In the Morning of Time Read online

  CHAPTER II

  THE KING OF THE TRIPLE HORN

  It was a little later in the Morning of Time--later by perhaps sometwo or three hundred thousand years. Monstrous mammals now held swayover the fresh, green round of the young earth, so exuberant in heryouthful vigor that she could not refrain from flooding the Polesthemselves with a tropical luxuriance of flower and tree. Thesupremacy of the Giant Reptiles had passed.

  A few representatives of their most colossal and highly-specializedforms still survived, still terrible and supreme in those vast,steaming, cane-clothed savannahs which most closely repeated theconditions of an earlier age. But Nature, pleased with her experimentsin the more promising mammalian type, had turned her back upon themafter her fashion, and was coldly letting them die out. Her failures,however splendid, have always found small mercy at her hands.

  But it was little like a failure he looked, the giant who now heavedhis terrible, three-horned front from the lilied surface of the lagoonwherein he had been wallowing, and came ponderously ploughing his wayashore. As he emerged upon dry ground, he halted--with the tip of hismassive, lizard-like tail still in the water--and shook a shower fromthe hollows of his vast and strangely armored head.

  His eyes, coldly furious, and set in a pair of goggle-like projectionsof horn, peered this way and that, as if suspecting the neighborhoodof a foe. His gigantic snout--horned, cased in horn, and hooked likethe beak of a parrot--he lifted high, sniffing the heavy air. Then, asif to end his doubts by either drawing or daunting off the unknownenemy, he opened his grotesquely awful mouth and roared. The hugesound that exploded from his throat was something between the bellowof an alligator and the coughing roar of a tiger, but of infinitelyvaster volume.

  The next moment, as if in deliberate reply to the challenge, animmense black beast stepped from behind a thicket of pea-green bamboo,and stood scrutinizing him with wicked little pig-like eyes.

  It was the old order confronted by the new, the latest most terribleand perhaps most efficient of the titanic but vanishing race of theDinosaurs, face to face with one of those monstrous mammalian formsupon which Nature was now trying her experiments.

  And the place of this meeting was not unfitted to such a portentousencounter. The further shore of the lagoon was partly a swamp ofrankest growth, partly a stretch of savannah clothed with richcane-brake and flowering grasses that towered fifteen or twenty feetinto the air. But the hither shore was of a hard soil mixed with sand,carpeted with a short, golden-green herbage, and studded with clumpsof bamboo, jobo, mango and mahogany, with here and there a thicket ofcanary-flowered acacia, bristling with the most formidable of thorns.

  They were not altogether ill-matched, these two colossal protagonistsof the Saurian and the Mammal. The advantage of bulk lay altogetherwith the Dinosaur, the three-horned King of all the Lizard kind. Hisarmament, too, whether for offense or for defense, was distinctly themore formidable. Fully twenty feet in length, and perhaps eight feethigh at the crest of the massively-rounded back, he was of ponderousbreadth, and moved ponderously on legs like columns.

  His splotched brown and yellow hide was studded along the neck andshoulders with pointed knobs of horn. His enormous, fleshy tail, someseven feet long and nearly two feet thick at the base, tapered verygradually to a thick tip, and dragged on the ground behind him. Butthe most amazing thing about this King of the Lizards was hismonstrous and awe-inspiring head.

  Wedge-shaped from the tip of its cruel parrot-beak to its spreading,five-foot-wide base, its total length was well over seven feet. Itsthree horns, one on the snout and two standing out straight forwardfrom the forehead just above the eyes, were immensely thick at thebase and fined down smoothly to points of terrible keenness. The oneon the snout was something over a foot in length, while the brow pairwere nearly three feet long.

  Almost from the roots of these two terrific weapons protruded the hugehorn goggles which served as sockets for the great, cold, implacablelizard-eyes. Behind the horns, outspreading like a vast ruff fromthree to four feet wide upwards and laterally, slanted a smooth,polished shield of massive shell like the carapace of a giant turtle,protecting the neck and shoulders from any imaginable attack.

  The antagonist who had come in answer to the giant's challenge wasless extravagant in appearance and more compact in form. He was notmuch over a dozen feet in length, but this length owed nothing to thetail, which was a mere wriggling pendant. He was, perhaps, seven feethigh, very sturdy in build, but not mountainous like his terriblechallenger. His legs and feet were something like those of anelephant, and he looked capable of a deadly alertness in action. But,as in the case of the King Dinosaur, it was his head that gave him hischief distinction. Long, massive and blunt-nosed, it was armed notonly with six horns, set in pairs, but also with a pair of deadly,downward-pointing tusks--like those of a walrus, but much shorter,sharper and more effective.

