Seated upon a little hummock was a woman and, even as I turned, she saw the movement and ran toward me with a glad cry. She was a splendid creature. Tall she was, and her long hair, thrown back uncombed and tangled, swung down below her slender waist. There was down upon her brown arms and her bare legs, and she moved with the swift grace of the tiger or leopard kind. Her mouth was large, and her teeth gleamed sharply, but it was a fair mouth nevertheless, and her eyes were dark and deep. Her only garment was a soft robe of coney skin passing over one shoulder, and leaving half the full bosom exposed. The robe was held close to her body by a belt of some sort and extended to her knees. Brown she was indeed, a creature of the sun and air and storm, yet her skin was smooth and soft. But it was her eyes I saw. They spoke to me.
The appearance of the woman did not surprise me. It seemed a matter of course that she should be there, and my heart leaped as I looked upon her. I was still dazed, but I knew that she belonged to me. There was a sense of protective ownership of her and of a need of her, this savage beauty whom I might smite if she displeased me, but for whom I would battle to the death. She was beside me in a moment, kneeling with a pitying look in her eyes and beginning at once to unwind the strings of inner bark which held in place a huge bandage around my leg not far above the knee. Very gently and carefully she removed the mass of green, wet leaves covering others nearest the flesh. These macerated into a sort of pulp. Cautiously she lifted the mass and there, in my thigh, I saw a gash which had ceased to bleed but which was raw and open. Nor deep nor dangerous was this wound, but evidently I had lost much blood and so had fallen weak and senseless. As gently as she had taken it away the woman renewed the bandages with new pulp and leaves and, the binding finished, she looked at me happily.
“The Boar,” she said.
The boar, the savage boar! Yes, I dimly remembered now. There had been a chase somewhere, and the wild boar had charged me, but where were the rest of my tribe, those I had led away from the devouring of the mammoth, to take up the desperate southward quest? Where were the drifting snows and the fierce winds and bitter cold and awful loneliness, the drowsiness and dream of death?
The bandage in its place, the woman sat beside me and stroked my face softly, but only for a little time. She arose quietly, went a little distance away, curled herself down upon the green turf, and seemed to fall asleep on the instant. Then I realized what it meant. She must have been alert and watching throughout the night, and how much longer I could not tell, and so was wearied, if not near to exhaustion. My own strength I felt returning to me, though when I sought to rise to my feet I failed miserably because of the pain the effort brought to my wounded leg. I crawled to the foot of the tree, and leaning my back against the trunk, sought to collect my scattered senses and realize, if I could, the situation. Where could I be? Who, indeed, was I?
As my glance wandered about it was drawn to certain objects upon the ground not two yards away from me. Only one of them was familiar; it was a stone axe, but the haft was of a different wood and colour from that of the axe with which I had slain the great cave bear, and the heavy blade was polished so that it shone in the sunlight. It was a beautiful axe and I resolved that I must have it, if it were not mine already. Beside the weapon lay something which greatly puzzled me at first. It was a long shaft of some tough wood, but its head was of stone like that of the axe, though of a different shape, long and sharp and pointed and held in the shaft’s split end by knotted sinews. At last I comprehended; it must be a spear, but the only spears we had ever known in the land of cold were long sticks sharpened at the end and charred and hardened in the fire. They were but trifling things compared with what this must be in the fight or hunt.
But it was what remained that most aroused my curiosity and perplexed me. There was a stout, springy length of ash, as long nearly as my own height, with the ends bent toward each other and so held by a strong sinewy cord which stretched between them. Lying beside this curious thing was a number of very slender shafts, each notched at one end and bearing at the other a little stone head shaped like that of the spear. I could not understand them and finally gave up the problem. I crawled back to the skin bundle and lay down and slept again.
It had been mid-forenoon when my latest sleep began; when I awoke it was almost night. I was aroused by the call of a pleasant voice beside me, “Scar! Scar!” and the continuous patting of a hand upon my shoulder. I was wide awake and with my mind all restored in an instant.
“What is it, Otter?” I answered.
She laughed joyously. “You know again; you will soon be well. He struck hard, but the cut is not deep. Soon you will run. Your arrows killed him. We will go and eat.”