The seasons had been changing steadily. Each year was unlike the one before it, with skies more lowering and chillier blasts and less of sunshine. And in the cold time the snow fell and stayed longer than in the past and did not leave the mountain tops at all in summer, and the days of the seasons when the sun shone and there came the fruits and nuts were not so many. Ever the grass upon the plains grew less and the creatures feeding there became less in their numbers, and it was not good hunting. There was a constant thinning of the creatures which felt the change and ever they turned toward the south, the south above which the sun seemed to shine less coldly. The chill came even to me, and I thought dimly that it might be because I was no longer young, for I had seen old men shudder when the cold came. But it was not that, it was the world itself, the ice sheets pushing themselves down from the north.

Sometimes the hunters, venturing too far away, hampered in snow, would become exhausted and go to sleep, and when they did this they never woke. When we found them they would not answer, and we took their axes and left them. It came to me at last, that we must do as had done the beasts, and flee southward, where, perhaps, it would be warmer. Why had I not sooner seen the need? Why had our clan alone been reckless fools and failed to join the birds and beasts, and others of our own kind?

The cold became more dreadful. The wind howled and swept away the snow, leaving bare the ice masses on mountains down which swift streams had once run. The great river was ice-locked and silent. An awful stillness came upon the world about us, so that our own cries sounded hoarse and loud. We were cold and starving and, at last, we were forced together in the cave of Hair and Gurr, where there was room for all who remained of us. We gathered much fuel and kept up a fire, about which we huddled, famished and desperate. The end seemed very near.

One night, a storm fiercer than any we had ever known, raged down the valley. From the mouth of the cave we could see but the swirling drifts and hear only the roaring and shrieking of the wind. But at midnight it seemed to me I could distinguish another sound amid the unearthly clamour. It was different from the other noises, a bellowing in which was a note of fear. I had heard the trumpetings of the great mammoths once, and this somewhat recalled the sound, but it could not be. This was no haunt of the monster things, yet from somewhere up the gorge the sound continued, now higher or lower and sometimes moaning and most pitiful. Near morning it ceased entirely, but I must know what it meant. At daybreak I started up the gorge with four companions.

We did not have far to go. Fighting our way through, we came to a mighty hollow in which the snow had drifted to a depth many times the height of a man, and there, plunged deeply, almost buried, was an enormous, brown, hairy mass. It was incredible; it could not be that there had come to us such salvation, but it was true. Here was a strayed mammoth, last of his gigantic kind in the accursed region, caught helpless in the pass and dead, now to our hands!

With shouts of joy that were near to madness we hurled ourselves down upon the mountain of flesh, hewed frantically with our axes and cut out great chunks of meat and bore them to the cave, and there the whole starved company of us roasted and ate until we could eat no more. We could but eat and lie about and sleep and eat, and sleep again throughout all that day and night. And the next day, with much hewing and many burdened journeys, the whole of the vast body was stored within the cave. We were prisoners, but we had food and warmth. Soon all were strong again and there was almost merriment, for we were foolish.

We fed—for we were not many and the body of the mammoth was a monster thing—we fed and lounged before the flames for many days, but we did not think, though the wind still roared outside and the drifts were becoming deeper. I, who should have been wiser than the others—fool that I was—remained as dazed and warm and sluggish as the rest. Surely the trials which had come upon us must have changed me. But at last I woke to an affrighted half-understanding. The heap of mammoth flesh was growing smaller, and warmth, it seemed to me, might never come again. The storm ceased and a cold sun appeared and we could see the way, at least, along the silent valley. We must go or die. I became a furious thing. I leaped about and shouted. I whirled my axe and threatened overmasteringly. I made all left of the following burden themselves with what remained of the flesh and so drove them out before me to the southward.

All day long we plodded, and when night fell we harboured, shiveringly, in a vacant cave, and with the next morning took up the journey again, though some fell fainting as we struggled. We left them as they fell, for we could do no more. And then, toward the evening of the third day, I caught my foot in a rock crevice and wrenched my ankle as I lurched, so that I heard the bones crack, and I, the strongest, became in a moment the most helpless of the band. I plunged and floundered ahead in agony. I bellowed as does the bull to his dun following, but my companions did not heed me. We were past all helping and I was left alone. I fell prone in the deep snow and the cold crept upon me. It was bitter cold. And then to me it became less cold, and the snow began falling heavily and softly again, covering me with a warm blanket. I was tired and I could but sleep, restfully, too, as often I had done after some long chase. And I had barely slept when there came to me dreams like the pleasant memories of a thousand years. There were soft skies above me, and waving boughs, and a fragrance in my nostrils. And a laughing, apish face peered at me from between the branches bright with blossoms. And then there came other visions, but dimmer and more senseless, and so I slipped away into all dreamlessness.

CHAPTER III
THE BOWMEN

The sunlight was filtering down upon me through the broad foliage of a tree of an unfamiliar kind. Birds with hooked bills, brilliant plumage, and squalling voices were flitting among the branches all about. The rank perfume of strange flowers was in my nostrils, and to my ears came a pleasant, distant sound, the softened roar and lapping of waves upon a beach. I was lying in a little glade, wood-surrounded on three sides, but open to the southward. Through the space thus unobscured I could see a blue expanse of sky but nothing more, prone as I was upon the turf, my head resting on what was soft and furry, the folded skin of some wild animal. I was faint and weak; my eyes were opened for a moment only, and then once more I slept. An hour later I awoke again, refreshed and stronger, and, with much difficulty, succeeded in raising myself upon an elbow. My appreciation of things was returning slowly and it seemed to me—I cannot tell why—that I was not alone, that there must be another presence in the glade. I turned my head as well as my position would allow, and looked about me.