  Of the six horns, the first pair, set on the tip of the broad snout,were mere bony points, of no use as weapons, and employed by theirowner for rooting in the turf after the fashion of a tuber-huntingpig. The second pair, set about the middle of the long face, just overthe eyes, were about eighteen inches in length, and redoubtable enoughto make other weapons seem superfluous.

  The third pair, however, were equally formidable, and set far back atthe very base of the skull, like those of an antelope. The eyes, ashas been already stated, were small, deep-set and vindictive. Thesullen black of his coloring added to the portentousness of his swiftappearance around the clump of pea-green bamboo.

  For several minutes the two monsters stood eyeing each other, whilethe rage of an instinctive hatred mounted slowly in their sluggishbrains. To the King Dinosaur, this stranger was a trespasser on hisdomain, where no other creatures, unless of his own kind, had everbefore had the presumption to confront him. The suddenness of theblack apparition, also, exasperated him; and he loathed at once thesickly sour smell, so unlike the pungent muskiness of his own kindred,which now for the first time met his sensitive nostrils.

  The Dinoceras, on his part, was in a chronic state of rage. He was asolitary old bull, driven out, for his bad temper, from thecomfortable herd of his fellows, and burning to find vent for hisbottled spleen. The herd, in one of its migrations, had just arrivedin the neighborhood of the great lagoons, and he, in his furiousrestlessness, was unconsciously playing the part of vanguard to it.

  He had never, of course, conceived of so terrible an adversary as thissplotched brown and yellow monster before him. But he was in no moodto calculate odds. For all his blind rage, however, he was a craftyfighter, always. Seeing that the challenger made no move, he gavevoice to a huge, squealing grunt, like the noise of a herd of ragingpigs. Then he dug his armed snout into the turf and hurled a shower ofsod into the air.

  In the eyes of the King Dinosaur this was apparently an intolerableinsult. With a roar he came lumbering forward, at a slow, rolling runwhich seemed to jar the earth. Grunting again, and moving at thricehis speed, the black beast rushed to meet him, head down, like acharging bison.

  They met under the spreading branches of an immense hoya-tree. Butthey did not meet fairly, head to head, as the Dinosaur intended. Hadthey done so the battle would have been decided then and there, forthe black beast's horns and unprotected front were no match for theimpenetrable armor and leveled lances of the King's colossal head. Butthey did not meet fairly. The black stranger was much too crafty forthat. At the last moment he swerved nimbly aside, wheeled with anagility that was marvelous for a creature of his bulk, and thrust atthe shoulders of the colossus with a fierce, rooting movement like thestroke of the wild boar.

  But he struck the rim of that impenetrable defense, the spreading ruffof horn. And he might as well have struck a mountain-side. Thatenormous bulk, firm-based on the wide-set columns which formed itslegs, merely staggered an instant, coughed from the jarring of theblow, and swung about to present his terrific horns against anothersuch attack. The black stranger, meanwhile, as if disappoi
nted at themeager result of his tactics, had drawn back out of reach. He stoodrooting the turf and squealing defiance, in the hope of luring thegiant into a second charge.

  The stupendous duel had two interested spectators. On the top of thenext tree sat an extraordinary-looking bird, about the size of apheasant, colored blue and rose like a macaw. Its tail was like alizard's, long and fully-vertebrated, with a pair of flat feathersstanding out opposite each other at right angles from each joint, forall the world like an immense acacia-frond done in red. At the tips ofits wing-elbows it carried clutching, hand-like claws, resemblingthose of the flying reptiles; and its straight, strong beak was armedwith pointed teeth. It kept opening and shutting its beak excitedlyand uttering sharp cries, as if calling everyone to come and see thefight.

  The other spectator was not excited at all. He was a large, ape-likeman--one would have said, rather, a manlike ape, had it not been forthe look in his eyes.

