at them, and on the instant they were subdued to
silence. Encouraged by this evidence of his power, he
thrust his head into view, and by scowling and snarling
and gnashing his fangs tried to intimidate me. He
scowled horribly, contracting the scalp strongly over
the brows and bringing the hair down from the top of
the head until each hair stood apart and pointed
straight forward.
The sight chilled me, but I mastered my fear, and, with
a stone poised in my hand, threatened him back. He
still tried to advance. I drove the stone down at him
and made a sheer miss. The next shot was a success.
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The stone struck him on the neck. He slipped back out
of sight, but as he disappeared I could see him
clutching for a grip on the wall with one hand, and
with the other clutching at his throat. The stick fell
clattering to the ground.
I could not see him any more, though I could hear him
choking and strangling and coughing. The audience kept
a death-like silence. I crouched on the lip of the
entrance and waited. The strangling and coughing died
down, and I could hear him now and again clearing his
throat. A little later he began to climb down. He
went very quietly, pausing every moment or so to
stretch his neck or to feel it with his hand.
At the sight of him descending, the whole horde, with
wild screams and yells, stampeded for the woods. Old
Marrow-Bone, hobbling and tottering, followed behind.
Red-Eye took no notice of the flight. When he reached
the ground he skirted the base of the bluff and climbed
up and into his own cave. He did not look around once.
I stared at Lop-Ear, and he stared back. We understood
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each other. Immediately, and with great caution and
quietness, we began climbing up the cliff. When we
reached the top we looked back. The abiding-place was
deserted, Red-Eye remained in his cave, and the horde
had disappeared in the depths of the forest.
We turned and ran. We dashed across the open spaces
and down the slopes unmindful of possible snakes in the
grass, until we reached the woods. Up into the trees
we went, and on and on, swinging our arboreal flight
until we had put miles between us and the caves. And
then, and not till then, in the security of a great
fork, we paused, looked at each other, and began to
laugh. We held on to each other, arms and legs, our
eyes streaming tears, our ,sides aching, and laughed
and laughed and laughed.
CHAPTER X
After we had had out our laugh, Lop-Ear and I curved
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back in our flight and got breakfast in the blueberry
swamp. It was the same swamp to which I had made my
first journeys in the world, years before, accompanied
by my mother. I had seen little of her in the
intervening time. Usually, when she visited the horde
at the caves, I was away in the forest. I had once or
twice caught glimpses of the Chatterer in the open
space, and had had the pleasure of making faces at him
and angering him from the mouth of my cave. Beyond
such amenities I had left my family severely alone. I
was not much interested in it, and anyway I was doing
very well by myself.
After eating our fill of berries, with two nestfuls of
partly hatched quail-eggs for dessert, Lop-Ear and I
wandered circumspectly into the woods toward the river.
Here was where stood my old home-tree, out of which I
had been thrown by the Chatterer. It was still
occupied. There had been increase in the family.
Clinging tight to my mother was a little baby. Also,
there was a girl, partly grown, who cautiously regarded
us from one of the lower branches. She was evidently
my sister, or half-sister, rather.
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My mother recognized me, but she warned me away when I
started to climb into the tree. Lop-Ear, who was more
cautious by far than I, beat a retreat, nor could I
persuade him to return. Later in the day, however, my
sister came down to the ground, and there and in
neighboring trees we romped and played all afternoon.
And then came trouble. She was my sister, but that did
not prevent her from treating me abominably, for she
had inherited all the viciousness of the Chatterer.
She turned upon me suddenly, in a petty rage, and
scratched me, tore my hair, and sank her sharp little
teeth deep into my forearm. I lost my temper. I did
not injure her, but it was undoubtedly the soundest
spanking she had received up to that time.
How she yelled and squalled. The Chatterer, who had
been away all day and who was only then returning,
heard the noise and rushed for the spot. My mother
also rushed, but he got there first. Lop-Ear and I did
not wait his coming. We were off and away, and the
Chatterer gave us the chase of our lives through the
trees.
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After the chase was over, and Lop-Ear and I had had out
our laugh, we discovered that twilight was falling.
Here was night with all its terrors upon us, and to
return to the caves was out of the question. Red-Eye
made that impossible. We took refuge in a tree that
stood apart from other trees, and high up in a fork we
passed the night. It was a miserable night. For the
first few hours it rained heavily, then it turned cold
and a chill wind blew upon us. Soaked through, with
shivering bodies and chattering teeth, we huddled in
each other’s arms. We missed the snug, dry cave that
so quickly warmed with the heat of our bodies.
Morning found us wretched and resolved. We would not
spend another such night. Remembering the
tree-shelters of our elders, we set to work to make one
for ourselves. We built the framework of a rough nest,
and on higher forks overhead even got in several
ridge-poles for the roof. Then the sun came out, and
under its benign influence we forgot the hardships of
the night and went off in search of breakfast. After
that, to show the inconsequentiality of life in those
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days, we fell to playing. It must have taken us all of
a month, working intermittently, to make our
tree-house; and then, when it was completed, we never
used it again.
But I run ahead of my story. When we fell to playing,
after breakfast, on the second day away from the caves,
Lop-Ear led me a chase through the trees and down to
the river. We came out upon it where a large slough
entered from the blueberry swamp. The mouth of this
slough was wide, while the slough itself was
practically without a current. In the dead water, just
inside its mouth, lay a tangled mass of tree trunks.
Some of these, what of the wear and tear of freshets
and of being stranded long summers on sand-bars, were
seasoned and dry and without branches. They floated
high in the water, and bobbed up and down or rolled
over when we put our weight upon them.
Here and there between the trunks were water-cracks,
and through them we could see schools of small fish,
like minnows, darting back and forth. Lop-Ear and I
became fishermen at once. Lying flat on the logs,
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keeping perfectly quiet, waiting till the minnows came
close, we would make swift passes with our hands. Our
prizes we ate on the spot, wriggling and moist. We did
not notice the lack of salt.
The mouth of the slough became our favorite playground.
Here we spent many hours each day, catching fish and
playing on the logs, and here, one day, we learned our
first lessons in navigation. The log on which Lop-Ear
was lying got adrift. He was curled up on his side,
asleep. A light fan of air slowly drifted the log away
from the shore, and when I noticed his predicament the
distance was already too great for him to leap.
At first the episode seemed merely funny to me. But
when one of the vagrant impulses of fear, common in
that age of perpetual insecurity, moved within me, I
was struck with my own loneliness. I was made suddenly
aware of Lop-Ear’s remoteness out there on that alien
element a few feet away. I called loudly to him a
warning cry. He awoke frightened, and shifted his
weight rashly on the log. It turned over, sousing him
under. Three times again it soused him under as he
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tried to climb out upon it. Then he succeeded,
crouching upon it and chattering with fear.
I could do nothing. Nor could he. Swimming was