NU OF THE NIOCENE

Nu, the son of Nu, his mighty muscles rolling beneath his smooth

bronzed skin, moved silently through the jungle primeval. His handsome

head with its shock of black hair, roughly cropped between sharpened

stones, was high held, the delicate nostrils questioning each vagrant

breeze for word of Oo, hunter of men.

Now his trained senses catch the familiar odor of Ta, the great woolly

rhinoceros, directly in his path, but Nu, the son of Nu, does not hunt

Ta this day. Does not the hide of Ta's brother already hang before the

entrance of Nu's cave? No, today Nu hunts the gigantic cat, the fierce

saber-toothed tiger, Oo, for Nat-ul, wondrous daughter of old Tha, will

mate with none but the mightiest of hunters.

Only so recently as the last darkness, as, beneath the great,

equatorial moon, the two had walked hand in hand beside the restless

sea she had made it quite plain to Nu, the son of Nu, that not even he,

son of the chief of chiefs, could claim her unless there hung at the

thong of his loin cloth the fangs of Oo.

"Nat-ul," she had said to him, "wishes her man to be greater than

other men. She loves Nu now better than her very life, but if Love is

to walk at her side during a long life Pride and Respect must walk

with it." Her slender hand reached up to stroke the young giant's

black hair. "I am very proud of my Nu even now," she continued, "for

among all the young men of the tribe there is no greater hunter, or no

mightier fighter than Nu, the son of Nu. Should you, single-handed,

slay Oo before a grown man's beard has darkened your cheek there will

be none greater in all the world than Nat-ul's mate, Nu, the son of Nu."

The young man was still sensible to the sound of her soft voice and the

caress of her gentle touch upon his brow. As these things had sent him

speeding forth into the savage jungle in search of Oo while the day was

still so young that the night-prowling beasts of prey were yet abroad,

so they urged him forward deeper and deeper into the dark and trackless

mazes of the tangled forest.

As he forged on the scent of Ta became stronger, until at last the

huge, ungainly beast loomed large before Nu's eyes. He was standing in

a little clearing, in deep, rank jungle grasses, and had he not been

head on toward Nu he would not have seen him, since even his acute

hearing was far too dull to apprehend the noiseless tread of the cave

man, moving lightly up wind.

As the tiny, blood-shot eyes of the primordial beast discovered the man

the great head went down, and Ta, ill natured and bellicose progenitor

of the equally ill natured and bellicose rhino of the twentieth

century, charged the lithe giant who had disturbed his antediluvian

meditation.

The creature's great bulk and awkward, uncouth lines belied his speed,

for he tore down upon Nu with all the swiftness of a thoroughbred and

had not the brain and muscle of the troglodyte been fitted by heritage

and training to the successful meeting of such emergencies there would

be no tale to tell today of Nu of the Niocene.

But the young man was prepared, and turning he ran with the swiftness

of a hare toward the nearest tree, a huge, arboraceous fern towering

upon the verge of the little clearing. Like a cat the man ran up the

perpendicular bole, his hands and feet seeming barely to touch the

projecting knobs marking the remains of former fronds which converted

the towering stem into an easy stairway for such as he.

About Nu's neck his stone-tipped spear hung by its rawhide thong

down his back, while stone hatchet and stone knife dangled from his

gee-string, giving him free use of his hands for climbing. You or I,

having once gained the seeming safety of the lowest fronds of the great

tree, fifty feet above the ground, might have heaved a great sigh of

relief that we had thus easily escaped the hideous monster beneath; but

not so Nu, who was wise to the ways of the creatures of his remote age.

Not one whit did he abate his speed as he neared the lowest branch, nor

did he even waste a precious second in a downward glance at his enemy.

What need, indeed? Did he not know precisely what Ta would do? Instead

he swung, monkey-like, to the broad leaf, and though the chances he

took would have paled the face of a brave man today they did not cause

Nu even to hesitate, as he ran lightly and swiftly along the bending,

swaying frond, leaping just at the right instant toward the bole of a

nearby jungle giant.

Nor was he an instant too soon. The frond from which he had sprung had

scarce whipped up from beneath his weight when Ta, with all the force

and momentum of a runaway locomotive, struck the base of the tree head

on. The jar of that terrific collision shook the earth, there was the

sound of the splintering of wood, and the mighty tree toppled to the

ground with a deafening crash.

Nu, from an adjoining tree, looked down and grinned. He was not

hunting Ta that day, and so he sprang from tree to tree until he had

passed around the clearing, and then, coming to the surface once more,

continued his way toward the distant lava cliffs where Oo, the man

hunter, made his grim lair.

