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02 - Before Adam by Jack London · Before Adam

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  Speaker 1: Chapter four of Before Adam by Jack London. This LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain recording by Tom Weiss
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  Speaker 1: Tom's audiobooks dot Com. Chapter four. There is one puzzling
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  Speaker 1: thing about these prehistoric memories of mine. It is the
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  Speaker 1: vagueness of the time element. I do not always know
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  Speaker 1: the order of events, or can I tell between some
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  Speaker 1: events whether one, two, or four or five years have elapsed.
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  Speaker 1: I can only roughly tell the passage of time by
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  Speaker 1: judging the changes in the appearance of pursuits of my fellows. Also,
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  Speaker 1: I can apply the logic of events to the various happenings.
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  Speaker 1: For instance, there is no doubt whatever that my mother
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  Speaker 1: and I were treated by the wild pigs and fled
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  Speaker 1: and fell in the days before I made the acquaintance
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  Speaker 1: of lop Ear, who became what I may call my
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  Speaker 1: boyhood chum. And it is just as conclusive that between
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  Speaker 1: these two periods I must have left my mother. I
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  Speaker 1: have no memory of my father than the one I
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  Speaker 1: have given. Never in the years that followed did he reappear,
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  Speaker 1: And from my knowledge of the times, the only explanation
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  Speaker 1: possible lies in that he perished shortly after the adventure
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  Speaker 1: with the wild pigs, that it must have been an
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  Speaker 1: untimely end. There is no discussion. He was in full vigor,
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  Speaker 1: and only sudden and violent death could have taken him off.
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  Speaker 1: But I know not the manner of his going. Whether
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  Speaker 1: he was drowned in the river, or was swallowed by
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  Speaker 1: a snake, or when in the stomach of old sabretooth
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  Speaker 1: the tiger is beyond my knowledge or know that. I
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  Speaker 1: remember only the things I saw myself with my own
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  Speaker 1: eyes in those prehistoric days. If my mother knew my
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  Speaker 1: father's end, she never told me. For that matter, I
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  Speaker 1: doubt if she had a vocabulary adequate to convey such information.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps all told the folk in that day had a
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  Speaker 1: vocabulary of thirty or forty sounds. I call them sounds
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  Speaker 1: rather than words, because sounds they were primarily they had
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  Speaker 1: no fixed values to be altered by adjectives and adverbs.
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  Speaker 1: These latter were tools of speech not yet invented. Instead
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  Speaker 1: of qualifying nouns of verbs by the use of adjectives
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  Speaker 1: and adverbs, we qualified sounds by intonation, by changes in
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  Speaker 1: quantity and pitch, by retarding, and by accelerating the length
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  Speaker 1: of time employed in the utterance of a particular sound
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  Speaker 1: shaded its meaning. We had no conjugation. One judged the
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  Speaker 1: tents by the context. We talked only concrete things because
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  Speaker 1: we thought only concrete things. Also, we depended largely on patamime.
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  Speaker 1: The simplest abstraction was practically beyond our thinking, and when
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  Speaker 1: one did happen to think one, he was hard put
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  Speaker 1: to communicate it to his fellows. There were no sounds
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  Speaker 1: for it. He was pressing beyond the limits of his vocabulary.
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  Speaker 1: If he invented sounds for it, his fellows did not
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  Speaker 1: understand the sounds. Then it was that he fell back
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  Speaker 1: on pantomime, illustrating the thought wherever possible, and at the
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  Speaker 1: same time repeating the new sound over and over again.
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  Speaker 1: Thus language grew by the few sounds we possessed. We
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  Speaker 1: were enabled to think a short distance beyond those sounds.
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  Speaker 1: Then came the need for new sounds wherewith to express
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  Speaker 1: the new thought. Sometimes, however, we thought too long a
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  Speaker 1: distance in advance of our sounds, managed to achieve abstractions
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  Speaker 1: dim ones i grant which we failed utterly to make
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  Speaker 1: known to other folk. After all, language did not grow
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  Speaker 1: fast in that day. Oh, believe me, we were amazingly simple.
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  Speaker 1: But we did know a lot that is not known today.
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  Speaker 1: We could twitch our ears, prick them up, and flatten
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  Speaker 1: them down at will, and we could scratch between our
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  Speaker 1: shoulders with these We could throw stones with our feet.
