A woman's instinct told her to be out-doors
all the time she could. A man would seek her, but with the thought came an
awful dread. Which man? One afternoon she saw something.
Two gray forms flitted across an open space in the forest near the cave,
and in a moment the girl was in a treetop. What followed was the
unexpected. Close behind the gray things came a man, fully armed,
straight, eager and alert and silent in his wood surroundings, with eyes
roving over and searching all the open space about the cave of Hilltop.
The man was Ab.
The girl gave a shriek of delight, then, alarmed at the sound she had
made, cowered behind a refuge of leaves and branches. She was happy beyond
all her experience before. The question which had been in all her thoughts
was answered! It was Oak, not Ab, who lay in the ground on the hillside.
And, even as she realized this fully, there was a swift upward scramble
and the young cave man was beside her on the limb. There was no running
away this time. The girl's face told its story well enough, so well that
Ab, still lately doubting, though resolved, knew that his fitting mate
belonged to him. There came to them the happiness which ever comes to
lovers, be they man or bird or beast, and then came swift conclusion. He
told her she must go with him at once, told her of the new cave and of all
he had done, but the girl, well aware of the dangers of the beast-haunted
region where the new home had been selected, was thoroughly alarmed.
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