The tiger
was yet alive! There was a difference in the pulse of all the woodland.
There was a hush throughout the forest. The word, somehow, went to every
nerve of all the world of beasts, "Sabre-Tooth is here!" Even the huge
cave bear shuffled aside as there came to him the scent of the invader.
The aurochs and the urus, the towering elk, the reindeer and the lesser
horned and antlered things fled wildly as the tainted air brought to them
the tale of impending murder. Only the huge rhinoceros and mammoth stood
their ground, and even these were terror-stricken with regard for their
guarded young whenever the tiger neared them. The rhinoceros stood then,
fierce-fronted and dangerous, its offspring hovering by its flanks, and
the mammoths gathered in a ring encircling their calves and presenting an
outward range of tusks to meet the hovering devourer. The dread was all
about. The forest became seemingly nearly lifeless. There was less
barking and yelping, less reckless playfulness of wild creatures, less
rustling of the leaves and pattering along the forest paths. There was
fear and quiet, for Sabre-Tooth had come!
The runner, refreshed and strengthened by food and sleep, appeared before
Ab in the morning and told his story more in detail and got in return the
short answer: "We will go with you and help you and your people.
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