He entered the cave. The pile he had first noticed, was a mass of leaves hollowed in the center like a large nest; but no feathers lay scattered about,—no refuse of any kind suggesting a bird. Pic noted the absence of such signs,—a trivial matter but disconcerting, none the less.
“What was that noise?” He raised his ax and crouched with back to the side-wall, then laughed as he saw the cause of his alarm—a tiny stream of water trickling through a crack to a shallow pool in the floor. “Water dripping through the roof—nothing else,” he assured himself. Then came another sound, a faint rustling. In a moment it ceased. “Only a bat,” and he breathed once more.
“I seem to be imagining all sorts of absurd things,” thought Pic but the thought failed to soothe his nerves. “All because of that old nest.” He kneeled beside it and sniffed. The nest had a strange odor—of what he could not say, but one fact was clear; it belonged to some animal and not a bird. He rose to his feet. He was about to seek the platform outside when something on the cave-floor caught his eye—something that made his heart beat fast. There at his feet lay a handful of roots and herbs—freshly picked.
He sank to the ground on one knee and bent low to more closely examine these alarming objects so strangely out of place in the den of a wild beast.
With a Hoarse Cry Pic Sprang to His Feet
“A cave man’s home? Can it be possible?” he asked himself. As if in reply, an almost inaudible scraping sound broke the dead stillness of the cave, followed by the low breathing of some living thing behind him. A dim shadow spread itself over the floor, creeping forward inch by inch until it reached the side wall and rose slowly upward. Pic followed it with a fascinated horror that robbed him of power to use his voice or limbs. Gradually the grey phantom ascended the wall before his eyes and resolved itself into the silhouetted head and shoulders of a man.
With a hoarse cry, Pic sprang to his feet. Before he could turn, something descended upon his head with crushing force. Slowly he rolled over in a crumpled heap. His limbs stiffened, then relaxed and his senses flew to the winds, shutting out all sight and sound and thought of the Mammoth and Rhinoceros anxiously awaiting on the opposite side of the gorge.