THE FEAST OF THE MAMMOTH.
To the right and left of the precipice the fall to the plain below was
more gradual, and with exultant yells, the cave and Shell men rushed in
either direction, those venturing nearest the sheer descent going down
like monkeys, clinging as they went to shrubs and vines, while those who
ran to where the drop was a degree more passable fairly tumbled downward
to the plain. In an incredibly short space of time absolute silence
prevailed in and about the grove where the scene had lately been so
fiercely stirring. In the valley below there was wildest clamor.
It was a great occasion for the human beings of the region. There was no
question as to the value of the prize the hunters had secured. Never
before in any joint hunting expedition, within the memory of the oldest
present, had followed more satisfactory result. The spoil was well worth
the great effort that had been made; in the estimation of the time,
perhaps worth the death of the hunters who had been killed. The huge beast
lay dead, close to the base of the cliff. One great, yellow-white, curved
tusk had been snapped off and showed itself distinct upon the grass some
feet away from the mountain of flesh so lately animated. The sight was one
worth looking upon in any age, for, in point of grandeur of appearance,
the mammoth, while not as huge as some of the monsters of reptilian times,
had a looming impressiveness never surpassed by any beast on the earth's
surface. Though prone and dead he was impressive.
But the cave and Shell men were not so much impressed as they were
delighted. They had come into possession of food in abundance and there
would be a feast of all the people of the region, and, after that,
abundant meat in many a hut and cave for many a day. The hunters were
noisy and excited. A group pounced upon the broken tusk--for a mammoth
tusk, or a piece of one, was a prize in a cave dwelling--and there was
prospect of a struggle, but grim voices checked the wrangle of those who
had seized upon this portion of the spoil and it was laid aside, to be
apportioned later. The feast was the thing to be considered now.
Again swift-footed messengers ran along forest paths and swam streams and
thridded wood and thicket, this time to assemble, not the hunters alone,
but with them all members of households who could conveniently and safely
come to the gathering of the morrow, when the feast of the mammoth would
be on. The messengers dispatched, the great carcass was assailed, and keen
flint knives, wielded by strong and skillful hands, were soon separating
from the body the thick skin, which was divided as seemed best to the
leaders of the gathering, Hilltop, the old hunter, for his special
services, getting the chief award in the division. Then long slices of the
meat were cut away, fires were built, the hunters ate to repletion and
afterward, with a few remaining awake as guards, slept the sleep of the
healthy and fully fed. Not in these modern days would such preliminary
consumption of food be counted wisest preparation for a feast on the
morrow, but the cave and Shell men were alike independent of affections of
the stomach or the liver, and could, for days in sequence, gorge
themselves most buoyantly.
The morning came crisp and clear, and, with the morning, came from all
directions swiftly moving men and women, elated and hungry and expectant.
The first families and all other families of the region were gathering for
the greatest social function of the time. The men of various households
had already exerted themselves and a score or two of fires were burning,
while the odor of broiling meat was fragrant all about. Hunter husbands
met their broods, and there was banqueting, which increased as, hour after
hour, new groups came in. The families of both Ab and Oak were among those
early in the valley, Beechleaf and Bark, wide-eyed and curious, coming
upon the scene as a sort of advance guard and proudly greeting Ab. All
about was heard clucking talk and laughter, an occasional shout, and ever
the cracking of stone upon the more fragile thing, as the monster's
roasted bones were broken to secure the marrow in them.
There was hilarity and universal enjoyment, though the assemblage, almost
by instinct, divided itself into two groups. The cave men and the Shell
men, while at this time friendly, were, as has been indicated, unlike in
many tastes and customs and to an extent unlike in appearance. The cave
man, accustomed to run like the deer along the forest ways, or to avoid
sudden danger by swift upward clambering and swinging along among
treetops, was leaner and more muscular than the Shell man, and had in his
countenance a more daring and confident expression. The Shell man was
shorter and, though brawny of build, less active of movement. He had spent
more hours of each day of his life in his rude raft-boat, or in walking
slowly with poised spear along creek banks, or, with bent back, digging
for the great luscious shell-fish which made a portion of his food, than
he had spent afoot and on land, with the smell of growing things in his
nostrils. The flavor of the water was his, the flavor of the wood the cave
man's. So it was that at the feast of the mammoth the allies naturally and
good-naturedly became somewhat grouped, each person according to his kind.
