SABRE-TOOTH AND RHINOCEROS.
The rhinoceros of the Stone Age was a monstrous creature, an animal
varying in many respects from either species of the animal of the present
day, though perhaps somewhat closely allied to the huge double-horned and
now nearly extinct white rhinoceros of southern Africa. But the brute of
the prehistoric age was a beast of greater size, and its skin, instead of
being bare, was densely covered with a dingy colored, crinkly hair,
almost a wool. It was something to be dreaded by most creatures even in
this time of great, fierce animals. It turned aside for nothing; it was
the personification of courage and senseless ferocity when aroused.
Rarely seeking a conflict, it avoided none. The huge mammoth, a more
peaceful pachyderm, would ordinarily hesitate before barring its path,
while even the cave tiger, fiercest and most dreaded of the carnivora of
the time, though it might prey upon the young rhinoceros when opportunity
occurred, never voluntarily attacked the full-grown animal. From that
almost impervious shield of leather hide, an inch or more in thickness,
protected further by the woolly covering, even the terrible strokes of
the tiger's claws glanced off with but a trifling rending, while one
single lucky upward heave of the twin horns upon the great snout would
pierce and rend, as if it were a trifling obstacle, the body of any
animal existing. The lifting power of that prodigious neck was something
almost beyond conception. It was an awful engine of death when its
opportunity chanced to come. On the other hand, the rhinoceros of this
ancient world had but a limited range of vision, and was as dull-witted
and dangerously impulsive as its African prototype of today.
But short-sighted as it was, the boys clambering up the tree were near
enough for the perception of the great beast which burst over the
hummock, and it charged directly at them, the tree quivering when the
shoulder of the monster struck it as it passed, though the boys, already
in the branches, were in safety. Checking herself a little distance
beyond, the rhinoceros mother returned, snorting fiercely, and began
walking round and round the calf imprisoned in the pitfall. The boys
comprehended perfectly the story of the night. The calf once ensnared,
the mother had sought in vain to rescue it, and, finally, wearied with
her exertion, had retired just over the little descent, there to wallow
and rest while still keeping guard over her imprisoned young. The
spectacle now, as she walked around the trap, was something which would
have been pitiful to a later race of man. The beast would get down upon
her knees and plow the dirt about the calf with her long horns. She would
seek to get her snout beneath its body sidewise, and so lift it, though
each effort was necessarily futile. There was no room for any leverage,
the calf fitted the cavity. The boys clung to their perches in safety,
but in perplexity. Hours passed, but the mother rhinoceros showed no
inclination to depart. It was three o'clock in the afternoon when she
went away to the wallow, returning once or twice to her young before
descending the bank, and, even when she had reached the marsh, snorting
querulously for some time before settling down to rest.
The boys waited until all was quiet in the marsh, and, as a matter of
prudence, for some time longer. They wanted to feel assured that the
monster was asleep, then, quietly, they slid down the tree trunk and,
with noiseless step, stole by the pitfall and toward the hillside. A few
yards further on their pace changed to a run, which did not cease until
they reached the forest and its refuge, nor, even there, did they linger
for any length of time. Each started for his home; for their adventure
had again assumed a quality which demanded the consideration of older
heads and the assistance of older hands. It was agreed that they should
again bring their fathers with them--by a fortunate coincidence each knew
where to find his parent on this particular day--and that they should
meet as soon as possible. It was more than an hour later when the two
fathers and two sons, the men armed with the best weapons they possessed,
appeared upon the scene. So far as the watchers from the hillside could
determine, all was quiet about the clump of trees and the vicinity of the
pitfall. It was late in the afternoon now and the men decided that the
best course to pursue would be to steal down across the valley, kill the
imprisoned calf and then escape as soon as possible, leaving the mother
to find her offspring dead; reasoning that she would then abandon it.
Afterward the calf could be taken out and there would be a feast of cave
men upon the tender food and much benefit derived in utilization of
the tough yet not, at its age, too thick hide of the uncommon quarry.
There was but one difficulty in the way of carrying out this enterprise:
the wind was from the north and blew from the hunters toward the river,
and the rhinoceros, though lacking much range of vision, was as acute of
scent as the gray wolves which sometimes strayed like shadows through the
forest or the hyenas which scented from afar the living or the dead.
Still, the venture was determined upon.
The four descended the hill, the two boys in the rear, treading with the
lightness of the tiger cat, and went cautiously across the valley and
toward the tree trunk. Certainly no sound they made could have reached
the ear of the monster wallowing below the bank, but the wind carried to
its nostrils the message of their coming. They were not half way across
the valley when the rhinoceros floundered up to the level and charged
wildly along the course of the wafted scent. There was a flight for the
hillside, made none too soon, but yet in time for safety. Walking around
in circles, snorting viciously, the great beast lingered in the vicinity
for a time, then went back to its imprisoned calf, where it repeated the
performance of earlier in the day and finally retired again to its hidden
resting-place near by. It was dusk now and the shadows were deepening
about the valley.
The men, well up in the tree with the boys, were undetermined what to do.
