OLD MOK, THE MENTOR.
It was at about this time, the time when Ab had begun to develop from
boyhood into strong and aspiring youth, that his family was increased
from five to six by the addition of a singular character, Old Mok. This
personage was bent and seemingly old, but he was younger than he looked,
though he was not extremely fair to look upon. He had a shock of grizzled
hair, a short, stiff, unpleasant beard, and the condition of one of his
legs made him a cripple of an exaggerated type. He could hobble about and
on great occasions make a journey of some length, but he was practically
debarred from hunting. The extraordinary curvature of his twisted leg
was, as usual in his time, the result of an encounter with some wild
beast. The limb curved like a corkscrew and was so much shorter than the
other leg that the man was really safe only when the walls of a cave
enclosed him. But if his legs were weak his brain and arms were not. In
that grizzled head was much intelligence and the arms were those of a
great climber. His toes were clasping things and he was at home in a
treetop. But he did not travel much. There was no need. Old Mok had
special gifts, and they were such as made him a desirable friend among
the cave men. He had, in his youth, been a mighty hunter and had so
learned that he could tell wonderfully the ways of beasts and swimming
things and the ways of slaying or eluding them. Best of all, he was such
a fashioner of weapons as the valley had rarely known, and, because of
this, was in great request as a cared-for inmate of almost any cave which
hit his fancy. After his crippling he had drifted from one haven to
another, never quite satisfied with what he found, and now he had come to
live, as he supposed, with his old friend, One-Ear, until life should
end. Despite his harshness of appearance--and neither of the two could
ever afterward explain it--there was something about the grim old man
which commended him to Ab from the very first. There was an occasional
twinkle in the fierce old fellow's eye and sometimes a certain cackle in
his clucking talk, which betokened not unkindliness toward a healthy
youngster, and the two soon grew together, as often the young and old may
do.
Though but what might be called in one sense a dependent, the crippled
hunter had a dignity and was arbitrary in the expression of his views.
Never once, through all the thousands of years which have passed since he
hobbled here and there, has lived an armorer more famous among those who
knew him best. No fashioner of sword, or lance, or coat of mail or plate,
in the far later centuries, had better reputation than had Mok with his
friends and patrons for the making of good weapons, though it may be that
his clientele was less numerous by hundreds to one than that of some
later manufacturer of a Toledo blade. He might be living partly as a
dependent, but he could do almost as he willed. Who should have standing
if it were not accorded to the most gifted chipper of flint and carver of
mammoth tooth in all the region from where the little waters came down to
make a river, to where the blue, broad stream, blending with friendly
currents, was lost in what is now the great North Sea?
A boy and an old man can come together closely, and that has, through all
the ages, been a good thing for each. The boy learns that which enables
him to do things and the man is happy in watching the development of one
of his own kind. Helping and advising Ab, and sometimes Oak as well, Old
Mok did not discourage sometimes reckless undertakings. In those days
chances were accepted. So when any magnificent scheme suggested itself to
the two youths, Ab at once sought his adviser and was not discountenanced.
It was a great night in the cave when Ab brought home two fluffy gray
bundles not much larger than kittens and tied them in a corner with
thongs of sinew, sinew so tough and stringy that it could not easily be
severed by the sharp teeth which were at once applied to it. The fluffy
gray bundles were two young wolves, and were, for Ab, a great possession.
They were not even brother and sister, these cubs, and had been gallantly
captured by the two courageous rangers, Ab and Oak. For some time the
boys had noted lurking shadows about a rugged height close by the river,
some distance below the cave of Ab, and had resolved upon a closer
investigation. A particularly ugly brute was the wolf of the cave man's
time, but one which, when not in pack, was unlikely to assail two
well-armed and sturdy youths in daylight; and the result of much cautious
spying was that they found two dens, each with young in them, and at a
time when the old wolves were away. In one den Ab seized upon two of the
snarling cubs and Oak did the same in the other, and then the raiders
fled with such speed as was in them, until they were at a safe distance
from the place where things would not go well with them should the robbed
parents return. Once in safe territory, each exchanged a cub for one
seized by the other and then each went home in triumph. Ab was especially
delighted. He was determined to feed his cubs with the utmost care and to
keep them alive and growing. He was full of the fancy and delighted in
it, but he had assumed a great responsibility.
[Illustration: AB SEIZED UPON TWO OF THE SNARLING CUBS AND OAK DID THE
SAME]
The cubs were tied in a corner of the cave and at once commanded the
attention and unbounded admiration of Bark and Beech-Leaf. The young lady
especially delighted in the little beasts and could usually be found
lying in the corner with them, the baby wolves learning in time to play
with her as if she were a wolf-suckled cub herself. Bark had almost the
same relations with the little brutes and Ab looked after them most
carefully. Even the father and mother became interested in the antics of
the young children and young wolves and the cubs became acknowledged, if
not particularly respected, members of the family. But Ab's dream was too
much for sudden realization. Not all at once could the wild thing become
a tame one. As the cubs grew and their teeth became longer and sharper,
there was an occasional conflict and the arms of Bark and Beech-Leaf were
scarred in consequence, until at last Ab, though he protested hardly, was
compelled to give up his pets. Somehow, he was not in the mood for
killing the half grown beasts, and so he simply turned them loose, but
they did not, as he had thought they would, flee to the forest. They had
known almost no life except that of the cave, they had got their meat
there and, at night, the twain were at the doorway whining for food. To
them were tossed some half-gnawed bones and they received them with
joyous yelps and snarls. Thenceforth they hung about the cave and
retained, practically, their place in the family, oddly enough showing
particular animosity to those of their own kind who ventured near the
place. One day, the female was found in the cave's rear with four little
whelps lying beside her, and that settled it! The family petted the young
animals and they grew up tamer and more obedient than had been their
father and mother. Protected by man, they were unlikely to revert to
wildness. Members of the pack which grew from them were, in time,
bestowed as valued gifts among the cave men of the region and much came
of it. The two boys did a greater day's work than they could comprehend
when they raided the dens by the river's side.