When hunger was satisfied and the talking-time came on, those with objects
and impulses the same could compare notes most interestedly. Constantly
the number of the feasters increased, and by mid-day there was a company
of magnitude. Much meat was required to feed such a number, but there were
tons of meat in a mammoth, enough to defy the immediate assaults of a much
greater assemblage than this of exceedingly healthy people. And the smoke
from the fires ascended and these rugged ones ate and were happy.
But there came a time in the afternoon when even such feasters as were
assembled on this occasion became, in a measure, content, when this one
and that one began to look about, and when what might be called the social
amenities of the period began. Veterans flocked together, reminiscent of
former days when another mammoth had been driven over this same cliff; the
young grouped about different firesides, and there was talk of feats of
strength and daring and an occasional friendly grapple. Slender, sinewy
girls, who had girls' ways then as now, ate together and looked about
coquettishly and safely, for none had come without their natural
guardians. Rarely in the history of the cave men had there been a
gathering more generally and thoroughly festive, one where good eating had
made more good fellowship. Possibly--for all things are relative--there
has never occurred an affair of more social importance within the
centuries since. Human beings, dangerous ones, were merry and trusting
together, and the young looked at each other.
Of course Ab and Oak had been eating in company. They had risked
themselves dangerously in the battle on the cliff, had escaped injury and
were here now, young men of importance, each endowed with an appetite
corresponding with the physical exertion of which he was capable and which
he never hesitated to make. The amount either of those young men had eaten
was sufficient to make a gourmand, though of grossest Roman times, fairly
sick with envy, and they were still eating, though, it must be confessed,
with modified enthusiasm. Each held in his hand a smoking lump of flesh
from some favored portion of the mammoth and each rent away an occasional
mouthful with much content. Suddenly Ab ceased mastication and stood
silent, gazing intently at a not unpleasing object a few yards distant.
Two girls stood together near a fire about which were grouped perhaps a
dozen people. The two were eating, not voraciously, but with an apparent
degree of interest in what they were doing, for they had not been among
the early arrivals. It was upon these two that Ab's wandering glance had
fallen and had been held, and it was not surprising that he had become so
interested. Either of the couple was fitted to attract attention, though a
pair more utterly unlike it would be difficult to imagine. One was slight
and the other the very reverse, but each had striking characteristics.
They stood there, the two, just as two girls so often stand to-day, the
hand of one laid half-caressingly upon the hip of the other. The beaming,
broad one was chattering volubly and the slender one listening carelessly.
The talking of the heavier girl was interrupted evenly by her mumbling at
a juicy strip of meat. Her hunger, it was clear, had not yet been
satisfied, and it was as clear, too, that her companion had yet an
appetite. The slender one was, seemingly, not much interested in the
conversation, but the other chattered on. It was plain that she was a most
contented being. She was symmetrical only from the point of view of
admirers of the heavily built. She had very broad hips and muscular arms
and was somewhat squat of structure. It is hesitatingly to be admitted of
this young lady that, sturdy and prepossessing, from a practical point of
view, as she might be to the average food-winning cave man, she lacked a
certain something which would, to the observant, place her at once in good
society. She was an exceedingly hairy young woman. She wore the usual
covering of skins, but she would have been well-draped, in moderately
temperate weather, had the covering been absent. Either for fashion's sake
or comfort, not much weight of foreign texture in addition to her own
hirsute and, to a certain extent, graceful, natural garb, was needed. She
was a female Esau of the time, just a great, good-hearted, strong and
honest cave girl, of the subordinate and obedient class which began
thousands of years before did history, one who recognized in the girl who
stood beside her a stronger and dominating spirit, and who had been
received as a trusted friend and willing assistant. It is so to-day, even
among the creatures which are said to have no souls, the dogs especially.
