Then, all at once, with my clearing mind came to me the thought that I was not a solitary creature inhabiting that cave. I ran to its mouth and my “O-o-e-e” went forth resoundingly.
Again and again I called, and at last there was an answer, nearer and nearer with each reply, and a man came running easily. I was glad. It was Woof, my hunting mate, who lived with me in the cave. A great companion was Woof. He had left his own people to come and live with me, for we had known each other a long time. He was almost as tall and strong as I and could run almost as swiftly as the little deer. He loped up the pathway to our home, saw the meat, and shouted aloud in satisfaction and began to roast and eat. He had not been over-fortunate in his hunting in my absence.
We talked long in our clucking way until the day was late. Then we heaped up the stone slabs until the entrance to the cave was filled nearly to the top and threw ourselves down to sleep. As my eyes grew heavy I dreamed again perplexedly. Again I was in the treetops, swinging easily along and hearing familiar cries. And there were flames and roaring and tottering forests. I would waken at times and look upon the smouldering fire and toward where Woof lay breathing deeply, and realize the present, and then a fog would arise and Woof and the cave side would disappear. Had there been something before? I could see, at times, a face, but to whom it belonged I could not tell. I knew it now; it was a face of another time, the merry, impish face of an ape-like creature with whom I had had comradeship. I awakened and groped hungrily in my mind, but could remember nothing. At last I slept contentedly.
With the flood of the fair morning light came still greater clearness to my thoughts. I forgot for a time even that I had dreamed and was, like Woof, eager for the outside. It was a good thing that there was yet meat enough to finish in a great breakfast. As things went we were well-to-do young men. Club in hand, we tumbled down the pathway and swung up the long ravine.
We finally clambered to the summit of towering rocks and looked up and down seekingly; it was a way we had, and with reason, in those death-laden times, never to travel far without ascending a tree or some eminence and searching the entire country in sight. Now we saw nothing moving save two black spots in the direction whence we came. We knew what they meant, and the long-drawn call for them went forth, “O-o-e-e, O-o-e-e!” The two men, running, were Gurr and Hair, my companions of the day before, who were soon beside us there on the rock pile.
Strictly speaking, we had yet no proper names, though we had the result of an effort toward them. We could indicate an absent one, but in most cases only by a sort of mimicry. Thus Woof was so known because of a trick of his in imitating well the “woof” of a startled beast. Gurr was so designated because of his husky voice, and his wife was Goor because her call was similar to his though not so harsh. There was another man with a split lip and singular utterance, and we said “Chu-Chu” when we referred to him. Hair was so called because he was the most hairy one among us. We must have known more than a hundred different sounds for different things. Names, or sounds, we had for fire, water, food, the sun and moon and trees and rocks and clubs, and for most of the great beasts.
And certain other words we had, too, that had to do with actions, such as fighting and the hunt. We had indeed the inception of a language which lifted us above and beyond all other creatures. Of some personal names, mostly imitative, there were Gluck-Gluck, Blink, and Limp, and there was one big cave man Ugh, who grunted savagely at times, and who was very strong. His jaws were heavy, his mouth was armed with great teeth, and his thumbs and great toes were very long. He could climb better than most of us, but was dull-witted and not any more successful than others in the hunt. Once he built a great nest in a treetop, but abandoned it and returned to his hollow in the rocks, because it was warmer there.
Not long had there been fire in the caves, and in some tribes they had no fire at all, and ate flesh raw. Once the old man, Hair’s father, tried to tell me what his father had told him of how they first learned that they could bring fire with lighted brands from the fire mountains. It was a wonder that he could remember so much. Now, when the fire failed us we went to the burning places miles away and lighted fagots and journeyed back, building frequent fires on our way, so that each of us could keep his torch alight until we reached the caves again. It was rarely, though, that this was necessary, for we had learned to keep our fires by covering giant brands with ashes when we went away, and when, at times, a failure came, the fire could usually be renewed from another cave. Always some of the old women or old men remained at home to keep the fires alight. Our life was fierce and simple. We thought little, and cared not, save for the moment. We were hungry and must eat; we were cold and must seek warmth; we were in peril and must flee or fight; we had the elementary passions and must mate; we had rages sometimes and sought to slay. There were not many of us in the long gorge or valley, though nature had made it a place abounding in caves everywhere. We were but a dozen or two in all, doubtless all related or descended from a single family, and the nearest creatures of our kind were another group living in the hills far to the southward. These people we seldom met, and when by chance there was a meeting, it was with a somewhat sullen watchfulness on either side, though we had never warred. Such were we, hungry and gorged, alternately, alert among the other creatures, seeking some, fearing some, chasing or fleeing, and having the vast advantage of being almost omnivorous in our feeding. And there was a fierce joy to it as well. Hoo! It was a life!
We four trooped onward together, for we had made a plan, and when we neared the cave of Ugh we howled together and he joined us, grim as the great-jawed hyena. We wanted him along because we might have need of one who could deal strong blows, and his club was heavy. I envied him that tough club of blackened wood, the more so because it chanced that I alone among us might not find the thing too mighty for the arm.
We needed force that day, for ours was to us a mighty prospect. There were urus, which Woof had discovered a day or two before, now pasturing in a not distant lowland, and the slaying of the urus was a great event comparable only to the rare killing of the aurochs, the mighty bison of the time. Woof had discovered a band of urus a day or two before feeding in a narrow valley which ended in a precipice some thirty feet in height as it neared the river. In this valley were various small mounds, and we could, by utilizing these, get the urus between us and the river, and by loud shouting and a sudden rush drive them in a panic to their deaths. This had been done once in the past and might be done again. We went eastward through the hills, until we could see the urus feeding below, and then crept down into the valley, ever keeping the little mounds between us and the grazing beasts, Ugh in the lead. Then something happened. There was a threatening bellow as Ugh crept by one of the mounds between us, and he sprang back, with abundant reason, for, within twenty yards of him was a huge bull feeding apart from the rest. For a moment the beast stood still, then, with lowered head and glaring eyes, charged savagely upon the hunter, while the rest of us fled, yelling.