I
_Why People Wanted to Live in Caves_
Did you know that people once lived in caves?
Perhaps you would like to know how it happened.
Long before people lived in caves they lived in the largest trees they
could find.
This was before they had learned to use fire.
But after a while they learned to use fire, and they no longer feared
to make homes on the ground.
They built brush huts of the rudest kind.
They lived in these huts for many years.
For a long time it was warm on the wooded hills, but after a while it
began to grow cold.
The ground was covered with snow and ice.
Cold winds swept over the wooded hills.
Snow beat into the rude brush huts, and cold winds whistled through the
branches.
People shivered with the winter’s cold.
They needed a warmer shelter, but they did not know how to make one.
Many of them had been in caves, but they did not dare stay very long.
[Illustration: _A cave-bear_]
Some caves were the homes of big cave-bears, others the dens of hyenas.
Sabre-tooth also lived in a cave.
People knew that these animals were dangerous creatures.
Many a time they had barely escaped from the claws of a cave-bear.
Many a time they had been chased by a pack of hyenas.
They did not want to enrage these creatures.
[Illustration: _Sabre-tooth_]
Least of all did they want to enrage old Sabre-tooth.
He was the fiercest creature on the hills.
When he came out of his cave the forest was still.
Scarcely an animal dared stir.
Even the rhinoceros and mammoth feared to attack him.
He was as sly as a cat and as powerful as a rhinoceros.
He had two sabre teeth that were sharp and strong.
No such animal as Sabre-tooth lives now.
There were only a few animals like him then, but they were more feared
than any other creature.
He was something like a lion and something like a tiger, but he was
more powerful than either.
He did not like to live in the cold, so each winter he went to the
south.
Each summer he came back again.
How glad every one was to see him go!
How they hoped he would never return!
How they wished they might have his cave for a home!