From among the tangled creepers through which the man wormed his

sinuous way ugly little eyes peered down upon him from beneath shaggy,

beetling brows, and great fighting tusks were bared, as the hairy

ones growled and threatened from above; but Nu paid not the slightest

attention to the huge, ferocious creatures that menaced him upon every

hand. From earliest childhood he had been accustomed to the jabberings

and scoldings of the ape-people, and so he knew that if he went his

way in peace, harming them not, they would offer him no harm. One of

lesser experience might have attempted to drive them away with menacing

spear, or well-aimed hatchet, and thus have drawn down upon him a half

dozen or more ferocious bulls against which no single warrior, however

doughty, might have lived long enough to count his antagonists.

Threatening and unfriendly as the apes seemed the cave man really

looked upon them as friends and allies, since between them and his own

people there existed a species of friendly alliance, due no doubt to

the similarity of their form and structure. In that long gone age when

the world was young and its broad bosom teemed with countless thousands

of carnivorous beasts and reptiles, and other myriads blackened the

bosoms of its inland seas, and filled its warm, moist air with the

flutter of their mighty, bat-like wings, man's battle for survival

stretched from sun to sun--there was no respite. His semiarboreal

habits took him often into the domains of the great and lesser apes,

and from this contact had arisen what might best be termed an armed

truce, for they alone of all the other inhabitants of the earth had

spoken languages, both meager it is true, yet sufficient to their

primitive wants, and as both languages had been born of the same needs

to deal with identical conditions there were many words and phrases

identical to both. Thus the troglodyte and the primordial ape could

converse when necessity demanded, and as Nu traversed their country he

understood their grumbling and chattering merely as warnings to him

against the performance of any overt act. Had danger lurked in his path

the hairy ones would have warned him of that too, for of such was their

service to man who in return often hunted the more remorseless of their

enemies, driving them from the land of the anthropoids.

On and on went Nu occasionally questioning the hairy ones he

encountered for word of Oo, and always the replies confirmed him in his

belief that he should come upon the man eater before the sun crawled

into its dark cave for the night.

And so he did. He had passed out of the heavier vegetation, and was

ascending a gentle rise that terminated in low volcanic cliffs when

there came down upon the breeze to his alert nostrils the strong scent

of Oo. There was little or no cover now, other than the rank jungle

grass that overgrew the slope, and an occasional lofty fern rearing its

tufted pinnacle a hundred feet above the ground; but Nu was in no way

desirous of cover. Cover that would protect him from the view of Oo

would hide Oo from him. He was not afraid that the saber-toothed tiger

would run away from him--that was not Oo's way--but he did not wish to

come unexpectedly upon the animal in the thick grass.

He had approached to within a hundred yards of the cliffs now, and the

scent of Oo had become as a stench in the sensitive nostrils of the

cave man. Just ahead he could see the openings to several caves in the

face of the rocky barrier, and in one of these he knew must lie the

lair of his quarry.

Fifty yards from the cliff the grasses ceased except for scattered

tufts that had found foothold among the broken rocks that strewed the

ground, and as Nu emerged into this clear space he breathed a sigh of

relief for during the past fifty yards a considerable portion of the

way had been through a matted jungle that rose above his head. To have

met Oo there would have spelled almost certain death for the cave man.

Now, as he bent his eyes toward the nearby cave mouths he discovered

one before which was strewn such an array of gigantic bones that he

needed no other evidence as to the identity of its occupant. Here,

indeed, laired no lesser creature than the awesome Oo, the gigantic,

saber-toothed tiger of antiquity. Even as Nu looked there came a low

and ominous growl from the dark mouth of the foul cavern, and then in

the blackness beyond the entrance Nu saw two flaming blotches of yellow

glaring out upon him.

A moment later the mighty beast itself sauntered majestically into

the sunlight. There it stood lashing its long tail from side to side,

glaring with unblinking eyes straight at the rash man-thing who dared

venture thus near its abode of death. The huge body, fully as large as

that of a full grown bull, was beautifully marked with black stripes

upon a vivid yellow ground, while the belly and breast were of the

purest white.

As Nu advanced the great upper lip curled back revealing in all their

terrible ferocity the eighteen-inch curved fangs that armed either side

of the upper jaw, and from the cavernous throat came a fearsome scream

of rage that brought frightened silence upon the jungle for miles

around.

The hunter loosened the stone knife at his gee-string and transferred

it to his mouth where he held it firmly, ready for instant use, between

his strong, white teeth. In his left hand he carried his stone-tipped

spear, and in his right the heavy stone hatchet that was so effective

both at a distance and at close range.

Oo is creeping upon him now. The grinning jaws drip saliva. The

yellow-green eyes gleam bloodthirstily. Can it be possible that this

fragile pygmy dreams of meeting in hand-to-hand combat the terror of a

world, the scourge of the jungle, the hunter of men and of mammoths?

"For Nat-ul," murmured Nu, for Oo was about to spring.

As the mighty hurtling mass of bone and muscle, claws and fangs,

shot through the air toward him the man swung his tiny stone hatchet

with all the power behind his giant muscles, timing its release so

nicely that it caught Oo in mid leap squarely between the eyes with

the terrific force of a powder-sped projectile. Then Nu, cat-like as

Oo himself, leaped agilely to one side as the huge bulk of the beast

dashed, sprawling to the ground at the spot where the man had stood.