They might steal along to the eastward and approach the calf from another
direction without disturbing the great brute by their scent. But it was
becoming darker every moment and the region was a dangerous one. In the
valley and away from the trees they were at a disadvantage and at night
there were fearful things abroad. Still, they decided to take the risk,
and the four, following the crest of the slight hill, moved along its
circle southeastward toward the river bank, each on the alert and each
with watchful eyes scanning the forest depths to the left or the valley
to the right. Suddenly One-Ear leaped back into the shadow, waved his
hand to check the advance of those behind him, then pointed silently
across the valley and toward the clump of trees.
Not a hundred yards from the pitfall the high grass was swaying gently;
some creature was passing along toward the pitfall and a thing of no
slight size. Every eye of the quartet was strained now to learn what
might be the interloper upon the scene. It was nearly dark, but the eyes
of the cave men, almost nocturnal in their adaptation as they were,
distinguished a long, dark body emerging from the reeds and circling
curiously and cautiously around the pitfall; nearer and nearer it
approached the helpless prisoner until perhaps twenty feet distant from
it. Here the thing seemed to crouch and remain quiescent, but only for a
little time. Then resounded across the valley a screaming roar, so fierce
and raucous and death-telling and terrifying that even the hardened
hunters leaped with affright. At the same moment a dark object shot
through the air and landed on the back of the creature in the shallow
pit. The tiger was abroad! There was a wild bleat of terror and agony, a
growl fiercer and shorter than the first hoarse cry of the tiger, and,
then, for a moment silence, but only for a moment. Snorts, almost as
terrible in their significance as the tiger's roar, came from the
marsh's edge. A vast form loomed above the slight embankment and there
came the thunder of ponderous feet. The rhinoceros mother was charging
the great tiger!
There was a repetition of the fierce snorts, with the wild rush of the
rhinoceros, another roar, the sound of which reechoed through the valley,
and then could be dimly seen a black something flying through the air and
alighting, apparently, upon the back of the charging monster. There was a
confusion of forms and a confusion of terrifying sounds, the snarling
roar of the great tiger and half whistling bellow of the great pachyderm,
but nothing could be seen distinctly. That a gigantic duel was in
progress the cave men knew, and knew, as well, that its scene was one
upon which they could not venture. The clamor had not ended when the
darkness became complete and then each father, with his son, fled swiftly
homeward.
Early the next morning, the four were together again at the same point of
safety and advantage, and again the frost-covered valley was a sea of
silver, this time unmarred by the criss-crosses of feeding or hunting
animals. There was no sign of life; no creature of the forest or the
plain was so daring as to venture soon upon the battlefield of the
rhinoceros and the cave tiger. Cautiously the cave men and their sons
made their way across the valley and approached the pitfall. What was
revealed to them told in a moment the whole story. The half-devoured body
of the rhinoceros calf was in the pit. It had been killed, no doubt, by
the tiger's first fierce assault, its back broken by the first blow of
the great forearm, or its vertebrae torn apart by the first grasp of the
great jaws. There were signs of the conflict all about, but that it had
not come to a deadly issue was apparent. Only by some accident could the
rhinoceros have caught upon its horns the agile monster cat, and only by
an accident even more remote could the tiger have reached a vital part of
its huge enemy. There had been a long and weary battle--a mother creature
fighting for her young and the great flesh-eater fighting for his prey.
But the combatants had assuredly separated without the death of either,
and the bereaved rhinoceros, knowing her young one to be dead, had
finally left the valley, while the tiger had returned to its prey and fed
its fill. But there was much meat left. There were, in the estimation of
the cave people, few more acceptable feasts than that obtainable from the
flesh of a young rhinoceros. The first instinct of the two men was to
work fiercely with their flint knives and cut out great lumps of meat
from the body in the pit. Hardly had they begun their work, when, as
by common impulse, each clambered out from the depression suddenly, and
there was a brief and earnest discussion. The cave tiger, monarch of the
time, was not a creature to abandon what he had slain until he had
devoured it utterly. Gorged though he might be, he was undoubtedly in
hiding within a comparatively short distance. He would return again
inevitably. He might be lying sleeping in the nearest clump of bushes! It
was possible that his appetite might come upon him soon again and that he
might appear at any moment. What chance then for the human beings who had
ventured into his dining-room? There was but one sensible course to
follow, and that was instant retreat. The four fled again to the hillside
and the forest, carrying with them, however, the masses of flesh already
severed from the body of the calf. There was food for a day or two for
each family.
And so ended the first woodland venture of these daring boys. For days
the vicinity of the little valley was not sought by either man or youth,
since the tiger might still be lurking near. When, later, the youths
dared to visit the scene of their bold exploit, there were only bones in
the pitfall they had made. The tiger had eaten its prey and had gone to
other fields. In later autumn came a great flood down the valley, rising
so high that the father of Oak and all his family were driven temporarily
from their cave by the water's influx and compelled to seek another
habitation many miles away. Some time passed before the comrades met
again.
As for Ab, this exploit might be counted almost as the beginning of his
manhood. His father--and fathers had even then a certain paternal
pride--had come to recognize in a degree the vigor and daring of his son.
The mother, of course, was even more appreciative, though to her firstborn
she could give scant attention, as Ab had the small brother in the cave
now and the little sister who was still smaller, but from this time the
youth became a person of some importance. He grew rapidly, and the sinewy
stripling developed, not increasing strength and stature and rounding
brawn alone, for he had both ingenuity and persistency of purpose,
qualities which made him rather an exception among the cave boys of his
age.