  This enigmatic figure sat on a branch immediately over the combatants,and held on with one powerful, hairy hand to the branch just abovehim. He was covered with thick, brown hair, like fur, from head tofoot, but that on his head was true hair, long and waving. Hisshoulders were massive, his chest of great depth, his arms so longthat if he had been standing erect they would have hung to his knees,his legs short, massive and much bowed. His hands were furred to thesecond joint of the fingers, but they were the hands of a man, notthose of an ape, for the huge thumb was opposed to the fingers insteadof being set parallel with them like another finger. His head was lowin the arch of the skull, low and narrow in the forehead, with a smallfacial angle and hardly any bridge to the broad, flat, wide-nostrilednose; and the jaws were heavy and thrust forward brutishly. But theeyes, under the roof of the heavy, bony brows, held an expressionprofoundly unlike the cold, mechanical stare of the giant Dinosaur orthe twinkling, vindictive glare of the black stranger. They gazed downat the battle with a sort of superiority, considerate, a littlescornful, in spite of the obvious fact that either of the two, as faras mere physical bulk and prowess were concerned, could haveobliterated him by simply setting foot upon him. In his free hand hegrasped a branch of acacia set with immense thorns, the needle-likepoints of which he touched contemplatively from time to time, as ifpondering what use he could put them to. He had no marked prejudice,for the moment, in favor of either side in the battle below him. Bothmonsters were his foes, and the ideal result, in his eyes, would havebeen for the two to destroy each other. But if he had any preference,it was for the black mammalian beast, the lizard monster appearing tohim the more alien, the more incomprehensible and the more impregnableto any strategy that he might devise.

  For perhaps a couple of minutes, now, the King kept his place,wheeling ponderously to face his agile opponent, who circled about himat a distance of ten to twelve yards, seeking an opportunity to get ina rush upon his open flank. This wheeling and circling made the coolwatcher in the tree impatient. Wrenching off a heavy branch, he hurledit down with all his force upon the King's face. To the King thisseemed but another insult from his black antagonist, and his rageexploded once more. With a roar he wallowed forward, thinking to pinthe elusive foe to earth and tread the life out of him.

  This gave the black beast his opportunity. Doubling nimbly like a wildboar, he dashed in and caught his colossal opponent fairly on theside, midway between the shoulder and the haunch. The impact shockedthe breath from the monster's lungs, with a huge, explosive cough, andbrought him to a bewildered standstill, though it could not throw himfrom his feet. But the armored hide proved too tough for the blackbeast's horns to penetrate. Perceiving this on the instant, the latterreared, and brought down the two awful daggers of his tusks upon themonster's ribs. They penetrated, but they failed to rip as far and asconclusively as their owner intended. And while he struggled to freehimself for another attack, the monster recovered from his daze.

  Now the stranger had taken count only of those weapons which the KingDinosaur bore on his terrible front; and these for the moment were outof reach. But he had forgotten the massive and tremendous tail.Suddenly it lashed out, nearly half a ton in weight, and with theforce of a pile-driver. It struck the black beast on the legs, andswept them clean from under him.

  Before he could pick himself up the Dinosaur had swung about andburied all three horns, to the sockets, in his throat and chest. Hislife went out in one ear-splitting squeal of rage and anguish. The redblood streaming from horns and ruff, the monster wrenched himselffree, and then moved irresistibly over his victim, like a rollingmountain.

  When satisfied that his triumph was complete, the King drew back apace or two, and examined the mangled heap with his cold, unchangingstare. Then he sniffed at it contemptuously, and prodded it with hisnose-horn, and tore it with his extravagant parrot-beak. But, being afeeder on herbage only, he had not thought of tasting the red flesh.The smell of it was abominable to him; and presently he moved closerunder the trees to wipe his beak, as a bird might, on a clump ofcoarse grasses.

  As he did so, the lowering of his head threw his horny ruff farforward, exposing the folds of naked hide on the back of his neck. Thesilent man-creature on the branch above was quick to note theopportunity. He was displeased at the monster's triumph. He was alsointerested to see if he had any power to hurt so colossal and wellprotected a foe. Swinging down by his legs and one hand, he thrust thethorned branch of acacia deep in under the ruff. The monster, jerkinghis head up sharply at this unexpected assault, drove the long thornswell home.

  In an instant he was beside himself with rage and pain. Roaring tillthe blue-and-crimson bird on the tree-top flew off in a panic, heshook his head desperately, and then almost tried to stand upon it. Hestarted to roll over on his back, hoping thus to dislodge the gallingthing beneath the carapace, but thought better of it at the firstadded pressure. His contortions were so vehement that the mandiscreetly drew himself up to a higher branch, a slow grin wideninghis heavy mouth, as he marked his power to inflict injury on even suchan adversary as the King Dinosaur. The experiment had been successfulbeyond his utmost anticipations. Like Nature herself, he wascontinually experimenting, but by no means always with satisfactoryresults.