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  Speaker 1: I have done it many a time. And for that matter,
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  Speaker 1: I could keep my knees straight bent forward from the hips,
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  Speaker 1: and touch not the tips of my fingers, but the
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  Speaker 1: points of my elbows to the ground. And as for
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  Speaker 1: bird nesting, well, I only wish the twentieth century boy
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  Speaker 1: could see us. But we made no collections of eggs.
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  Speaker 1: We ate them, I remember, but I outrun my story. First.
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  Speaker 1: Let me tell you of Lopier and of our friendship.
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  Speaker 1: Very early in life I separated from my mother. Possibly
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  Speaker 1: this was because, after the death of my father, she
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  Speaker 1: took to herself a second husband. I have few recollections
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  Speaker 1: of him, and they are not of the best. He
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  Speaker 1: was a light fellow. There was no solidity to him.
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  Speaker 1: He was too valuable. His infernal chattering worries me even
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  Speaker 1: now as I think of it. His mind was too
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  Speaker 1: inconsequential to permit him to possess purpose. Monkeys in their
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  Speaker 1: cages always remind me of him. He monkeyish. That is
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  Speaker 1: the best description I can give of him. He hated
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  Speaker 1: me from the first, and I quickly learned to be
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  Speaker 1: afraid of him and his malicious franks. Whenever he came
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  Speaker 1: in sight, I crept close to my mother and clung
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  Speaker 1: to her. But I was growing older all the time,
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  Speaker 1: and it was inevitable that I should, from time to
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  Speaker 1: time stray from her and stray farther and farther. And
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  Speaker 1: these were the opportunities that the Chatterer waited for. I
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  Speaker 1: may as well explain that we bore no names in
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  Speaker 1: those days, were not known by any name. For the
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  Speaker 1: sake of convenience, I have myself given names to the
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  Speaker 1: various folk I was more closely in contact with, And
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  Speaker 1: the chatterer is the most fitting description I can find
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  Speaker 1: for that precious stepfather of mine. As for me, I
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  Speaker 1: have named myself big Tooth. My eye teeth were pronouncedly large.
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  Speaker 1: But to return to the Chatterer, he persistently terrorized me.
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  Speaker 1: He was always pinching me and cuffing me, and on
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  Speaker 1: occasion he was not above biting me. Often my mother interfered,
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  Speaker 1: and the way she made his fur fly was a
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  Speaker 1: joy to see. But the result of all this was
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  Speaker 1: a beautiful and unbending family quarrel in which I was
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  Speaker 1: the bone of contention. No, my home life was not happy.
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  Speaker 1: I smiled to myself as I write the phrase home
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  Speaker 1: life home. I had no home in the modern sense
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  Speaker 1: of the term. My home was an association, not a habitation.
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  Speaker 1: I lived in my mother's care, not in a house,
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  Speaker 1: and my mother lived anywhere so long as when night
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  Speaker 1: came she was above the ground. My mother was old fashioned.
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  Speaker 1: She still clung to her trees. It is true the
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  Speaker 1: more progressive members of our horde lived in the caves
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  Speaker 1: above the river, but my mother was suspicious and unprogressive.
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  Speaker 1: The trees were good enough for her. Of course, we
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  Speaker 1: had one particular tree in which we usually roosted, though
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  Speaker 1: we often roosted in other trees when nightfall caught us
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  Speaker 1: in A convenient fort was a sort of rude platform
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  Speaker 1: of twigs and branches and creeping things. It was more
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  Speaker 1: like a huge bird's nest than anything else, though it
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  Speaker 1: was a thousand times cruder in the weaving than any
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  Speaker 1: bird nest. But it had one feature that I had
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  Speaker 1: never seen attached to any bird's nest, namely, a roof.
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  Speaker 1: Oh not a roof such as modern man mates, nor
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  Speaker 1: a roof such as is made by the lowest aborigines
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  Speaker 1: of to day. It was infinitely more clumsy than the
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  Speaker 1: clumsiest handiwork of men of man as we know him.
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  Speaker 1: It was put together in a casual helder scald sort
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  Speaker 1: of way. Above the fork of the tree, whereon we
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  Speaker 1: rested was a pile of dead branches and brush. Four
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  Speaker 1: or five adjacent forks held what I may term the
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  Speaker 1: various ridge poles. These were merely stout sticks an inch
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  Speaker 1: or so in diameter. On them rested the brush and branches.
