And later come the rudely carved bones of the mammoth and woolly
rhinoceros and the Irish elk; then come rude flint instruments, and later
the age of smoothed stone, with all its accompanying fossils, bones and
indications; and so on upward, with a steady sweep, until close to the
surface of this kitchen-midden appear the bronze spear, the axhead and the
rude dagger of the being who became the Druid and who is an ancestor whom
we recognize. From the kitchen-midden to the pinnacle of all that is great
to-day extends a chain not a link of which is weak.
"They tell strange stories, too, the Shell People," Old Mok continued,
"for they are greater story-tellers than the Cave Men are, more of them
being together in one place, and the old men always tell the tales to the
children so that they are never forgotten by any of the people. They say
that once huge things came out of the great waters and up the creeks, such
as even the big cave tiger dare not face. And the old men say that their
grandfathers once saw with their own eyes a monster serpent many times as
large as the one you two saw, which came swimming up the creek and seized
upon the river horses there and devoured them as easily as the cave bear
would a little deer. And the serpent seized upon some of the Cave People
who were upon the water and devoured them as well, though such as they
were but a mouthful to him.
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