  Suddenly the monster made off, with head held as low as possible, forthe edge of the lagoon. Ploughing his way in with a huge splashing, hedisappeared beneath the water. A minute later he returned to thesurface and swam rapidly towards the jungle on the opposite shore,probably intending to find some projecting stump of a dead limb onwhich he could scratch the torment from under his ruff. At the edge ofthe jungle he was joined by another monster, like himself, butsmaller--probably one of his mates--and together they disappeared,with heavy crashings, in the rank tangle of the swamp-growths.

  The man-creature descended from his refuge, carrying in one hand aheavy fragment of branch, which he held awkwardly, as if notover-familiar with the idea of an artificial weapon. He seemed to begroping his way towards some use of it, either as a club or as astabbing instrument. During the fight, while he was experimenting withthe thorn branch, he had evidently had this weapon lodged in some safecrotch. And now he kept handling it with a curious interest.

  Standing erect, he might easily have been mistaken for a slightlybuilt and shapelier variety of the gorilla but for the true man-handsand the steady, contemplative, foreseeing look in the eyes. He cameand examined the mangled bulk of the Dinoceras, scrutinized the hornsand tusks minutely, and strove with all his force to wrench one of thelatter from its socket, as if hoping to make some use of it. Then,fastidiously selecting a shred of the victim's torn flesh, he sniffedand nibbled at it, and then threw it aside. He could eat and enjoyflesh-food at a pinch. But just now fruit was abundant; and fruit,with eggs and honey, formed the diet he preferred. As he stoodpondering the lifeless mass before him, a shrill call came to hisears, and, turning sharply, he saw his mate, with her baby in thecrook of her hairy arm, standing at the foot of a tree, and signalinghim to come to her. As soon as she saw that he understood, and wascomi
ng, she swung herself lightly up into the branches. He ran to thetree, climbed after her, and followed her to the very top, where sheawaited him. The tree was taller than any of its neighbors, andcommanded a clear view of the meadow-lands that lay a half mile backfrom the lagoon. His mate was pointing eagerly to these meadows. Hesaw that they were dotted and spotted with groups of great black,horned and tusked beasts like the one whose destruction he had justwitnessed. These were the migrant herds of the Dinoceras, just arrivedat their new pasturage. The man eyed them with discontent. He had seena specimen of their temper; and he congratulated himself that he andhis mate knew how to live in trees.

  The man-creature himself was a new-comer to the shores of the greatlagoon. The place suited him admirably by reason of the abundance ofits fruits. Along the banks of the lagoon were innumerable littlegroves of plantain, the rich sustaining fruit of which was of allfoods his favorite. And he had found no trace whatever of his mostdangerous enemies, the gigantic and implacable black lion of thecaves, the red bear and the saber-tooth.

  Such an irresistible giant as the King of the Triple Horn he mightwonder at, and hate, but he thought he had little cause to fear him.It is easy enough, if one is prudent, to avoid a mountain.

  Having found the place good, and resolved to stay, the man had built arefuge for himself and his family in this tall watch-tower of a tree.With interwoven branches he had made a rude but substantial platform,and carpeted it to something like softness with smaller branches andtwigs. A similar but lighter platform overhead made him a roof thatwas anything but waterproof, and a few bushy branches served forwalls. Such as it was, it was at least the beginning of a home. Heloved it; and in defense of the little hairy brown mate and downybrown baby who shared it with him he would have fought both Dinosaurand Dinoceras with his naked hands.

  For some days nothing more was seen of the two Dinosaurs, the Kingbeing probably occupied, in the depths of the jungle, with the nursingof his wrath and his hurts. The herds of the Dinoceras, meanwhile,kept to their meadows, having better drinking-water in a slow streamwhich traversed the pastures than in the brackish tide of the lagoon.

