“Fancy my taking orders from small creatures,” Hairi thought to himself; but he raised his foreleg obediently and stood waiting, curious to see what would happen next. The Ape Boy climbed upon the outstretched limb and reaching on high with his hands, secured a firm grip on the Mammoth’s ear. “Now your trunk,” he commanded. “Help me to climb up.”
Hairi’s trunk curled around sideways and raised the other with scarce an effort. With this assistance Pic scrambled up. Before the astonished Mammoth realized what had happened, his neck bore a rider and for the first time in his life, the head of a living creature towered above his own.
“I am so small, you can easily carry me,” a voice sounded from behind his ears. “Now you may go on as fast as you please.”
Before many hours, the Mammoth had become accustomed to his rider and in that time the wisdom of the new arrangement became apparent to all. From his elevated position, Pic was enabled to inform his friends regarding the nature of the country ahead and call their attention to various interesting things among which they passed. Then too, he selected the best routes and chose the safest fords when crossing streams. In these and many other ways, he relieved his friends of many perplexing problems. In short, he had become the eyes and brains of the party.
Northern France was beginning to prepare itself for a season of warm breezes and sunny skies when our three tourists crossed the Loire River and entered the more rolling country beyond. And yet none but hardy forms of green growth dared show themselves; for the ice-fields yet hung threateningly to the north, casting their sombre shadows over Western Europe. Only scattered clumps and single trees—dwarf birch, fir, spruce and arctic willow strewn sparingly along streams and hillside—marked once-forested regions. Coarse grass and sedge formed but a threadbare carpet on meadow and pasture land. And yet this semi-bleak waste abounded with animal life,—hardy forms in keeping with the grass, brush and trees. There were wild horses, stilt-legged bison with shaggy heads and shoulders, long-horned cattle and lesser creatures of the open pasture lands; stags, roe-deer and Irish Elk of hill and glade; and least numerous but most menacing, prowling wolves and hyenas which crawled and skulked from sight, awaiting their chance to secure any tender colt, calf or fawn or even grown animal that strayed from the protection of its fellows.
Horse, bison, ox and all stopped work—feeding, playing, sleeping—to inspect the strangers coming from the south. As the latter drew nearer, all eyes, ears and noses were gradually drawn to the Mammoth or rather to something upon his neck which looked and smelled like a Trog-man, but of course must be something else. Men and beasts did nothing but quarrel with one another as a rule. No elephant ever travelled about with a man upon his neck; such a thing was unheard of in the animal world.
But for all that, something of the kind was happening under their very noses; so the horses, bison, oxen and everything else crowded as closely as they dared along the line of march, leaving a wide lane through which the strangers might pass without interruption.
Hairi could not conceal his satisfaction at this publicity so suddenly thrust upon him. He held his head high and swept on at his most majestic gait while the spectators stared and admired and wished they were as big and grand-looking. The Ape Boy caught the spirit of his noble steed and bore himself right royally, with ax held over one shoulder, like a ruler parading before his vassals.
Several days journey in this regal splendor brought the party to the border of a vast, shallow depression scooped as it were from the earth. Its sides were coated with patches of loam and sand becoming deeper towards the bottom as though giant hands had washed therein and left their grime. It was like a saucer—a mighty basin too broad for mortal eye to span—bounded by a rim of encircling hills which dipped lower and lower as they swept in two wide arcs to the northwest. Thus the saucer stood not squarely on its broad base but tipped as though to empty itself of a river winding through it from the southeast. After passing a small island which reposed at the bottom of the saucer, the river swung from northwest to southwest, then turned back and forth upon itself thus forming a rude inverted letter S.
Far to the southeast, a tributary joined the larger stream. Low hills and pastures, sloping towards the valley through which the central river flowed; scattered shade-trees dotting the western lowlands; scrub and brush adorning the eastern heights;—such was the Paris Basin, the Seine River winding through it and the Marne tributary flowing from the east.