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  Speaker 1: These seemed to have been tossed on almost aimlessly. There
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  Speaker 1: was no attempt at thatching, and I must confess that
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  Speaker 1: the roof leaked miserably in a heavy rain. But the
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  Speaker 1: chatterer he made home life a burden for both my
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  Speaker 1: mother and me. And by home life I mean not
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  Speaker 1: the leaky nest in the tree, but the group life
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  Speaker 1: of the three of us. He was most malicious in
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  Speaker 1: his persecution of me. That was the one purpose to
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  Speaker 1: which he held steadfastly for longer than five minutes. Also,
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  Speaker 1: as time went by, my mother was less eager in
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  Speaker 1: her defense of need I think, one of the continuous
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  Speaker 1: rows raised by the chatterer, that I must have become
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  Speaker 1: a nuisance to her. At any rate. The situation went
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  Speaker 1: from bad to worst so rapidly that I should, soon,
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  Speaker 1: of my own volition, have left home. But the satisfaction
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  Speaker 1: of performing so independent a knack was denied me. Before
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  Speaker 1: I was ready to go, I was thrown out. And
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  Speaker 1: I mean this literally. The opportunity came to the chatterer
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  Speaker 1: one day when I was alone, and me my mother
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  Speaker 1: and the Chatterer had gone away together toward the blueberry swamp.
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  Speaker 1: He must have planned the whole thing, for I heard
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  Speaker 1: him returning alone through the forest, roaring with self induced rage.
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  Speaker 1: As he came, like all the men of our horde
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  Speaker 1: when they were angry or were trying to make themselves angry,
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  Speaker 1: He stopped now and again to hammer on his chest
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  Speaker 1: with his fists. I realized the helplessness of my situation
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  Speaker 1: and crouched trembling in the nest. The chatterer came directly
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  Speaker 1: to the tree I remember it was an oak tree,
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  Speaker 1: and began to climb up. And he never ceased for
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  Speaker 1: a moment from his infernal row. As I have said,
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  Speaker 1: our language was extremely meager, and he must have strained
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  Speaker 1: it by the variety of ways in which he formed
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  Speaker 1: me of his undying hatred of me, and of his
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  Speaker 1: intention there and then to have it out with me.
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  Speaker 1: As he climbed to the fort, I fled out to
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  Speaker 1: the greatest horizontal limb. He followed me, and out I
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  Speaker 1: went farther and farther. At last I was out amongst
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  Speaker 1: the small twigs and leaves. The chatterer was ever a coward,
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  Speaker 1: and greater always than any anger he ever worked up,
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  Speaker 1: was his caution. He was afraid to follow me out
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  Speaker 1: amongst the leaves and twigs. For that matter, his greater
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  Speaker 1: weight would have crashed it through the poliage before he
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  Speaker 1: could have got to me. But it was not necessary
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  Speaker 1: for him to reach me, and well he knew it.
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  Speaker 1: The scoundrel, with a malevolent expression on his face, his
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  Speaker 1: beady eyes gleaming with cruel intelligence, he began teetering, teetering,
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  Speaker 1: and with me out on the very edge of the bow,
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  Speaker 1: clutching at the twigs that broke continually with my weight.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty feet beneath me was the earth wildly and more wildly.
