What was
revealed to them told in a moment the whole story. The half-devoured body
of the rhinoceros calf was in the pit. It had been killed, no doubt, by
the tiger's first fierce assault, its back broken by the first blow of
the great forearm, or its vertebrae torn apart by the first grasp of the
great jaws. There were signs of the conflict all about, but that it had
not come to a deadly issue was apparent. Only by some accident could the
rhinoceros have caught upon its horns the agile monster cat, and only by
an accident even more remote could the tiger have reached a vital part of
its huge enemy. There had been a long and weary battle--a mother creature
fighting for her young and the great flesh-eater fighting for his prey.
But the combatants had assuredly separated without the death of either,
and the bereaved rhinoceros, knowing her young one to be dead, had
finally left the valley, while the tiger had returned to its prey and fed
its fill. But there was much meat left. There were, in the estimation of
the cave people, few more acceptable feasts than that obtainable from the
flesh of a young rhinoceros. The first instinct of the two men was to
work fiercely with their flint knives and cut out great lumps of meat
from the body in the pit. Hardly had they begun their work, when, as
by common impulse, each clambered out from the depression suddenly, and
there was a brief and earnest discussion.
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