With Pic’s warning and fear of the giant weapon maker to spur him on,
Gonch made haste to escape from the Mousterian country. He was hurrying
to the southwest along the right bank of the Vézère River when suddenly
a shrill scream sounded in the distance ahead of him. It was the cry
of some animal in distress. A second and third cry rang out, closely
following the first; then came piercing trumpet calls and loud bellows.
Gonch sank upon his hands and knees and crawled through the grass in the
direction of the cries. Soon he came upon him who made them and learned
their cause. The Mammoth was bogged in a slough.
The huge beast had unwittingly trod upon the soft ground and was caught
fast. This was one enemy that sapped his courage of its last drop, and
now it held him in its death-grip. Maddened by his vain struggles, he
had worked himself into a frenzy of terror; squealing, bellowing and
thrashing his trunk about like a great flail.
The Muskman grinned with fiendish pleasure. He advanced to the quagmire
and squatted comfortably at its edge. He felt perfectly safe and was
only anxious lest he might miss any portion of the grand and glorious
scene. It was a small slough, and the terrified Mammoth stood so near
firm ground that only a few steps were needed to bring him safely clear.
He seemed to realize this, for he strained and tugged mightily to escape
the mire that sucked him down, directing his efforts toward the pit-edge
nearest him. One after another he pulled his feet from the slime, but
only one at a time, and as fast as one was free the others sank deeper.
The more he struggled, the more securely was he trapped. This was the way
with all mired animals. Cave-men often used these made-to-order traps as
aids in the capture of large game. Gonch had seen many a horse, bison or
ox in a similar predicament, but never had it been his good fortune to
come upon an elephant so caught.
“Pic’s friend; so much the better,” he sneered. At the sound of his voice
the Mammoth became quiet. In his terror he had not before perceived the
man squatting beside him. He squealed plaintively as much as to say:
“Friends should ever help each other,” and stood waiting, trembling and
expectant. Gonch never moved, but grinned fiendishly at the great beast
begging for assistance. He gathered a handful of dirt and threw it in the
Mammoth’s face.
The latter recoiled in surprise, then his ears flapped wildly and he
bellowed loudly with rage. This change of sentiment helped him as nothing
else could. He heaved and pulled, using his trunk as a lever on the
pit-edge, forgetting all fear in his eagerness to reach and chastise the
man.
Gonch arose and retreated several steps to where several detached
limestone blocks lay embedded in the soil. He secured one, the biggest he
could lift, and returned to the Mammoth.
The latter must have known what was in store for him, for as Gonch hurled
the stone at the base of his trunk the Mammoth suddenly ducked and
received the blow upon his head-peak, a bony prominence reinforced within
by air-cells and protected from without by a thick mop of shaggy hair. A
painful bruise, but no real damage done. Gonch procured another stone and
made ready to try again.
And then something swept down upon him with the weight and fury of an
avalanche and sent him sprawling in the grass. As he lay helpless,
wondering what had happened, he saw a rotund, short-legged animal
bringing itself up short upon its haunches. Gonch trembled as the beast
turned as though to make a second charge. However, to his great relief,
the Rhinoceros paid no further attention to him, but devoted himself
entirely to the Mammoth, walking along the margin of the morass and
studying the situation his friend was in, with the utmost deliberation.
Gonch crawled away to hide himself behind a stone and watch.
It took the Woolly Rhinoceros several minutes to realize his friend’s
plight and to devise ways and means for effecting a rescue. Having
determined his course, he anchored his forefeet firmly and as close to
the pit as he dared, then extended his head toward the Mammoth. The
latter responded by raising his trunk and curling its flexible tip about
the other’s nose-horn, a formidable affair about two feet long, as smooth
and glossy as polished steel. When assured that his partner had secured
a firm grip, the Woolly Rhinoceros settled back his full weight, at the
same time pushing hard with his legs.
The Mammoth’s trunk tautened until it seemed about to break. His feet
drew clear of the mire one by one, slowly but surely; and now that the
Rhinoceros was relieving him of so much of his dead weight, he clung to
that nose-horn with the persistence of one drowning. Even when his right
forefoot touched solid ground, he did not release this hold. “Friends
should ever help each other” might not be considered a slogan applicable
to beasts, but Gonch saw it being applied now and in most marvelous
fashion.
“I am asleep,” he thought. “What I now see is but a dream.” The Mammoth
had by this time freed his front limbs and was resting with his feet and
elbows on the pit-edge. Meanwhile the Rhinoceros maintained the tension
on his partner’s trunk, hanging on as determinedly as a bull-dog. Having
rested, the Mammoth now concentrated every ounce of his strength for the
final heave. The Rhinoceros, too, put on more power until his friend’s
nose-spout stretched almost to the breaking point.
The Mammoth’s hindquarters slowly emerged from the engulfing slime. The
soft ooze slobbered and sighed as the rear pillar limbs drew clear, and
the next moment both beasts stood shoulder to shoulder, stamping and
snorting with rage.
They sniffed vigorously, but the wind told no tales, for it blew from
them—the wrong way. Lucky Gonch! The time had not yet come for him to be
impaled upon the horn of a rhinoceros or crushed beneath an elephant’s
ponderous feet. The breeze was his friend and the eyesight of his enemies
was comparatively poor. He made himself as small as possible and lay
motionless behind the stone, entirely unconscious that the grunts and
squeals he heard were animal conversation.
“He must have gone away,” said Wulli. “I can neither see nor smell him.”
“To smell him is to know him,” the Mammoth grumbled. “Never have I known
a man to bear such an odor.”
“It is that of a hyena,” said the Rhinoceros.
“Let us find and punish him.” The huge Elephant ground his teeth as he
said this. Although slow to anger, he could neither forgive nor forget.
Gonch peered cautiously over the stone. The two beasts were walking away
side by side.
[Illustration: “FRIENDS SHOULD EVER HELP EACH OTHER”]
“A happy ending to an unpleasant dream,” he thought as he watched the
pair disappearing behind rocks and trees. He raised himself into a
crouching position just as a big-eared head arose with him from the
grass, about ten paces distant. It was a maneless head with repulsive
features and slopping jaws. It grinned horribly at the man, and yet made
no move to attack him. “One would think the beast my friend,” thought
Gonch as he stood erect with ax held ready to defend himself.
“A hyena, but never have I seen such a big one. The Mammoth has cheated
us both,” he said aloud to the beast. “We must wait and hope for the
chance that may come again.”
The Hyena licked his muzzle and leered at the man, then turned and walked
slowly away. A sloping back and bushy tail trailed behind the huge head.
Such trust in human nature was astounding. The Muskman might have glided
stealthily after and slain the brute before it could turn and defend
itself. He was standing motionless, watching the gray back melt away in
the meadow grass, when he heard sounds in the opposite direction. The
bushes waved and crackled, and he made out a human form coming through
them and rapidly toward him.
Gonch dropped flat in the grass and lay still. The crackling sounds
and he who made them came nearer. The Muskman could now see his face.
He breathed a deep sigh of relief. In a moment he was on his feet and
advancing to meet the newcomer. It was the boy Kutnar.