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  Speaker 1: He teetered, grinning at me his gloating hatred. Then came
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  Speaker 1: the end. All four holes broke at the same time,
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  Speaker 1: and I fell back downward, looking up at him, my
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  Speaker 1: hands and feet still clutching the broken twigs. Luckily there
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  Speaker 1: were no wild pigs underneath me, and my fall was
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  Speaker 1: broken by the tough and springy bushes. Usually my falls
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  Speaker 1: destroy my dreams, the nervous shock being sufficient to bridge
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  Speaker 1: in the thousand centries in an instant and hurl me
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  Speaker 1: wide awake into my little bed, where perchance I lie
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  Speaker 1: sweating and trembling, and hear the cuckoo clock calling the
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  Speaker 1: hour in the hall. But this dream of my leaving
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  Speaker 1: home I have had many times, and never yet have
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  Speaker 1: I been awakened by it. Always do I crash, shrieking
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  Speaker 1: down through the brush, and fetch up with the bump
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  Speaker 1: of the ground, scratched and bruised and whimpering. I lay
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  Speaker 1: where I had fallen. Peering up through the bushes, I
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  Speaker 1: could see the chatterer. He had set up a demoniacal
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  Speaker 1: chat of joy, and was keeping time to it with
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  Speaker 1: his teetering. I quickly hushed my whimpering. I was no
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  Speaker 1: longer in the safety of the trees, and I knew
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  Speaker 1: the danger I ran of bringing upon myself the hunting
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  Speaker 1: animals by too audible an expression of my grief. I remember,
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  Speaker 1: as my sobs died down, that it became interesting in
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  Speaker 1: watching the strange light effects produced by partially opening and
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  Speaker 1: closing my tear wet eyelids. Then I began to investigate,
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  Speaker 1: and found that I was not so very badly damaged
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  Speaker 1: by my fall. I had lost some hair and hide
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  Speaker 1: here and there the sharp and jagged end of a
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  Speaker 1: broken branch had thrust fully an inch into my forearm,
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  Speaker 1: and my right hip, which had borne the bront of
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  Speaker 1: my contact with the ground, was aching intolerably. But these,
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  Speaker 1: after all, were only petty herts. No bones were broken,
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  Speaker 1: and in those days the flesh of man had finer
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  Speaker 1: healing qualities than it has today. Yet it was a
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  Speaker 1: severe fall, for I limped with my injured hip for
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  Speaker 1: fully a week afterward. Next, as I lay in the bushes,
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  Speaker 1: there came upon me a feeling of desolation, a consciousness
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  Speaker 1: that I was homeless. I made up my mind never
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  Speaker 1: to return to my mother and the chatterer. I would
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  Speaker 1: go far away through the terrible forest and find some
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  Speaker 1: tree for myself in which the roofs. As for food,
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  Speaker 1: I knew where to find it. For the last year
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  Speaker 1: at least, I had not been beholden to my mother
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  Speaker 1: for food. All she had furnished me was protection and guidance.
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  Speaker 1: I crawled softly out through the bushes. Once I looked
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  Speaker 1: back and saw the chatterer still chatting and teetering, it
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  Speaker 1: was not a pleasant sight. I knew pretty well how
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  Speaker 1: to be cautious, and I was exceedingly careful. On this,
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  Speaker 1: my first journey in the world. I gave no thought
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  Speaker 1: as to where I was going. I had but one purpose,
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  Speaker 1: and that was to go away beyond the reach of
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  Speaker 1: the chatterer. I climbed into the trees and wandered on
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  Speaker 1: amongst them for hours, passing from tree to tree and
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  Speaker 1: never touching the ground. But I did not go in
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  Speaker 1: any particular direction, nor did I travel steadily. It was
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  Speaker 1: my nature, as it was the nature of all my folk,
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  Speaker 1: to be inconsequential. Besides, I was a mere child, and
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  Speaker 1: I stopped a great deal to play by the way.
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  Speaker 1: The events that befell me on my leaving home are
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  Speaker 1: very vague in my mind. My dreams do not cover them.
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  Speaker 1: Much has my other self forgotten, and particularly at this
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  Speaker 1: very period, Nor have I been able to frame up
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  Speaker 1: the various dreams so as to bridge the gap between
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  Speaker 1: my leaving the home tree and my arrival at the caves.
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  Speaker 1: I remember that several times I came to open spaces.
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  Speaker 1: These I crossed in great trepidation, descending to the ground
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  Speaker 1: and running at the top of my speed. I remember
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  Speaker 1: that there were days of rain and days of sunshine,
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  Speaker 1: so that I must have wandered alone for quite a time.
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  Speaker 1: I especially dream of my misery and the rain, and
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  Speaker 1: of my sufferings from hunger, and how I appeased it.
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  Speaker 1: One very strong impression is of hunting little lizards on
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  Speaker 1: the rocky top of an open knoll. They ran under
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  Speaker 1: the rocks, and most of them escaped, but occasionally I
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  Speaker 1: turned over a stone and caught one. I was frightened
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  Speaker 1: away from this snoll by snakes. They did not pursue me.
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  Speaker 1: They were merely vast on flat rocks in the sun.
