The branch was broad and the line of rhinoceros skin
taut, and Ab's flint knife was keen of edge. Only courage and calmness
were needed in the dread presence of the monster of the time. Neither the
swarthy Boarface nor the gaunt Hilltop wanted to leave him, but Ab forced
them away.
Not long to wait had the cave man, but the men who had been with him were
already distant. The shadows were growing long now, but the light was
still from the sunshine of the early afternoon. The man lying along the
limb, knife in hand, could hear no sound save the soft swish of leaves
against each other as the breeze of later day pushed its way through the
forest, or the alarmed cries of knowing birds who saw on the ground
beneath them a huge thing slip along with scarce a sound from the impact
of his fearfully clawed but padded feet as he sought the meal he had
prepared for himself. The great beast was approaching. The great man
aloft was waiting.
Into the open along the path came the tiger, and Ab, gripping the limb
more firmly, looked down upon the thing so closely and in daylight for
the first time in his life. Ab was certainly brave, and he was calm and
wise and thinking beyond his time, but when he saw plainly this beast
which had slipped so easily and silently from the forest, safe though he
was upon his perch, he was more than startled.
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