“Blade of Ach Eul—it is well worth a name. And these Terrace Men—where may they be found?” asked Pic. “You and your fellows might learn much from them. Agh! even my turtle-backs are more finely hammered. Not a knife nor ax-blade in the lot—mere fling-stones; children’s’ and women’s work.”
“They once lived on the banks of a river to the north,” the old man replied. “But no longer do we see them or their blades. The Terrace Men are gone and their secret with them.”
“Um—we shall see. Go on,” Pic said to the Mammoth. The latter picked his way carefully among the prostrate men but made no effort to avoid their flints or tools which he scattered recklessly about with his ponderous feet.
For an instant, Pic’s eyes blazed at sight of this wanton desecration; but another look at the small, ill-hewn fragments and he held his peace.
“Well done, good old friend,” he whispered. “Even you have no patience with such feeble efforts,” and without deigning so much as another glance at the cave-men or their clumsy flint-making, he urged his steed down the bank to the river while the Woolly Rhinoceros followed close behind.
X
Pic met more flint-workers; on the banks of the Seine, also along the Somme River farther to the north; but it was ever the same. He saw only small ill-hewn flakes, none of which bore signs of the Terrace Man’s wonderful craft. Poorer handiwork Pic had never seen.
With each disappointment, he grew more and more depressed. He began to look upon the art of the Terrace Man as a myth; a fanciful creation of his own brain. He became moody and irritable and wished himself back in the Vézère. Then from a solitary hunter, he learned of men who lived on the banks of a river lying beyond the great Channel Valley to the north. His spirits rose and he lived in hope once more. He led his two animal friends across the Somme River, over hills and valleys to the great Boulogne-Calais ridge or heights overlooking the broad isthmus connecting Britain and France.