THE CAVE TIGER
One morning not long after the lion hunt, Thorn and his grandfather
started off to the stone yard. They soon came to the deep forest where
they could not see far ahead of them, because the beeches and oaks and
chestnuts grew close together, and under the branches there was a thick
tangle of low bushes.
Old Flint watched carefully as he led the way through the woods. He
listened to every sound, and looked often behind him. Farther along,
the ground was more open; and from a hill they looked far away over
wide level land. Herds of horses and bison were grazing there, and
packs of wolves skulked through the edge of the forest. They waited to
spring upon the animals that should stray from the herds.
Passing on, old Flint came upon the body of a rhinoceros partly eaten,
and he stopped and looked anxiously around.
"This is the work of a tiger," he said; "and he cannot be far off, for
the meat is fresh."
Flint peered through the bushes; but the tiger was not in sight, so he
quickly cut meat from the rhinoceros and walked on slowly.
"The tiger may be somewhere near, sleeping. Keep a sharp look-out,
boy; he is yellow with dark stripes, just the color of the dry grass,
and you can walk almost onto him before you see him. No animal can
hide better than he, and none can walk the forest paths with less noise
from his padded feet."
They had not gone much farther when old Flint stopped and, catching his
breath; stared into the shadows of a tree. Clutching Thorn's shoulder,
he pointed to the spot without saying a word. There on a limb, asleep,
beautiful in his tawny skin and easy grace, lay the great animal.
Thorn looked while his heart beat fast. Never before had he seen
anything that so held his eye. He would have liked to stay and watch
him--to see him walk, to see his great claws and teeth, and his wild
eyes. But Flint hurried him off, and without a sound they left the
place. Not till he had put miles between himself and the tiger did
Flint shake off a feeling of terror, and speak in answer to Thorn's
question:
"How does the tiger get things to eat?"
"He steals to the river bank where the shade is deepest," said the old
man, recalling many a sight of the crouching beast. "There, on some
over-hanging limb or rock, he waits for deer or horse or any other
animal to come to drink. Then from his hiding place, with an angry
snarl, he springs upon the back of his prey."
"Oh, many a time I have seen him," continued old Flint, thinking of
past years; "for when I was a boy, my father's cave was in a high
cliff, close to the river. A little way below, there was a place where
the animals came to drink. And often I have felt the hair rise on my
head as I heard the cry of some wounded animal, and saw it rush away
with a yellow patch clinging to its neck."
[Illustration: Tiger]
"I have a tiger's jaw which I found once long ago. You may see it some
time. Then you will know why the tiger can kill the rhinoceros, whose
thick skin no other animal's teeth can pierce. In the tiger's upper
jaw, there are two teeth that are long and sharp and thin. The tiger
thrusts these into the neck of the rhinoceros, and he sinks to the
ground, and the tiger feeds upon him."
"You say the tiger springs upon the back of the rhinoceros. Well, what
would happen if he should miss, and not land on the back?" asked Thorn.
"In that case he would likely have short time to live," said Flint.
"For the rhinoceros is a furious beast when angry. If he gets his
terrible two-horned snout under the body of his enemy and gives an
upward fling of his powerful neck, the end is near. So fierce is the
rhinoceros when angry, that even the mammoth is afraid of him and keeps
out of his way."
[Illustration: Tiger's tooth]