But there was much beside the capture of wolf cubs to occupy the
attention of the boys. They counted themselves the finest bird hunters in
the community and, to a certain extent, justified the proud claim made.
No youths could set a snare more deftly or hurl a stone more surely, and
there was much bird life for them to seek. The bustard fed in the vast
nut forests, the capercailzie was proud upon the moors, where the
heath-cock was as jaunty, and the willow grouse and partridge were wise in
covert to avoid the hungry snowy owl. Upon the river and lagoons and
creeks the swan and wild goose and countless duck made constant clamor,
and there were water-rail and snipe along the shallows. There were eggs
to be found, and an egg baked in the ashes was a thing most excellent. It
was with the waterfowl that the boys were most successful. The ducks
would in their feeding approach close to the shores of the river banks or
the little islands and would gather in bunches so near to where the boys
were hidden that the young hunters, leaping suddenly to their feet and
hurling their stones together, rarely failed to secure at least a single
victim. There were muskrats along the banks and there was a great beaver,
which was not abundant, and which was a mighty creature of his kind. Of
muskrats the boys speared many--and roasted muskrat is so good that it is
eaten by the Indians and some of the white hunters in Canada to-day--but
the big beaver they did not succeed in capturing at this stage of their
career. Once they saw a seal, which had come up the river from the sea,
and pursued it, running along the banks for miles, but it proved as
elusive as the great beaver.
But, as a matter of course, it was upon land that the greatest sport was
had. There were the wild hogs, but the hogs were wary and the big boars
dangerous, and it was only when a litter of the young could be pounced
upon somewhere that flint-headed spears were fully up to the emergency.
On such occasions there was fine pigsticking, and then the atmosphere in
the caves would be made fascinating with the odor of roasting suckling.
There is a story by a great and gentle writer telling how a Chinaman
first discovered the beauties of roast pig. It is an admirable tale and
it is well that it was written, but the cave man, many tens of thousands
of years before there was a China, yielded to the allurements of young
pig, and sought him accordingly.
The musk-ox, which still mingled with the animals of the river basin, was
almost as difficult of approach as in arctic wilds to-day, as was a small
animal, half goat, half antelope, which fed upon the rocky hillsides or
wherever the high reaches were. There were squirrels in the trees, but
they were seldom caught, and the tailless hare which fed in the river
meadows was not easily approached and was swift as the sea wind in its
flight, swifter than a sort of fox which sought it constantly. But the
burrowing things were surer game. There were martens and zerboas, and
marmots and hedgehogs and badgers, all good to eat and attainable to
those who could dig as could these brawny youths. The game once driven to
its hole, the clamshell and the sharpened fire-hardened spade-stick were
brought into use and the fate of the animal sought was rarely long in
doubt. It is true that the scene lacked one element very noticeable when
boys dig out any animal to-day. There was not the inevitable and
important dog, but the youths were swift of sight and quick of hand, and
the hidden creature, once unearthed, seldom escaped. One of the prizes of
those feats of excavation was the badger, for not only was it edible, but
its snow-white teeth, perforated and strung on sinew, made necklaces
which were highly valued.
The youths did not think of attacking many of the dangerous brutes. They
might have risked the issue with a small leopard which existed then, or
faced the wildcat, but what they sought most was the wolverine, because
it had fur so long and oddly marked, and because it was braver than other
animals of its size and came more boldly to some bait of meat, affording
opportunity for fine spear-throwing. And, apropos of the wolverine, the
glutton, as it is called in Europe, it is something still admired. It is
a vicious, bloodthirsty, unchanging and, to the widely-informed and
scientifically sentimental, lovable animal. It is vicious and
bloodthirsty because that is its nature. It is lovable because, through
all the generations, it has come down just the same. The cave man knew it
just as it is now; the early Teuton knew it when "hides" of land were the
rewards of warriors. The Roman knew it when he made forays to the far
north for a few centuries and learned how sharp were the blades of the
Rhine-folk and the Briton. The Druid and the Angle and Jute and Saxon
knew it, and it is known to-day in all northern Europe and Asia and
America, in fact, in nearly all the northern temperate zone. The
wolverine is something wonderful; it laughs at the ages; its bones, found
side by side with those of the cave hyena, are the same as those found in
its body as it exists to-day. It is an anomaly, an animal which does not
advance nor retrograde.
The two big boys grew daily in the science of gaining food and grew more
and more of importance in their respective households. Sometimes either
one of them might hunt alone, but this was not the rule. It was safer for
two than one, when the forest was invaded deeply. But not all their time
was spent in evading or seeking the life of such living things as they
might discover. They had a home life sometimes as entertaining as the
life found anywhere outside.