Scarce had the beast struck the earth than the cave man, knowing that

his puny weapon could at best but momentarily stun the monster,

drove his heavy spear deep into the glossy side just behind the giant

shoulder.

Already Oo has regained his feet, roaring and screaming in pain and

rage. The air vibrates and the earth trembles to his hideous shrieks.

For miles around the savage denizens of the savage jungle bristle in

terror, slinking further into the depths of their dank and gloomy

haunts, casting the while affrighted glances rearward in the direction

of that awesome sound.

With gaping jaws and wide spread talons the tiger lunges toward its

rash tormentor who still stands gripping the haft of his primitive

weapon. As the beast turns the spear turns also, and Nu is whipped

about as a leaf at the extremity of a gale-tossed branch.

Striking and cavorting futilely the colossal feline leaps hither and

thither in prodigious bounds as he strives to reach the taunting figure

that remains ever just beyond the zone of those destroying talons. But

presently Oo goes more slowly, and now he stops and crouches flat upon

his belly. Slowly and cautiously he reaches outward and backward with

one huge paw until the torturing spear is within his grasp.

Meanwhile the man screams taunts and insults into the face of his

enemy, at the same time forcing the spear further and further into the

vitals of the tiger, for he knows that once that paw encircles the

spear's haft his chances for survival will be of the slenderest. He

has seen that Oo is weakening from loss of blood, but there are many

fighting minutes left in the big carcass unless a happy twist of the

spear sends its point through the wall of the great heart.

But at length the beast succeeds. The paw closes upon the spear. The

tough wood bends beneath the weight of those steel thews, then snaps

short a foot from the tiger's body, and at the same instant Oo rears

and throws himself upon the youth, who has snatched his stone hunting

knife from between his teeth and crouches, ready for the impact.

Down they go, the man entirely buried beneath the great body of his

antagonist. Again and again the crude knife is buried in the snowy

breast of the tiger even while Nu is falling beneath the screaming,

tearing incarnation of bestial rage.

At the instant it strikes the man as strange that not once have the

snapping jaws or frightful talons touched him, and then he is crushed

to earth beneath the dead weight of Oo. The beast gives one last,

Titanic struggle, and is still.

With difficulty Nu wriggles from beneath the carcass of his kill. At

the last moment the tiger itself had forced the spear's point into its

own heart as it bent and broke the haft. The man leaps to his feet and

cuts the great throat. Then, as the blood flows, he dances about the

dead body of his vanquished foe, brandishing his knife and recovered

hatchet, and emitting now shrill shrieks in mimicry of Oo, and now deep

toned roars--the call of the victorious cave man.

From the surrounding cliffs and jungle came answering challenges from a

hundred savage throats--the rumbling thunder of the cave-bear's growl;

the roar of Zor, the lion; the wail of the hyena; the trumpeting of the

mammoth; the deep toned bellowing of the bull bos, and from distant

swamp and sea came the hissing and whistling of saurians and amphibians.

His victory dance completed, Nu busied himself in the removal of the

broken spear from the carcass of his kill. At the same time he removed

several strong tendons from Oo's fore arm, with which he roughly

spliced the broken haft, for there was never an instant in the danger

fraught existence of his kind when it was well to be without the

service of a stone-tipped spear.

This precaution taken, the man busied himself with the task of cutting

off Oo's head, that he might bear it in triumph to the cave of his

love. With stone hatchet and knife he hacked and hewed for the better

part of a half hour, until at last he raised the dripping trophy above

his head, as, leaping high in air, he screamed once more the gloating

challenge of the victor, that all the world might know that there was

no greater hunter than Nu, the son of Nu.

Even as the last note of his fierce cry rolled through the heavy,

humid, super-heated air of the Niocene there came a sudden hush upon

the face of the world. A strange darkness obscured the swollen sun.

The ground trembled and shook. Deep rumblings muttered upward from the

bowels of the young earth, and answering grumblings thundered down from

the firmament above.

The startled troglodyte looked quickly in every direction, searching

for the great beast who could thus cause the whole land to tremble and

cry out in fear, and the heavens above to moan, and the sun to hide

itself in terror.

In every direction he saw frightened beasts and birds and flying

reptiles scurrying in panic stricken terror in search of hiding places,

and moved by the same primitive instinct the young giant grabbed up his

weapons and his trophy, and ran like an antelope for the sheltering

darkness of the cave of Oo.

Scarcely had he reached the fancied safety of the interior when the

earth's crust crumpled and rocked--there was a sickening sensation of

sudden sinking, and amidst the awful roar and thunder of rending rock,

the cave mouth closed, and in the impenetrable darkness of his living

tomb Nu, the son of Nu, Nu of the Niocene, lost consciousness.

That was a hundred thousand years ago.