At that moment, the infant yawned and began turning its head this way and that with mouth all puckered up. Hairi and Wulli shuffled closer and held their breaths. The small creature’s forehead wrinkled. It was preparing to exercise its lungs. At these signs of approaching storm, Pic looked anxiously towards the grotto. “It is hungry,” he said.
The infant’s features relaxed at sound of his voice. The deep-set eyes opened. They caught sight of the Mammoth’s gleaming tusks. The eyes opened wider and stared in childish wonder. A tiny hand thrust itself from beneath the badger-skin. It reached upwards towards the giant head; and then—the baby smiled. Hairi trembled from head to foot. In the face of such assurance, he was at a loss how to act.
“What is it doing?” he asked in an awed whisper.
“Your tusks; they please him,” the proud father answered. “He wants to play with them.”
The great Mammoth became deeply impressed. Small animals were usually afraid of him. The idea of playing with such a tiny mite, was most amusing. He lowered his trunk and curled its flexible tip coyly about the baby’s arm—a touch so gentle that it would not have ruffled a beetle’s wing.
As Pic saw his child in the Mammoth’s grasp, he involuntarily shrank back. Hairi released his hold, whereupon the infant raised both arms and squalled loudly. Its fun was spoiled.
“What a queer noise,” the Rhinoceros sniffed. “It yells just like a bobcat.”
At the sound of his voice, the youngster ceased bawling and turned upon him with open mouth and staring eyes. The latter centered themselves upon the shining horn which stood upright on the Rhino’s nose. As Wulli became conscious of the publicity centered upon his own person, he coughed nervously and strove to assume an air of indifference. The big eyes continued to stare. The Rhinoceros smirked, lowered his eyes to the ground and pretended to be deeply absorbed in the movements of a small bug which was scurrying across the rock beneath his chin.
At that moment, a new actor appeared upon the scene—a woman, coming from a cleft in the rock. She wore a short skirt of deer-skin. A clam-shell dangled from a rawhide cord about her neck. At sight of the Mammoth and Rhinoceros, she uttered a cry of fear and retreated a few steps but as she espied Pic with the infant in his arms, she bounded forward again and bared her teeth at the two now thoroughly surprised animals.