The archer looked down upon her with some measure of
despondency in his face, but by no means with despair. He and his bride
must wait. That was all, and this he told to Lightfoot. That intelligent
and reliable young helpmate of a few hours, who had looked upon what had
occurred with an awed admiration, did not exhibit any depression. Her
husband, fortunate Benedict, had produced a great effect upon her by his
feat. She felt herself something like a queen. Had she known enough and
had the fancies of the Ruth of some thousands of decades later she would
have told him how completely thenceforth his people were her people and
his gods her gods.
The she bear became finally somewhat quieted; she tore less angrily at
the tree and made less of the terrible clamor which had for the moment
driven from the immediate region all the inmates of the wood, for none
save the cave tiger cared to be in the immediate neighborhood of the cave
bear. Her roars changed into roaring growls, and she wandered
staggeringly about. At last she started blindly and weakly toward the
forest, and just as she had passed beneath its shadow, paused, weaved
back and forth for a moment, and then fell over heavily. She was dead.
Not an action of the beast had escaped the eyes of Ab. Well he knew the
ways of wounded things.
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