The three friends crossed a stream which flowed into the Vézère from the west and continued up the border of the valley, over meadow and rock-land and through almost impenetrable thickets. Finally the Mammoth halted and gazed at the limestone cliffs above his head.
“This is the place,” he said. “If you look closely, you will see a dark hole in the rock.”
Pic looked and saw. His curiosity rose to a high pitch. “Wait here while I climb up,” he directed and then set his ax-handle between his teeth.
“Ha-ha, wa-ho!” laughed a voice from on high.
Hairi and Wulli jumped. Pic gazed along the face of the cliffs.
“What was that? It sounded like a man’s voice. Perhaps a man is in the cave.”
All three held still and listened, but the cry was not repeated.
Pic again made ready to ascend. He gripped his ax between his jaws and started off.
The approach to the cave was but a pile of broken rocks and easily scaled—particularly by one inured to ascending almost perpendicular walls; and so Pic made rapid headway to the top. As he neared the cave, a foul odor greeted his none too sensitive nostrils. The rocks were strewn with freshly-gnawed bones.
“The owner of that grotto must be a big meat-eater,” he thought as he examined the wreckage. “And such mighty jaws.” Some of the big limb-bones were bitten in two. One in particular, a bison thigh, was minus the lower end. It had been chewed off, as the tooth-marks plainly showed.