What creatures they were! Almost straight they stood, with no more hair upon their bodies than had I, and their thumbs closed readily and easily upon the fingers, making the grip of their club secure. But it was their faces and the expression upon them which most astonished me. They were quite unlike the dream of apes, still, somehow, with me. They had noses more distinct, their ears were rounded, there was less repellent expanse of jaw and upper lip between the mouth and nostrils, and the teeth, which showed as they chattered, were not so long and sharp. Their eyes, though, were their striking feature, since in them appeared a look of understanding which I recognized. They were of my kind.
I made no answer to them and, as I came near, they looked upon me pityingly, putting their hands to their heads and pointing toward the place where I had awakened. Then, for the first time, I began to realize things. They were saying that I had been hurt. Instinctively I lifted my own hand and there came away a little blood. Who had struck me? I swung my club furiously, but they only chattered the more and made motions, one of them running to the ledge and pointing upward to its top and making a sound which I knew. I had been with them on some sort of an expedition and a stone had rolled down and hurt me as I slept. That was why my head ached and why I could, at first, remember nothing. I was no longer angry. I listened eagerly to what they were trying to tell me.
One of the two, as they pointed up the river, made a repeated bleating, as of an animal in distress, and when he said “Stag,” “Stag,” I knew that there was good hunting close at hand. I shouted and waved my club, and we dashed away together.
The pathway near the river led but a short way before it opened out upon a little low-lying grassy plain extending to the bank, with marshy places here and there, and upon this natural meadow half a score or more great, splendid antlered things were feeding. They grouped near together, with the exception of a single cow, walking round and round one of the marshy pools and bleating piteously at intervals. We shouted when we saw her. We knew that her fawn was mired and helpless and we should kill it and have food.
We entered the tall reeds and grass of the lowland and stooped low, slipping through noiselessly until we were near the distressed mother. Then we uprose and rushed and yelled together. The startled elk leaped and ran swiftly for a distance, then, as there came the sound of struggle and plaintive bleating from the quagmire, she checked herself and turned to charge. There came an awful interjection. There rose from the forest edge, though far away up the river, a roar so fearful and appalling, so dreadful and far-reaching, that all the world seemed dazed from the moment the sound tore across the valley and, even before these echoes died away, the herd of feeding elk leaped forward together in frantic bounds and swept close beside us in their flight, carrying with them the mother cow. The great cave tiger was abroad, though not yet near, and before him all living things must flee. We were shaking ourselves, with fright, but we knew the monster had doubtless just now slain because of the cruel roar which told it, and so we were in no danger for the moment. The elk calf, a great thing nearly a third grown, was standing helpless near the quagmire edge. We ventured in a little way and crushed the thin bones of its head with our hard clubs and, together, dragged it to the firm earth and so, hurriedly, across the valley and up among the rocks. With one on watch, we attacked the body of the calf with our sharp flakes of flint, and with much toil and many strokes made openings in the skin and hacked and hewed and wrenched until we had the beast divided into three parts. Then, each with his burden of skin and flesh upon his back and his club thrust in his belt, we went straining hurriedly across the lowland and up the path among the rocks whence we had come until we were another long distance away, where, climbing upon a huge boulder, we ate ravenously. It was a feast. Very good to eat is the flesh of young stag.
Rested and full of strength, we took up our march again until we turned into the opening of a long gorge, almost a valley, which lay not far from the river and nearly parallel with it. I knew that in this gorge our homes were, but I could not yet remember much about them, though each new scene, as we advanced, became familiar. I recognized the place where I had once killed a hare with a well-hurled stone.
Suddenly one of my companions gave utterance to a long drawn cry, “O-o-e-e, O-o-e-e,” far reaching and sustained, until there came an answer from farther up the valley, “O-o-e-e, O-o-e-e!” Then, in the distance, seeming to issue from the solid rock, came three figures, and I knew they were our people.
In the lead were two women and behind them was a child, a little girl. The woman first to reach us was of middle age, and, chattering joyously, she took the load from the older of my companions and trudged along beside him, as did the younger woman with the other man, and I knew that the women were their mates. All together, we went on to the place whence the woman and child had issued, and there was the entrance to a cave, not very large, but which rose and widened out inside into what was a vast chamber, fifty feet across, at least, and nearly as many high. Away off in one corner of the floor there gleamed a tiny light which indicated a smouldering fire, and about it, tending it, an old man tottered. There were heaps of leaves and grass, too, and upon the floor were a few skins of animals and many bones and roots and the shells of nuts, all scattered heedlessly about. The women chattered continuously, for they were delighted with the meat. Each was eating torn strips, raw, but soon one ran out and brought in an armful of meat, which was stuck firmly upon long sharpened sticks, and thrust into the fed flame until it was burned and blackened and then eaten with greater gusto. The child devoured her share like a young hyena, while the elders sucked and mumbled. The women seemed to know me and be glad that I had come. One of them pointed, laughing, to the burden I had carried, and then up toward the valley, and I knew that my own cave was there. Soon, refreshed, I took up my own burden of the meat and left my friends and followed the path southward, knowing instinctively each rise and run. I reached a place where the rock sloped sharply down and where, halfway up, appeared the dark mouth of a narrow opening. I had reached my home at last.
Up the steep ascent of thirty feet or more was a twisting way, worn smooth. Long travelled must have been that path. I entered the cave and found it very like the other, save that it was not more than a fourth as large. The one I had just left was the largest in all the region.
There were embers still alive where was a spot of red at one end of the cave, and I cast down my load and threw on fresh wood, which was at hand, and then lay down to sleep, for I was tired. But I could not sleep. There were flames and light in the cave and, now, everything came back to me. I remembered the two days before I went away with my companions. I remembered the pleasures and perils of my life, and all the horrors of the discovery, not long ago, when I, returning from a night spent with a hunter in another cave, found all of those I had lived with dead and nearly all devoured, all slain in the cave together, surprised while sleeping, by the wolf pack which had found swift entrance through the opening, for once left carelessly unblocked by slabs of stone.