  Then came a morning when the brown mother, babe on arm, was gatheringplantains not far from the waterside, while the man chanced to be awayexploring the limits of his new domain. The woman looked up suddenly;and there, almost upon her, was the giant horror of the Dinosaur, hiscold, expressionless eyes gaping at her immovably from their gogglingsockets. She turned to flee; and there was the monster's mate, notquite so huge, but equally appalling. Behind her was an impenetrablewall of thorn-acacia. There was only one refuge--a tree, all toosmall, but lofty enough to take her beyond the reach of thosehorrifying horned and immobile masks. Up the little tree she went,nimbly as a monkey, and crouched shivering in a crotch. The slendertrunk swayed beneath her weight. She clutched the brown baby to herheart, and sent shriek after shriek through the glades.

  A mile away the man heard it. He gave one deep-chested shout inanswer, and then came running in silence, saving his breath.

  But it was a mile he had to come. The female Dinosaur, the moreinstantly malignant of the two, hurled herself upon the trunk of thetree. It swayed horribly, but did not yield at once. Thereupon the twobegan to root beneath it with their horns, having often used thismethod to obtain fruits which were above their reach. The tree leanedfar over. The giant straddled it as a moose straddles a poplarsapling, and bore it down irresistibly. Its top touched earth.

  The brown mother sprang forth with a tremendous leap, clearing thehorns with a twist which nearly broke her back. She thought herselffree. And then a gigantic tail struck her and felled her senseless. Asecond more, and the female Dinosaur's great foot crushed her and thewailing babe out of existence together.

  The swift end of the tragedy the man had seen as he came racing down astretch of open glade. He did not need to look at the awful thingbeneath the monster's foot to know that all was over. Beyond onehoarse groan he uttered not a sound. But blindly--for he had never yetpractised such an art--he hurled his ragged club at the nearestmonster. It rebounded like a baby's rattle from the vast horn-armoredhead. But a lucky chance had guided it. One of its sharp, splinteredknots struck fairly in the Dinosaur's eye, and smashed it in thesocket. She roared with agony; and the two, side by side, came lungingtowards him.

  The man ran back slowly. His despairing grief had changed suddenlyinto a cold hate and a resolve for vengeance. It was so easy for himto outstrip these lumbering monsters who were spouting their fetid,musky breath close upon his heels. He stumbled carefully at everyother step. He let them feel that at the next stride they wouldtransfix him. He led them on, the earth shaking beneath their tread,till another fifty feet would have brought them out upon the skirts ofthe meadow. But at this point, wearied by such an unwonted burst ofeffort, the King halted sulkily. He had not had an eye put out. Hewanted to give it up. But his mate came right on, thirsting for herrevenge.

  The man was not content with her pursuit alone. Spurting ahead, hegathered up two handfuls of sand and gravel, whirled about, and drovethem with all his strength into the King's cold eyes. It worked.Smarting and half blinded, the monster forgot his weariness, and camecharging along furiously in the trail of his mate.

  They were stupid, these Lizard Kings, with more brains in their pelvicarches than in their giant skulls. Because the puny man-creature wentstumbling almost within reach of their beaks, they imagined they weregoing to catch him. That he would go dodging around thickets whichthey crashed over blindly, and would then return to present himselfagain deliberately before them, did not strike them as at allsuspicious. Their dull but relentless hate once thoroughly aroused, aslong as he was in sight and they could move the mighty columns oftheir legs, they would pursue him.

  Through the last heavy fringe of bush and leafage they pursued him,and with a great crashing of branches came out upon the open,short-grass meadow. Still the man-creature stumbled on, straight outinto the open, and still they followed, raging silently.

  The black herds of the Dinoceras stopped feeding all at once, andraised their vicious heads and stared.

  There were countless cows in the herd, horned like the bulls, butsmaller, and without the rending tusks. The cows, at this season, allhad young. After one long, comprehending stare at the two giganticmottled shapes bearing down upon them, the herd put itself in motion.The man-creature they hardly noticed, he seemed so insignificant.

  With eyes that took in everything, coolly and sagaciously, the manobserved that the motion of the herd was an ordered one. The blackbeasts were deftly sorting themselves out to meet the danger. Thebulls came thrusting themselves to the front--a terrific array whichmight have struck panic to the hearts of even the colossal Dinosaurshad they not been too stupid with rage for any new impression topierce their brains. The cows, meanwhile, pushing their calves into ahuddled mass behind them, formed themselves into a second array, areserve of less mass and strength than the ranks of the bulls, but ofan invincible mother-fury.

