It must be remembered that the description I have just given of the
Swift One is not the description that would have been given by
Big-Tooth, my other self of my dreams, my prehistoric ancestor. It is
by the medium of my dreams that I, the modern man, look through the
eyes of Big-Tooth and see.
And so it is with much that I narrate of the events of that far-off
time. There is a duality about my impressions that is too confusing to
inflict upon my readers. I shall merely pause here in my narrative to
indicate this duality, this perplexing mixing of personality. It is I,
the modern, who look back across the centuries and weigh and analyze
the emotions and motives of Big-Tooth, my other self. He did not bother
to weigh and analyze. He was simplicity itself. He just lived events,
without ever pondering why he lived them in his particular and often
erratic way.
As I, my real self, grew older, I entered more and more into the
substance of my dreams. One may dream, and even in the midst of the
dream be aware that he is dreaming, and if the dream be bad, comfort
himself with the thought that it is only a dream. This is a common
experience with all of us. And so it was that I, the modern, often
entered into my dreaming, and in the consequent strange dual
personality was both actor and spectator. And right often have I, the
modern, been perturbed and vexed by the foolishness, illogic,
obtuseness, and general all-round stupendous stupidity of myself, the
primitive.
And one thing more, before I end this digression. Have you ever dreamed
that you dreamed? Dogs dream, horses dream, all animals dream. In
Big-Tooth’s day the half-men dreamed, and when the dreams were bad they
howled in their sleep. Now I, the modern, have lain down with Big-Tooth
and dreamed his dreams.
This is getting almost beyond the grip of the intellect, I know; but I
do know that I have done this thing. And let me tell you that the
flying and crawling dreams of Big-Tooth were as vivid to him as the
falling-through-space dream is to you.
For Big-Tooth also had an other-self, and when he slept that other-self
dreamed back into the past, back to the winged reptiles and the clash
and the onset of dragons, and beyond that to the scurrying, rodent-like
life of the tiny mammals, and far remoter still, to the shore-slime of
the primeval sea. I cannot, I dare not, say more. It is all too vague
and complicated and awful. I can only hint of those vast and terrific
vistas through which I have peered hazily at the progression of life,
not upward from the ape to man, but upward from the worm.
And now to return to my tale. I, Big-Tooth, knew not the Swift One as a
creature of finer facial and bodily symmetry, with long-lashed eyes and
a bridge to her nose and down-opening nostrils that made toward beauty.
I knew her only as the mild-eyed young female who made soft sounds and
did not fight. I liked to play with her, I knew not why, to seek food
in her company, and to go bird-nesting with her. And I must confess she
taught me things about tree-climbing. She was very wise, very strong,
and no clinging skirts impeded her movements.
It was about this time that a slight defection arose on the part of
Lop-Ear. He got into the habit of wandering off in the direction of the
tree where my mother lived. He had taken a liking to my vicious sister,
and the Chatterer had come to tolerate him. Also, there were several
other young people, progeny of the monogamic couples that lived in the
neighborhood, and Lop-Ear played with these young people.
I could never get the Swift One to join with them. Whenever I visited
them she dropped behind and disappeared. I remember once making a
strong effort to persuade her. But she cast backward, anxious glances,
then retreated, calling to me from a tree. So it was that I did not
make a practice of accompanying Lop-Ear when he went to visit his new
friends. The Swift One and I were good comrades, but, try as I would, I
could never find her tree-shelter. Undoubtedly, had nothing happened,
we would have soon mated, for our liking was mutual; but the something
did happen.
One morning, the Swift One not having put in an appearance, Lop-Ear and
I were down at the mouth of the slough playing on the logs. We had
scarcely got out on the water, when we were startled by a roar of rage.
It was Red-Eye. He was crouching on the edge of the timber jam and
glowering his hatred at us. We were badly frightened, for here was no
narrow-mouthed cave for refuge. But the twenty feet of water that
intervened gave us temporary safety, and we plucked up courage.
Red-Eye stood up erect and began beating his hairy chest with his fist.
Our two logs were side by side, and we sat on them and laughed at him.
