"Crawl out upon a branch above me, swing down from it, swing hard and throw yourself to me. I will catch you and hold you. I am strong."
The woman, with all faith in the man, still demurred. It was a great test, even for the times and the occasion. But hunger was upon her and she was cold and was, naturally, very brave. She lowered herself and climbed down and reached an out-extending limb, and there, across the gap, she saw Ab with his strong legs twined about the uprearing branch along which he laid, with giant brown arms stretched out confidently and with eyes steadily regarding her, eyes which had love and longing and a lot of fight in them. She walked out along the limb, holding herself safely by a firm hand-hold on the limb above, until the one her bare feet rested upon swayed and tipped uncertainly. Then came her time of trial of nerve and trust. Suddenly she stooped, caught the lower limb with her hands and then swung beneath it, hanging by her hands alone, and, hand over hand, passed herself along until she reached almost its end. Then she began swaying back and forth. She was but a few yards above Ab now, dangling in mid-air, while, below her, the two hungry bears had rushed together and were looking upward with red, anticipating eyes, the ooze coming from their mouths. The moment was awful. Soon she must be a mangled thing devoured by frightful beasts, or else a woman with a life renewed. She looked at Ab, and, with courage regained, prepared for the great effort which must end all or gain a better lease of life.
She swung back and forth, each drawing up and outreach and flexible motion of her arms giving more momentum to the sway and conserving force for the launch of herself she was about to make. The desperation and strength of a wood-wise creature, so bravely combined, alone enabled her to obey Ab's hoarse command.
Ab, with his arms outreaching in their strength, feeling the fierce eyes of the hungry bears below boring into his very heart, leaned forward and upward as the swing of the woman reached its climax. With a cry of warning, the woman launched herself and shot downward and forward, like a bolt to its mark, a very desirable lump of femininity as appearing in mid-air, but one somewhat forcible in its alighting.
Ab was strong, but when that girl landed fairly in his brawny arms, as she did beautifully, it was touch and go, for a fraction of a second, whether both should fall to the ground together or both be saved. He caught her deftly, but there was a great shock and swing and then, with a vast effort, there came recovery and the man drew himself, shaking, back to the support of the branch from which he had been almost wrenched away, at the same time placing beside him the object he had just caught.
There was absolute silence for a moment or two between these unconventional lovers to whom had come escape from a hard situation. They were drawing deep breaths and recovering an equilibrium. There they sat together on the strong branch, each of them as secure and, for the moment, as perfectly at home as if lying on a couch in the cave. Each of them was panting and each of them rejoicing. It was unlikely that upon their trained, robust nerves the life-endangering episode of a moment could have a more than passing effect. They sat so together for some minutes with arms entwined, still drawing deep breaths, and, a little later, began to laugh chucklingly, as breath came to be spared for such exhibition if human feeling. Gradually, the indrawing and expelling of the glorious air shortened. The two had regained their normal condition and Ab's face lengthened and the lines upon it became more distinct. He was all himself again, but in no dallying mood. He gave a triumphant whoop which echoed through the forest, shook his clenched hand savagely at the brutes below and reached toward Lightfoot for the bow which hung about her shoulders.
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
MORE OF THE HONEYMOON.
The brown, downy woman knew, on the instant, what was her husband's mood and immediate intent when he thus shouted and took into his own keeping again the stiff bow which hung about her shoulders. She knew that her lord was not merely in a glad, but that he was also in a vengeful frame of mind, that he wanted from her what would enable him to kill things, and that, equipped again, he was full of the spirit of fight. She knew that, of the four animals grouped together, two huge creatures of the ground and two slighter ones perched in a tree top, the chances were that the condition of those below had suddenly become the less preferable.
The bow was about Ab's shoulders instantly, and then this preposterous young gentleman of the period turned to the woman and laughed, and caught her in one of his arms a little closer, and drew her up against him and laid his cheek against her own for a moment and drew it away and laughed again. The kiss, it is believed, had not fully developed itself in the cave man's time, but there were substitutes. Then, releasing her, he said gleefully and chucklingly, "follow me;" and they clambered down the bole of the beech together until they reached the biggest and very lowest limb of all. It was perhaps twenty feet above the ground. A little below their dangling feet the hungry bears, hitherto more patient, now, with their expected prey so close at hand, becoming desperately excited, ran about, frothing and foaming and red-eyed, uprearing themselves in awful nearness, at times, in their eagerness to reach the prey which they had so awaited and which, to their intelligence, seemed about falling into their jaws. They had so driven into trees before, and finally consumed exhausted cave men and women. As bears went, they were doubtless logical animals. They could not know that there had come into possession of this particular pair of creatures of the sort they had occasionally eaten, a trifling thing of wood and sinew string and flint point, which was destined henceforth to make a decided change in the relative condition of the biped and quadruped hunters of the time. How could they know that something small and sharp would fly down and sting them more deeply than they had ever been stung before, that it would sting so deeply that their arteries might be cut, or their hearts pierced and that then they must lie down and die? The well-thrown spear had been, in other ages, a vast surprise to the carnivora of the period, but there was something yet to learn.