OLD HILLTOP'S LAST STRUGGLE.
Even as he leaped the flames, the desperate Boarface hurled at Ab a fragment of stone, which was a thing to be wisely dodged, and the invader was fairly on his feet and in position to face his adversary as the axes came together. More active, more powerful, it may be, and certainly more intelligent, was Ab than Boarface, but the leader of the assailants had been a raider from early youth and knew how to take advantage. In those fierce days to attain the death of an enemy, in any way, was the practical end sought in a conflict. Close behind Boarface had leaped a youth to whom the leader had given his commands before the onrush and who, as he found his feet upon the valley's sward, sought, not an adversary face to face, but circled about the two champions, seeking only to get behind the leaping Ab while Boarface occupied his sole attention. The young man bore a great stone-headed club, a dreadful weapon in such hands as his. The men struck furiously and flakes spun from the heavy axes, but Boarface was being slowly driven back when there descended upon Ab's shoulder a blow which swerved him and would certainly have felled a man with less heaped brawn to meet the impact. At the same instant Boarface made a fierce downward stroke and Ab leaped aside without parrying or returning it, for his arm was numbed. Another such blow from the new assailant and his life was lost, yet he dare not turn. That would be his death. And now Boarface rushed in again and as the axes came together called to his henchman to strike more surely.
And just then, just as it seemed to Ab the end was near, he heard behind him the sharp twang of the bowstring which had sounded so sweetly at the valley's other end and, with a groan, there pitched down upon the sward beside him a writhing man whose legs drew back and forth in agony and who had been pierced by an arrow shot fiercely and closely from behind and driven in between his shoulder blades. He knew what it must mean. The arm which had drawn that arrow to its head was that of a slight, strong creature who was not a man. Lightfoot, wild with love and anxiety, had shot past Old Mok just as he laid down his bundle of arrows, and, when she saw her husband's peril, had leaped forward with arrow upon string and slain his latest assailant in the nick of time. Now, with arrow notched again and a face ablaze with murderous helpfulness, she hovered near, intent only upon sending a second shaft into the breast of Boarface.
But there was no need. Unhampered now, Ab rushed in upon his enemy and rained such blows as only a giant could have parried. Boarface fought desperately, but it was only man to man, and he was not the equal of the maddened one before him. His ax flew from his hand as his wrist was broken by Ab's descending weapon, and the next moment he fell limply and hardly moved, for a second blow had sunk the stone weapon so deeply in his head that the haft was hidden in his long hair.
It was all over in a moment now. As Ab turned with a shout of triumph there was a swift end to the little battle. There were brief encounters here and there, but the Eastern men were leaderless and less well-equipped than their foes, and though they fought as desperately as cornered wolves, there was no hope for them. Three escaped. They fled wildly toward the flame and leaped over and through its flickering yellow crest and there was no pursuit. It was not a time for besieged men to be seeking useless vengeance. There came wild yells from the lower end of the valley where the greater fight was on. With a cry Ab gathered his men together and the victorious band ran toward the barrier again, there with overwhelming force to end the struggle. Ever, in later years, did Ab regret that his fight with Boarface had not ended sooner. To save an old hero he had come too late.
Boarface, when taking with him a strong band to the upper end of the valley, had still left a supposably overwhelming force to fight its way up and over the barrier. Ab away from the scene of struggle, old Hilltop assumed command. He was a fit man for such death-facing steadfastness as was here required.
Never had Ab been able to persuade Lightfoot's father to use or even try the new weapon, the bow and arrow. He had no tender feeling toward modern innovations. He had a clear eye and strong arm, and the ax and spear were good enough for him! He recognized Ab's great qualities, but there were some things that even a well-regarded son-in-law could not impose upon any elder family male. Among these was this twanging bow with its light shaft, better fitted for a child's plaything than for real work among men. As for him, give him a heavy spear, with the blade well set in thongs, or a heavy ax, with the head well clinched in the sinew-bound wooden haft. There was rarely miss or failure to the spear-thrust or the ax-stroke. And now, in proof of the soundness of his old-fashioned belief, he staked ruggedly his life. There were few spears left. There were only axes on either side. And there stood old Hilltop upon the barrier, while beside him and all across stood men as brave if not quite as sturdy or as famous.
In the rear of the line, noisy, sometimes fierce and sometimes weeping, were the women, whose skill was only a little less than that of the males and who were even more ruthless in all feeling toward the enemy. And still easily chief among these, conspicuous by her noisy and uncaring demeanor of mingled alarm and vengefulness, was the raging Moonface. She rushed up close beside her husband's defending group and still hurled stones and hurled them most effectively. They went as if from a catapult, and more than one bone or head was broken that day by those missiles from the arm of this squat savage wife and mother. But the men below were outnumbering and brave, and now, maddened by different emotions, the lust of conquest, the murderous anger over slain companions and, underlying all, the thought of ownership of this fair and warm and safe place of home, were resolute in their attack. They had faith in their leader, Boarface, and expected confidently every moment an onslaught to aid them from above. And so they came up the watery slope, one pressing blood-thirstily behind the other with an earnestness none but men as strong and well equipped and as brave or braver could hope to withstand. The closing struggle was desperate.