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  Speaker 1: But such was my inherited fear of them that I
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  Speaker 1: fled as fast as if they had been after me.
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  Speaker 1: Then I gnawed bitter bark from young trees. I remember
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  Speaker 1: vaguely the eating of many green nuts with soft shells
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  Speaker 1: and milky kernels, and I remember most distinctly suffering from
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  Speaker 1: a stomach ache. It may have been caused by the
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  Speaker 1: green nuts, or maybe by the lizards. I do not know,
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  Speaker 1: but I do know that I was fortunate in not
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  Speaker 1: being devoured during the several hours I was knotted up
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  Speaker 1: on the ground with a collin and of chapter four.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter five, my vision of the scene came abruptly. As
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  Speaker 1: I emerged from the forest, I found myself on the
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  Speaker 1: edge of a large clear space. On one side of
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  Speaker 1: this space rose up high bluffs. On the other side
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  Speaker 1: was the river. The earth bank ran steeply down to
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  Speaker 1: the water. But here and there, in several places where
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  Speaker 1: at some time slides of earth had occurred, there were runways.
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  Speaker 1: These were the drinking places of the folk that lived
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  Speaker 1: in the caves, And this was the main abiding place
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  Speaker 1: of the folk that I had chanced upon. This was,
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  Speaker 1: I may say, by stretching the word the village. My
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  Speaker 1: mother and the chatterer and I and a few other
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  Speaker 1: simple bodies were what might be termed suburban residents. We
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  Speaker 1: were part of the ward, though we lived the distance
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  Speaker 1: away from it. It was only a short distance, though
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  Speaker 1: it had taken me, what of my wandering, all of
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  Speaker 1: a week to arrive. Had I come directly, I could
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  Speaker 1: have covered the trip in an hour. But to return
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  Speaker 1: from the edge of the forest, I saw the caves
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  Speaker 1: in the bluff, the open space, and the runways to
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  Speaker 1: the drinking places. And in the open space I saw
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  Speaker 1: many of the folk. I had been straying alone and
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  Speaker 1: a child for a week. During that time I had
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  Speaker 1: seen not one of my kind. I had lived in
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  Speaker 1: terror and desolation. And now at the sight of my kind,
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  Speaker 1: I was overcome with gladness, and I ran wildly toward them.
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  Speaker 1: Then it was that a strange thing happened. Some one
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  Speaker 1: of the folk saw me and uttered a warning cry.
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  Speaker 1: On the instant, crying out with fear and panic, the
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  Speaker 1: folk fled away, leaping and scrambling over the rocks. They
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  Speaker 1: plunged into the mouths of the caves and disappeared, all
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  Speaker 1: but one, a little baby that had been dropped in
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  Speaker 1: the excitement close to the base of the bluff. He
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  Speaker 1: was wailing dolefully. His mother dashed out. He sprang to
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  Speaker 1: meet her and held on tightly as she scrambled back
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  Speaker 1: into the cave. I was all alone the populous open
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  Speaker 1: space had of a sudden become deserted. I sat down
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  Speaker 1: forlornly and whimpered. I could not understand why had the
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  Speaker 1: folk run away from me. In later time, when I
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  Speaker 1: came to know their ways, I was to learn when
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  Speaker 1: they saw me dashing out of the forest at top speed,
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  Speaker 1: they concluded that I was being pursued by some hunting animal.
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  Speaker 1: By my unserah comonious approach, I had stampeded them. As
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  Speaker 1: I sat and watched the cave mouse, I became aware
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  Speaker 1: that the folk were watching me. Soon they were thrusting
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  Speaker 1: their heads out. A little later they were calling back
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  Speaker 1: and forth to one another. In the hurry and confusion,
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  Speaker 1: it had happened that all had not gained their own caves.
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  Speaker 1: Some of the young ones had sought refuge in other caves.
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  Speaker 1: The mothers did not call for them by name, because
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  Speaker 1: that was an invention we had not yet made. All
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  Speaker 1: were namedless. The mothers uttered querulous, anxious cries, which were
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  Speaker 1: recognized by the young ones. Thus, had my mother been
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  Speaker 1: there calling to me, I should have recognized her voice
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  Speaker 1: among the voices of a thousand mothers. And in the
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  Speaker 1: same way would she have recognized mine amongst a thousand.
