But the echoes and the shadows were nothing as compared with the things which came to one at night. What were those creatures which came when a man was sleeping? Why did they escape with the dawn and appear again only when he was asleep and helpless, at least until he awoke fairly and seized his ax?
The sun rose high and dropped slowly down toward the west, where the far ocean was, and the shadows somewhat lengthened, but it was still light along the forest pathways and the untiring man still hurried on. He was now close to his country and becoming careless and at ease. But his imagination was still busy; he could not free himself of memory. There came to him still the vision of the friend he had buried, hiding his face first of all. The frenzy of his wish for knowing rushed again upon him. Where was Oak now? he demanded of himself and of all nature. "Where is Oak?" he yelled to the familiar trees beside his path. But the trees, even to the cave man, so close to them in the economy of wild life, so like them in his naturalness, could give no answer.
So the cave man struggled in his dim, uncertain way with the eternal question: "If a man die shall he live again?" So the human mind still struggles, after thousands of centuries have contributed to its development. A wall more impassable than the wall of flame Ab had so lately looked upon still rises between us and those who no longer live. We reach out for some knowledge of those who have died, and go almost into madness because we can grasp nothing. Silence unbroken, darkness impenetrable ever guard the mystery of death. In the long ages since the cave man ran that day, love and hope have in faith erected, beyond the grim barriers of blackness and despair, fair pavilions of promise and consolation, but to the stern examiners of physical fact and reality there has come no news from beyond the walls of silence since. We clamor tearfully for some word from those who are dead, but no answer comes. So Ab groped and strove alone in the forest, in his youth and ignorance, and in the youth and ignorance of our race.
Upon the pathway along the river's bank Ab emerged at last. All was familiar to him now. There, by the clump of trees in the flat below, was the place where he and Oak had dug the pit when they were but mere boys and had learned their first important lessons in sterner woodcraft. Soon came in sight, as he ran, the entrance to the cave of his own family. He was home again. But he was not the one who had left that rude habitation three days before. He had gone away a youth. He had come back one who had suffered and thought. He came back a man.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
THE WOOING OF LIGHTFOOT.
Lightfoot, when Ab seized Oak, had fled away from the two infuriated men, as the hare runs, and had sped into the forest. She had the impetus of new fear now and ran swiftly as became her name, never looking behind her, nor did she slacken her pace, though panting and exhausted, until she found herself approaching the cave where lived her playmate, Moonface, not more than an hour's run from her own home.
The fleeing girl was fortunate in stumbling upon her friend as soon as she came into the open space about the cave. Moonface was enjoying herself lazily that afternoon. She was leaning back idly in a swing of vines to which she had braided a flexible back, and was blinking somnolently in the sunshine as the visitor leaped from the wood. Moonface recognized her friend, gave a quavering cry of delight and came slipping and rolling recklessly to the ground to meet her. Lightfoot uttered no word. She stood breathless, and was rather carried than led by Moonface to an easy seat, moss-padded, upon twisted tree roots, which was that young lady's ordinary resting-place. Upon this seat the two sank, one overcome with past fear and present fatigue, and the other with an all-absorbing and demanding curiosity. It was beyond the ordinary scope of the self-restraining forces in Moonface to await with calm the recovery of Lightfoot's breath and powers of conversation. She pinched and shook her friend and demanded, half-crying but impatiently, some explanation. It was a great hour for Moonface, the greatest in her life. Here was her friend and dictator panting and terrified like some weak, hunted-down thing of the wood. It was a marvel. At last Lightfoot spoke:
"They are fighting at the foot of the hill!" she said, and Moonface at once guessed the whole story, for she was not blind, this wide-mouthed creature.
"Why did you run away?" she asked.