and
then half a dozen. We were frightened. The monster
had broken loose. We crouched down in fear, while the
fire ate around the circle and hemmed us in. Into
Lop-Ear’s eyes came the plaintive look that always
accompanied incomprehension, and I know that in my eyes
must have been the same look. We huddled, with our
arms around each other, until the heat began to reach
us and the odor of burning hair was in our nostrils.
Then we made a dash of it, and fled away westward
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through the forest, looking back and laughing as we
ran.
By the middle of the day we came to a neck of land,
made, as we afterward discovered, by a great curve of
the river that almost completed a circle. Right across
the neck lay bunched several low and partly wooded
hills. Over these we climbed, looking backward at the
forest which had become a sea of flame that swept
eastward before a rising wind. We continued to the
west, following the river bank, and before we knew it
we were in the midst of the abiding-place of the Fire
People.
This abiding-place was a splendid strategic selection.
It was a peninsula, protected on three sides by the
curving river. On only one side was it accessible by
land. This was the narrow neck of the peninsula, and
here the several low hills were a natural obstacle.
Practically isolated from the rest of the world, the
Fire People must have here lived and prospered for a
long time. In fact, I think it was their prosperity
that was responsible for the subsequent migration that
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worked such calamity upon the Folk. The Fire People
must have increased in numbers until they pressed
uncomfortably against the bounds of their habitat.
They were expanding, and in the course of their
expanding they drove the Folk before them, and settled
down themselves in the caves and occupied the territory
that we had occupied.
But Lop-Ear and I little dreamed of all this when we
found ourselves in the Fire People’s stronghold. We
had but one idea, and that was to get away, though we
could not forbear humoring our curiosity by peeping out
upon the village. For the first time we saw the women
and children of the Fire People. The latter ran for
the most part naked, though the former wore skins of
wild animals.
The Fire People, like ourselves, lived in caves. The
open space in front of the caves sloped down to the
river, and in the open space burned many small fires.
But whether or not the Fire People cooked their food, I
do not know. Lop-Ear and I did not see them cook. Yet
it is my opinion that they surely must have performed
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some sort of rude cookery. Like us, they carried water
in gourds from the river. There was much coming and
going, and loud cries made by the women and children.
The latter played about and cut up antics quite in the
same way as did the children of the Folk, and they more
nearly resembled the children of the Folk than did the
grown Fire People resemble the grown Folk.
Lop-Ear and I did not linger long. We saw some of the
part-grown boys shooting with bow and arrow, and we
sneaked back into the thicker forest and made our way
to the river. And there we found a catamaran, a real
catamaran, one evidently made by some Fire-Man. The
two logs were small and straight, and were lashed
together by means of tough roots and crosspieces of
wood.
This time the idea occurred simultaneously to us. We
were trying to escape out of the Fire People’s
territory. What better way than by crossing the river
on these logs? We climbed on board and shoved off. A
sudden something gripped the catamaran and flung it
downstream violently against the bank. The abrupt
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stoppage almost whipped us off into the water. The
catamaran was tied to a tree by a rope of twisted
roots. This we untied before shoving off again.
By the time we had paddled well out into the current,
we had drifted so far downstream that we were in full
view of the Fire People’s abiding-place. So occupied
were we with our paddling, our eyes fixed upon the
other bank, that we knew nothing until aroused by a
yell from the shore. We looked around. There were the
Fire People, many of them, looking at us and pointing
at us, and more were crawling out of the caves. We sat
up to watch, and forgot all about paddling. There was
a great hullabaloo on the shore. Some of the Fire-Men
discharged their bows at us, and a few of the arrows
fell near us, but the range was too great.
It was a great day for Lop-Ear and me. To the east the
conflagration we had started was filling half the sky
with smoke. And here we were, perfectly safe in the
middle of the river, encircling the Fire People’s
stronghold. We sat and laughed at them as we dashed
by, swinging south, and southeast to east, and even to
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northeast, and then east again, southeast and south and
on around to the west, a great double curve where the
river nearly tied a knot in itself.
As we swept on to the west, the Fire People far behind,
a familiar scene flashed upon our eyes.
It was the great drinking-place, where we had wandered
once or twice to watch the circus of the animals when
they came down to drink. Beyond it, we knew, was the
carrot patch, and beyond that the caves and the
abiding-place of the horde. We began to paddle for the
bank that slid swiftly past, and before we knew it we
were down upon the drinking-places used by the horde.
There were the women and children, the water carriers,
a number of them, filling their gourds. At sight of us
they stampeded madly up the run-ways, leaving behind
them a trail of gourds they had dropped.
We landed, and of course we neglected to tie up the
catamaran, which floated off down the river. Right
cautiously we crept up a run-way. The Folk had all
disappeared into their holes, though here and there we
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could see a face peering out at us. There was no sign
of Red-Eye. We were home again. And that night we
slept in our own little cave high up on the cliff,
though first we had to evict a couple of pugnacious
youngsters who had taken possession.
CHAPTER XIV
The months came and went. The drama and tragedy of the
future were yet to come upon the stage, and in the
meantime we pounded nuts and lived. It–vas a good
year, I remember, for nuts. We used to fill gourds
with nuts and carry them to the pounding-places. We
placed them in depressions in the rock, and, with a
piece of rock in our hands, we cracked them and ate
them as we cracked.
It was the fall of the year when Lop-Ear and I returned
from our long adventure-journey, and the winter that
followed was mild. I made frequent trips to the
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neighborhood of my old home-tree, and frequently I
searched the whole territory that lay between the
blueberry swamp and the mouth of the slough where
Lop-Ear and I had learned navigation, but no clew could
I get of the Swift One. She had disappeared. And I
wanted her. I was impelled by that hunger which I have
mentioned, and which was akin to physical hunger,
albeit it came often upon me when my stomach was full.
But all my search was vain.
Life was not monotonous at the caves, however. There
was Red-Eye to be considered. Lop-Ear and I never knew
a moment’s peace except when we were in our own little
cave. In spite of the enlargement of the entrance we
had made, it was still a tight squeeze for us to get
in. And though from time to time we continued to