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  Speaker 1: This calling back and forth continued for some time, but
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  Speaker 1: they were too cautious to come out of their caves
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  Speaker 1: and descend to the ground. Finally one did come. He
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: was destined to play a large part in my life life,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: and for that matter, he already played a large part
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: in the lies of all the members of the Horde.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: He it was whom I shall call Red Eye in
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the pages of this history, so called because of his
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: inflamed eyes, the lids being always read, and by their
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: peculiar effect they produced, seeming to advertise the terrible savagery
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: of him. The color of his soul was red. He
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: was a monster, it always. Physically he was a giant.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: He must have weighed one hundred and seventy pounds. He
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: was the largest one of our kind I ever saw.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Nor did I ever see one of the fire people
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: so large as he, nor one of the tree people. Sometimes,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: when in the newspapers I happened upon descriptions of our
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: modern bruises and prize fighters, I wonder what chance the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: best of them would have had against him. I am
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: afraid not much of a chance. With one grip of
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: his iron fingers in a pool. He could have plucked
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a muscle, say a biceps, by the roots clear out
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: of their body. A backhanded, loose blow of his fist
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: could have smashed their skulls like eggshells. With the sweep
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: of his wicket feet or hind hands he could have
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: disembowed them. A twist could have broken their necks. And
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I know that with a single crunch of his jaws
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: he could have pierced at the same moment the great
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: veane of the throat in front and a spinal marrow
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: at the back. He could spring twenty feet horizontally from
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: a sitting position. He was abominably hairy. It was a
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: matter of pride with us to be not very hairy.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: But he was covered with hair all over, on the
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: inside of the arms as well as the outside, and
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: even the ears themselves. The only places on him with
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: a hair did not grow with the soles of his
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: hands and feet, and beneath his eyes. He was frightfully ugly,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: his ferocious grinning mouth and huge down hanging under lip
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: being but in harmony with his terrible eyes. This was
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: red eye, and right gingerly. He crept out of his
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: cave and descended to the ground me, he proceeded to reconnoiter.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: He bent forward from the hips as he walked, and
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: so far forward did he bend, and so long were
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: his arms that with every step he touched the knuckles
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: of his hands to the ground on either side of him.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: He was awkward in the semi erect position of walking
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: that he assumed, and he really touched his knuckles to
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the ground in order to balance himself. But oh, I
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: tell you, he could run on all fours. Now, this
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: was something at which we were particularly awkward. Furthermore, it
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: was a rare individual among us who balanced himself with
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: his knuckles when walking. Such an individual was an Atovism,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and Red Eye was an even greater ativism. That is
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: what he was, an Atomvism. We were in the process
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: of changing our tree life to life on the ground.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: For many generations we had been going through this change,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and our bodies and carriage had likewise changed. But Red
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Eye had reverted to the more primitive tree dwelling type. Perforce,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: because he was born in our horde, he stayed with us,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: but in actuality he was an Atavism, and his place
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: was elsewhere. Very circumspect and very alert, he moved here
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: and there about the open space, peering through the vistas
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: among the trees, and trying to catch a glimpse of
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the hunting animal that all suspected had pursued me. And
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: while he did this, taking no notice of me, the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: folk crowded at the cave mouse and watched. At last,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: he evidently decided that there was no danger lurking about.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: He was returning from the head of the last runway,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: from where he had taken a peep down at the
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: drinking place. His course brought him near, but still he
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: did not notice me. He proceeded casually on his way
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: until abreast of me, and then, without warning, and with
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: incredible swiftness, he smote me a buffet on the head.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I was knocked backward fully a dozen feet before I
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: fetched up against the ground, and I remember, half stunned,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: even as the blow was struck, hearing the wild uproar
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of plucking and shrieking laughter that arose from the caves.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: It was a great joke, at least in that day,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and right heartily the folk appreciated it. Thus was I
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: received into the horde. Red Eye paid no further attention
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: to me, and I was at liberty to whimper and
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: sob to my heart's contempt. Several of the women gathered
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: curiously about me, and I recognized them. I had encountered
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: them the preceding year, when my mother had taken me
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: to the hazel nut canyons. But they quickly left me alone,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: being replaced by a desen curious and teasing youngsters. They
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: formed a circle around me, pointing their fingers, making faces,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and poking and pinching me. I was frightened for a time.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I endured them. Then anger got the best of me,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and I sprang tooth and nail upon the most audacious