  The man, with a wise fearlessness, ran on straight through thegathering line of bulls, the nearest of whom thrust at him carelesslyand then paid him no more heed. Behind their ranks, hidden now fromthe sight of his pursuers, he swerved, avoiding the line of cows, ransharply to the right, and came back around the end of the line to seewhat was going to happen. For all his grief, his heart was thumpingalmost to suffocation as his titanic vengeance moved to its end.

  When the two raging Dinosaurs lost sight of their prey they stoppedshort, stupidly bewildered. Then they noticed the array of blackbeasts charging upon them. This, in their mad mood, afforded a newobject to their rage. They plunged wallowing forward to meet the newfoe. And at that moment the man, appearing round the wing of the blackranks, halted abruptly, and laughed.

  It was a strange, disconcerting sound, that laughter, and the nearestDinoceras, disturbed by it, edged away and crowded against hisneighbor's flank in an inexplicable apprehension.

  The next moment the st
upendous opposing forces met with a shock that,to the man's overstrung senses, seemed to make the very daylight reel.There was no space for evasion or manoeuver. The two ponderous bulkswent straight through the ranks of the black bulls, ripping them withbeak and horn from shoulder to rump, treading them down like corn, andtrampling them under foot as they rolled on. The bulls on either sidecharged on their flanks, rearing, grunting, squealing insanely andripping with the massive daggers of their tusks. But as this terrificassault came from both sides at once, the two monsters were in realitysupported by it, so that they were not swept off their feet. Almostwithout a check, as it seemed, they ploughed straight on, lashing withtheir mighty tails, and leaving a trail of disabled victims behindthem, and so wore their way right up to the line of the cows.

  But here they were stopped. The calves were behind that line.

  The black mothers simply heaped themselves upon those impaling hornsand armored fronts, bearing them down, smothering, engulfing them inan avalanche of screaming and monstrous bulks. The bulls, meanwhile,were rending, tearing, stabbing, on flank and rear. The two Dinosaursdisappeared from view. The dreadful mountain of writhing, giganticshapes heaved convulsively for some minutes. Then the great columnsthat were the Dinosaurs' legs seemed to crumble beneath the weight.The awful, battling heap sagged, fell apart, and let in the glare ofthe sunlight upon what had been the two colossal monarchs of the earlyworld. The dreadful, unrecognizable things still moved, still heavedand twisted ponderously among the bodies of their slain, but it wasmere aimless paroxysm, the blind life struggling to resist its finalexpulsion and dissipation. The wounded Dinoceras drew away, to die orrecover as curious Nature might decree. The surviving cows returned toassure themselves that their young had come to no hurt. And the greatblack bulls who had escaped serious injury in the struggle stood aboutin a ring, thrusting and ripping at the unresponsive mountains offlesh. As they satisfied themselves, one after another, that thevictory was complete, and that there was nothing more to battleagainst, they fell to devouring their prey. Ordinarily feeders onherbage and roots, they were like pigs and rats and men, more or lesswithout prejudice in their diet, and they seemed to think thatdinosaur went very well with grass.

  At a distance of not more than fifty paces from these destroyinghosts, the man-creature stood carelessly, and stared and considered.He had no fear of them. He knew he could avoid them with ease. Soinsignificant that in their excitement they hardly noticed him, sosmall that in bulk he was no greater than the least of their calves,he nevertheless despised the gigantic beasts and felt himself theirlord. He had played with the two monarchs of all the early world, ledthem into his trap, and taken such dreadful vengeance upon them thathis grief was almost assuaged by the fullness of it. The black herdsof the Dinoceras he had used as the tools of his vengeance. No doubt,if necessary, he could use them again in some such fashion.

  He turned his back upon them, knowing that his fine ear would informhim at once if any should take it into their heads to pursue him, andstalked away with deliberation towards the wooded ground. But heavoided his tree. He would never more go near that empty home. Hewould return to the regions beyond the head of the lagoon, where hewould find scattered members of his kindred. He would find anothermate; and in a dim, groping way he harbored a desire for newoffspring, for sons, in particular, who should be inquiring and fullof resource, like himself. At the edge of the wood he turned, and gaveone more long, musing look at the invincible black herds whom he hadused. The idea of sons came back upon him insistently. A faint senseof the immeasurable vastness of what was to be done swept over hissoul. But he was not daunted. He would at least do something. And hewould teach his children, till they should learn, perhaps, by takingthought, even to overcome the ferocity of the saber-tooth and foil themalice of the great red bear.