Ab was recalled to himself by a hoarse exclamation. Oak was looking at him
fiercely. There was no other sound, but the young man stood gazing fixedly
at the place where the girl had just been lost amid the group about her.
And Ab knew instinctively, as men have learned to know so well in all the
years, from the feeling which comes to them at such a time, that he had a
rival, that Oak also had seen and loved this slender creature of the
hillside.
There was a division of the mammoth flesh and hide and tusks. Ab struggled
manfully for a portion of one of the tusks, which he wanted for Old Mok's
carving, and won it at last, the elders deciding that he and Oak had
fought well enough upon the cliff to entitle them to a part of the honor
of the spoil, and Oak opposing nothing done by Ab, though his looks were
glowering. Then, as the sun passed toward the west, all the people
separated to take the dangerous paths toward their homes. Ab and Oak
journeyed away together. Ab was jubilant, though doubtful, while the face
of Oak was dark. The heart of neither was light within him.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE COMRADES.
Drifting away in various directions toward their homes the Cave and Shell
People still kept in groups, by instinct. Social functions terminated
before dark and guests going and coming kept together for mutual
protection in those days of the cave bear and other beasts.
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