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: one of them, none other than Loppier himself. I have
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: so named him because he could pricked up only one
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: of his ears. The other ear always hung limp and
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: without movement. Some accident had injured the muscles and deprived
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: him of the use of it. He closed with me,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and we went at it for all the world, like
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: a couple of small boys fighting. We scratched and bit
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: pulled hair, clinched and threw each other down. I remember
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I succeeded in getting on him what in my college
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: days I learned was called a half nelson. This hold
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: gave me the decided advantage, but I did not enjoy
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: it long. He twisted up one leg and with the
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: foot or hind hand made so savage an onslaught upon
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: my abdomen as to threaten to disembowel me. I had
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: to release him in order to save myself, and then
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: we went at it again. Lop Ear was a year
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: older than I, but I was several times angrier than he,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and in the end he took to his heels. I
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: chased him across the open and down a runway to
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the water, but he was better acquainted with the locality
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: and ran along the edge of the water and up
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: another runway. He cut diagonally across the open space and
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: dashed into a wide kN cave. Before I knew it,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I had plunged after him into the darkness. The next moment,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I was badly frightened. I had never been in a
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: cave before. I began to whimper and cry out. Lop
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Ear chattered mockingly at me, and, springing upon me unseen,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: troubled me over. He did not risk a second encounter, however,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and took himself off. I was between him and the entrance,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: and he did not pass me, yet he seemed to
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: have gone away. I listened, but could get no clue
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: as to where he was. This puzzled me, and when
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I regained the outside, I sat down to watch. He
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: never came out of the entrance, of that, I was certain.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Yet at the end of several minutes, he chuckled at
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: my elbow. Again I ran after him, and again he
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: ran into the cave, But this time I stopped at
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the mouth. I dropped back a short distance and watched.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: He did not come out, And yet, as before, he
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: chuckled at my elbow and was chased by me a
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: third type into the cave. This performance was repeated several times.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Then I followed him into the cave, where I searched
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: vainly for him. I was curious. I could not understand
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: how he eluded me. Always he went into the cave,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: never did he come out of it. Yet always did
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: he arrive there at my elbow and mock me. Thus
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: did our fight transform itself into a game of hide
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: and see all afternoon, with occasional intervals. We kept it up,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and a playful, friendly spirit arose between us. In the end,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: he did not run away from me, and we sat
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: together with our arms around each other. A little later
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: he disclosed the mystery of the wide mouthed cave. Holding
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: me by the hand, he led me inside. It was
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: connected by a narrow crevice with another cave, and it
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: was through this that we regained the open air. We
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: were now good friends. When the other young ones gathered
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: around to tease, he joined with me in attacking them,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: And so viciously did we behave that before long I
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: was let alone. Lopier made me acquainted with the village.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: There was little that he could tell me of conditions
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: and customs. He had not the necessary vocabulary, But by
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: observing his actions I learned much, and also he showed
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: me places and things. He took me up the open
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: space between the caves and the river and into the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: forest beyond, where in a grassy place among the trees,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: we made a meal of stringy rooted carrots. After that
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: we had a good drink at the river and started
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: up the runway to the caves. It was in the
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: runway that we came upon red Eye again. The first
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I knew LaPier had shrunk away to one side and
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: was crouching low against the bank. Naturally and involuntarily. I
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: imitated him. Then it was that I looked to see
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the cause of his fear. It was Red Eye, swaggering
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: down the center of the runway and scowling fiercely with
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: his inflamed eye eyes. I noticed that all the youngsters
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: shrank away from him, as we had done, while the
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: grown nuts regarded him with wary eyes when he drew near,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and stepped aside to give him the center of the path.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: As twilight came on, the open space was deserted. The
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: folk were seeking the safety of the caves. Lop ear
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: led the way to bed high if the bluff. We
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: climbed higher than all the other caves to a tiny
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: crevice that could not be seen from the ground. Into
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: this LaPier squeezed. I followed with difficulty, so narrow was
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the entrance, and found myself in a small rock chamber.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: It was very low, not more than a couple of
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: feet in height, and possibly three feet by four in
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: width in length. Here, cuddled together in each other's arms,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: we slept out the night. End of Chapter five. Recording
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: by Tom Weiss Tom's audiobooks dot Com.