Hilltop stood to the front, between two rocks some few yards apart, over which bubbled the shallow creek, and between which was the main upward entrance to the valley. He stood upon a rock almost as flat as if some expert engineer of ages later had planed its surface and then adjusted it to a level, leaving the shallow waters tumbling all about it. The rock out-jutted somewhat on the slope and there must necessarily be some little climb to face the aged defender. On either side was a stretch of down-running, gradually-sloping waterfall, full of great boulders, embarrassing any straight rush of a group together, but, between and upward, sprang swart men, and facing them on either side of old Hilltop beyond the rocks were the remainder of the mass of cave men upon whom he depended for making good the defense of the whole barrier. Beside him, in the center of the battle, were the two creatures in the world upon whom he could most depend, his stalwart and splendid sons, Strong-Arm and Branch. With them, as gallant if not as strong as his great brother, stood braced the eager Bark. They were ready, these young men, but, as it chanced, there could be, at the beginning of the strong clamber of the foe, only one man to first meet them. All were behind this man at the front, for the flat rock came to something like a point. He stood there, hairy and bare except for the skin about his hips, and with only an ax in his hand, but this did not matter so much as it might have done, for only axes were borne by the up-clambering assailants. The throwing of an ax was a little matter to the sharp-eyed and flexile-muscled cave men. Who could not dodge an ax was better out of the way and out of the world. A meeting such as this impending must be a matter only of close personal encounter and fencing with arm and wooden handle and flint-head of edge and weight.
There was a clash of stone together, and, one after another, strong creatures with cloven skulls toppled backward, to fall into the babbling creek, their blood helping to change its coloring. Leaping from side to side across his rock, along each edge of which the water rushed, old Hilltop met the mass of enemies, while those who passed were brained by his great sons or by those behind. But the forces were unequal and the plane in front was not steep enough nor the water deep enough to prevent something like an organized onslaught. With fearful regularity, uplifted and thrown aside occasionally in defense to avoid a stroke, the ax of Hilltop fell and there was more and more fine fighting and fine dying. On either side were men doing scarcely less stark work. Hilltop's two sons, on either side of him now, as the assailants, crowded by those behind, pressed closer, fully justified their parentage by what they did, and Bark was like a young tiger. But the onslaught was too strong. There were too many against too few. There were loud cries, a sudden impulse and, though axes rose and fell and more men tumbled backward into the water, the rock was swept upon and won and the old man stood alone amid his foes, his sons having been carried backward by the pressure of the mass. There was sullen battling on the upper level, but there was no fray so red as that where Hilltop, old as he was, swung his awful ax among the close crowding throng of enemies about him. Four fell with skulls cleanly split before a giant of the invaders got behind the gray defender of the pass. Then an ax came crashing down and old Hilltop pitched forward, dead before he fell into the cool waters of the pool below.
There was a yell of exultation from the upward-climbing Eastern cave men as they saw the most dangerous of their immediate enemies go down, but, before the echoes had come back, the sound was lost in that which came from the height above them. It was loud and threatening, but not the yell of their own kind.
There had come sweeping down the valley the victors in the fight at the Eastern end. Ab, with the lust of battle fully upon him as he heard the wild shriek of Moonface, who had seen her husband fall, was a creature as hungry for blood as any beast of all the forest, and his followers were scarce less terrible. Swift and dreadful was the encounter which followed, but the issue was not doubtful for a moment. The barrier's living defenders became as wild themselves as were these conquering allies. The fight became a massacre. Flying hopelessly up the valley, the remnant, only some twenty, of the Eastern cave men ran into the vacant big cave for refuge and there, barricaded, could keep their pursuers at bay for the time at least.
There was no immediate attack made upon the remnant of the assailants who had thus sought refuge. They were safely imprisoned, and about the cave's entrance there lay down to eat and rest a body of vengeful men of twice their number. The struggle was over, and won, but there was little happiness in the Fire Valley which had been so well defended.
Moonface, wildly fighting, had seen her husband's death. With the rush of Ab's returning force which changed the tide of battle she had been swept away, shrieking and seeking to force herself toward the rock whereon old Hilltop had so well demeaned himself. Now there emerged from one side a woman who spoke to none but who clambered down the rough waterway and waded into the little pool below the rock and stooped and lifted something from the water. It was the body of the brave old hunter of the hills. With her arms clutched about it the woman began the clamber upward again, shaking her head dumbly, when rude warriors, touched somehow, despite the coarse texture of their being, came wading in to assist her with the ghastly burden. She emerged with it upon the level and laid it gently down upon the grass, but still uttered no word until her children gathered and the weeping Lightfoot came to her and put her arms about her, and then from the uncouth creature's eyes came a flood of tears and a gasp which broke the tension, and the death wail sounded through the valley. The poor, affectionate animal was a little nearer herself again.
There were dead men lying beside the flames at the Eastern end of the valley, and these were brought by the men and tossed carelessly into the pools below where lay so many others of the slain. There were storm clouds gathering and all the valley people knew what must happen soon. The storm clouds burst; the little creek, transformed suddenly into a torrent by the fall of water from the heights above, swept the dead men away together to the river and so toward the sea. Of all the invading force there remained alive only the three who had re-leaped the flames and those imprisoned in the cave.
There was council that night between Ab and his friends and, as the easiest way of disposing of the prisoners in the cave, it was proposed to block the entrance and allow the miserable losers in battle to there starve at their leisure. But the thoughtful Old Mok took Ab aside and said:
"Why not let them live and work for us? They will do as you say. This was the place they wanted. They can stay and make us stronger."
And Ab saw the reason of all this and the hungry, imprisoned men were given the alternative of death or obedient companionship. They did not hesitate long. The warmth of the valley and its other advantages were what they had come for and they had no narrow views outside the food and fuel question. The valley was good. They accepted Ab's authority and came out and fed and, with their wives and children, who were sent for, became of the valley people.
This place of refuge and home and fortress was acquiring an importance.