But the girl had strength and a certain quick, animal intelligence. She
was the daughter of a cave man living not far from the home of old
Hilltop, and her name was Moonface. Her countenance was so broad and
beaming that the appellation had suggested itself in her jolly childhood.
Very different from Moonface was the slender being who, having eaten a
strip of meat, was now seeking diligently with a splinter for the marrow
in the fragment of bone her father had tossed toward her. Her father was
Hilltop, the veteran of the immediate region and the hero of the day, and
she was called Lightfoot, a name she had gained early, for not in all the
country round about was another who could pass over the surface of the
earth with greater swiftness than could she. And it was upon Lightfoot
that Ab was looking.
The young woman would have been fair to look upon, or at least
fascinating, to the most world-wearied and listless man of the present
day. She stood there, easily and gracefully, her arms and part of her
breast, above, and her legs from about the knees, below, showing clearly
from beneath her covering of skins. Her deep brown hair, knotted back with
a string of the tough inner bark of some tree, hung upon the middle of her
flat, in-setting back. She was not quite like any of the other girls about
her. Her eyes were larger and softer and there was more reflection and
variety of expression in them. Her limbs were quite as long as those of
any of her companions and the fingers and toes, though slenderer, were
quite as suggestive of quick and strong grasping capabilities, but there
was, with all the proof of springiness and litheness, a certain rounding
out. The strip of hair upon her legs below the knees was slight and
silken, as was also that upon her arms. Yet, undoubted leader in society
as her appearance indicated, quite aside from her father's standing, there
was in her face, with all its loftiness of air, a certain blithesomeness
which was almost at variance with conditions. She was a most lovable young
woman--there could be no question about that--and Ab had, as he looked
upon her for the first time, felt the fact from head to heel. He thought
of her as like the leopard tree-cat, most graceful creature of the wood,
so trim was she and full of elasticity, and thought of her, too, as he
looked in her intelligent face, as higher in another way. He was somewhat
awed, but he was courageous. He had, so far in life, but sought to get
what he wanted whenever it was in sight. Now he was nonplussed.
Presently Lightfoot raised her eyes and they met those of Ab. The young
people looked at each other steadily for a moment and then the glance of
the girl was turned away. But, meanwhile, the man had recovered himself.
He had been eating, absent-mindedly, a well-cooked portion of a great
steak of the mammoth's choicest part. He now tore it in twain and watched
the girl intently. She raised her eyes again and he tossed her a half of
the smoking flesh. She saw the movement, caught the food deftly in one
hand as it reached her, and looked at Ab and laughed. There was no mock
modesty. She began eating the choice morsel contentedly; the two were, in
a manner, now made formally acquainted.
The young man did not, on the instant, pursue his seeming advantage, the
result of an impulsive bravery requiring a greater effort on his part than
the courage he had shown in conflict with many a beast of the forest. He
did not talk to the young woman. But he thought to himself, while his
blood bubbled in his veins, that he would find her again; that he would
find her in the wood! She did not look at him more, for her people were
clustering about her and this was a great occasion.
Ab was recalled to himself by a hoarse exclamation. Oak was looking at him
fiercely. There was no other sound, but the young man stood gazing fixedly
at the place where the girl had just been lost amid the group about her.
And Ab knew instinctively, as men have learned to know so well in all the
years, from the feeling which comes to them at such a time, that he had a
rival, that Oak also had seen and loved this slender creature of the
hillside.
There was a division of the mammoth flesh and hide and tusks. Ab struggled
manfully for a portion of one of the tusks, which he wanted for Old Mok's
carving, and won it at last, the elders deciding that he and Oak had
fought well enough upon the cliff to entitle them to a part of the honor
of the spoil, and Oak opposing nothing done by Ab, though his looks were
glowering. Then, as the sun passed toward the west, all the people
separated to take the dangerous paths toward their homes. Ab and Oak
journeyed away together. Ab was jubilant, though doubtful, while the face
of Oak was dark. The heart of neither was light within him.