The wild horses fed
daily in the valley to the north, as in the greater one to the south of
the river. But there also, in the high grass, as upon the south,
sometimes lurked the great beasts of prey, and to be far away from a tree
upon the plain was an unsafe thing for a cave man. From the forest edge
to the clump of trees was not more than two minutes' rush for a vigorous
boy and it was this fact which suggested to the youths their plan of
capture of the horse.
The homes of the cave men were located, when possible, where the refuge
of safety overhung closely the river's bank, and where the non-climbing
animals must pass along beneath them, but, even at that period of few men
and abundant animal life, there had developed an acuteness among the
weaker beasts, and they had learned to avoid certain paths that had
proved fatal to their brethren. They were numerous in the plains and
comparatively careless there, relying upon their speed to escape more
dangerous wild beasts, but they passed rarely beneath the ledges, where a
weighty rock dropped suddenly meant certain death. It was not a task
entirely easy for the cave men to have meat with regularity, flush as was
the life about them. New devices must be resorted to, and Ab and Oak were
about to employ one not infrequently successful.
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