It had been, up to midnight, one of the greatest and
most joyous meetings the Shell People had joined in for many years. They
were close-gathered and prosperous and content, and though there was
daily turmoil and risk of death upon the water and sometimes as great
risk upon the land, yet the village fringing the waters had grown, and
the midden--the "kitchen-midden" of future ages--had raised itself
steadily and now stretched far up and down the creek which was a river
branch and far backward from the creek toward the forest which ended with
the uplands. They had learned to dread the forest little, the water
people, but from the forest now came what made for each in all the
village a dread and horror. The cave tiger had been among them!
The Shell People had gathered together upon the sward fronting their line
of shallow caves and one of them, the story-teller and singer, was
chanting aloud of the river-horse and the great spoil which was theirs,
when there was a hungry roar and the yell or shriek of all, men or women
not too stricken by fear to be unable to utter sound, and then the leap
into their midst of the cave tiger! Perhaps the story-teller's chant had
called the monster's attention to him, perhaps his attitude attracted it;
whatever may have been the influence, the tiger seized the singer and
leaped lightly into the open beyond the caves and, as lightly, with long
bounds, into the blackness of the forest beyond.
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