As the bear toppled over he gave utterance to a
whoop and, with a word to the girl beside him, slid lightly to the
ground, she following him at once. It was very good to be upon the earth
again. Ab stamped with his feet and stretched his arms, and the woman
danced upon the grass and laughed gleefully. But this was only for a
moment or so. Ab started toward the cave, and as he reached the entrance,
gave a great cry of rage and dismay. Lightfoot ran to his side and even
her ready laugh failed her when she looked upon his perplexed and stormy
countenance and saw what had happened. The rump of the monster he bear
was what she looked upon. The beast, in his instinctive effort to crawl
into some dark place to die, had fairly driven himself into the cave's
entrance, dislodging some of the stones Ab had placed there, had wedged
himself in firmly, and had died before he could extricate his great
carcass. The two human beings were homeless and, with all the arrows
gone, weaponless, in the midst of a region so dangerously infested that
any movement afoot was but inviting death. They were hungry, too, for
many hours had passed since they had tasted food. It was not matter of
surprise that even the stout-hearted cave man stood aghast.
The occasion for Ab's alarm was fully verified. From the spot where the
cave bear lay at the forest's edge came a sharp, snapping growl.
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