At first our laughter was half-hearted, tinged with fear, but as we
became convinced of his impotence we waxed uproarious. He raged and
raged at us, and ground his teeth in helpless fury. And in our fancied
security we mocked and mocked him. We were ever short-sighted, we Folk.
Red-Eye abruptly ceased his breast-beating and tooth-grinding, and ran
across the timber-jam to the shore. And just as abruptly our merriment
gave way to consternation. It was not Red-Eye’s way to forego revenge
so easily. We waited in fear and trembling for whatever was to happen.
It never struck us to paddle away. He came back with great leaps across
the jam, one huge hand filled with round, water-washed pebbles. I am
glad that he was unable to find larger missiles, say stones weighing
two or three pounds, for we were no more than a score of feet away, and
he surely would have killed us.
As it was, we were in no small danger. Zip! A tiny pebble whirred past
with the force almost of a bullet. Lop-Ear and I began paddling
frantically. Whiz-zip-bang! Lop-Ear screamed with sudden anguish. The
pebble had struck him between the shoulders. Then I got one and yelled.
The only thing that saved us was the exhausting of Red-Eye’s
ammunition. He dashed back to the gravel-bed for more, while Lop-Ear
and I paddled away.
Gradually we drew out of range, though Red-Eye continued making trips
for more ammunition and the pebbles continued to whiz about us. Out in
the centre of the slough there was a slight current, and in our
excitement we failed to notice that it was drifting us into the river.
We paddled, and Red-Eye kept as close as he could to us by following
along the shore. Then he discovered larger rocks. Such ammunition
increased his range. One fragment, fully five pounds in weight, crashed
on the log alongside of me, and such was its impact that it drove a
score of splinters, like fiery needles, into my leg. Had it struck me
it would have killed me.
And then the river current caught us. So wildly were we paddling that
Red-Eye was the first to notice it, and our first warning was his yell
of triumph. Where the edge of the current struck the slough-water was a
series of eddies or small whirlpools. These caught our clumsy logs and
whirled them end for end, back and forth and around. We quit paddling
and devoted our whole energy to holding the logs together alongside
each other. In the meanwhile Red-Eye continued to bombard us, the rock
fragments falling about us, splashing water on us, and menacing our
lives. At the same time he gloated over us, wildly and vociferously.
It happened that there was a sharp turn in the river at the point where
the slough entered, and the whole main current of the river was
deflected to the other bank. And toward that bank, which was the north
bank, we drifted rapidly, at the same time going down-stream. This
quickly took us out of range of Red-Eye, and the last we saw of him was
far out on a point of land, where he was jumping up and down and
chanting a paean of victory.
Beyond holding the two logs together, Lop-Ear and I did nothing. We
were resigned to our fate, and we remained resigned until we aroused to
the fact that we were drifting along the north shore not a hundred feet
away. We began to paddle for it. Here the main force of the current was
flung back toward the south shore, and the result of our paddling was
that we crossed the current where it was swiftest and narrowest. Before
we were aware, we were out of it and in a quiet eddy.
Our logs drifted slowly and at last grounded gently on the bank.
Lop-Ear and I crept ashore. The logs drifted on out of the eddy and
swept away down the stream. We looked at each other, but we did not
laugh. We were in a strange land, and it did not enter our minds that
we could return to our own land in the same manner that we had come.
We had learned how to cross a river, though we did not know it. And
this was something that no one else of the Folk had ever done. We were
the first of the Folk to set foot on the north bank of the river, and,
for that matter, I believe the last. That they would have done so in
the time to come is undoubted; but the migration of the Fire People,
and the consequent migration of the survivors of the Folk, set back our
evolution for centuries.
Indeed, there is no telling how disastrous was to be the outcome of the
Fire People’s migration. Personally, I am prone to believe that it
brought about the destruction of the Folk; that we, a branch of lower
life budding toward the human, were nipped short off and perished down
by the roaring surf where the river entered the sea. Of course, in such
an eventuality, I remain to be accounted for; but I outrun my story,
and such accounting will be made before I am done.