The Story of Ab: A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man

by Stanley Waterloo

To the panting stranger Ab had not much to say. He saw to it that the man was refreshed and cared for and that the deep scars along his side were dressed after the cave man's fashion. But through the night which followed the great cave leader pondered deeply. Why should men thus live and dread the cave tiger? Surely men were wiser than any beast! This one monster must, anyhow, be slain!

But little it mattered to all surrounding nature that the strong man in the Fire Valley had resolved upon the death of the cave tiger. The tiger was yet alive! There was a difference in the pulse of all the woodland. There was a hush throughout the forest. The word, somehow, went to every nerve of all the world of beasts, "Sabre-Tooth is here!" Even the huge cave bear shuffled aside as there came to him the scent of the invader. The aurochs and the urus, the towering elk, the reindeer and the lesser horned and antlered things fled wildly as the tainted air brought to them the tale of impending murder. Only the huge rhinoceros and mammoth stood their ground, and even these were terror-stricken with regard for their guarded young whenever the tiger neared them. The rhinoceros stood then, fierce-fronted and dangerous, its offspring hovering by its flanks, and the mammoths gathered in a ring encircling their calves and presenting an outward range of tusks to meet the hovering devourer. The dread was all about. The forest became seemingly nearly lifeless. There was less barking and yelping, less reckless playfulness of wild creatures, less rustling of the leaves and pattering along the forest paths. There was fear and quiet, for Sabre-Tooth had come!

The runner, refreshed and strengthened by food and sleep, appeared before Ab in the morning and told his story more in detail and got in return the short answer: "We will go with you and help you and your people. Tigers must be killed!"

Rarely before had man gone out voluntarily to hunt the great cave tiger. He had, sometimes in awful strait, defended himself against the monster as best he could, but to seek the encounter where the odds were so great against him was an ugly task. Now the man-slayer was to be the pursued instead of the pursuer. It required courage. The vengeful wounded man looked upon Ab with a grim, admiring regard. "You fear not?" he said.

There was bustling in the valley and soon a stalwart dozen men were armed with bow and spear and the journey was taken up toward the Shell Men's home. The village was reached at mid-day and as the little troop emerged from the forest the death wail fell upon their ears. "The tiger has come again!" exclaimed the runner.

It was true. The tiger had come again! Once more with his stunning roar he had swept through the village and had taken another victim, a woman, the wife of one of the head men. Too benumbed by fear, this time, to act at once, the Shell Men had not pursued the great brute into the darkness. They had but ventured out in the morning and followed the trail and found that the tiger had carried the woman in very nearly the same direction as he had borne the man and that what remained from his gorging of the night lay where his earlier feast had been. It was the first tragedy almost repeated.

The little group of Fire Valley folk entered the village and were received with shouts from the men, while from the throats of the women still rose the death wail. There were more people about the huts than Ab had ever seen there and he recognized at once among the group many of the cave men from the East, strong people of his own kind. As the wounded runner had gone to the Fire Valley, so another had been sent to the East, to call upon another group for aid, and the Eastern cave people, under the leadership of a huge, swarthy man called Boarface, had come to learn what the strait was and to decide upon what degree of help they could afford to give. Between these Eastern and the Western cave men there was a certain coldness. There was no open enmity, though at some time in the past there had been family battles and memories of feuds were still existent. But Ab and Boarface met genially and there was not a trace of difference now. Boarface joined readily in the council which was held and decided that he would aid in the desperate hunt, and certainly his aid was not to be despised when his followers were looked upon. They were a stalwart lot.

The way was taken by the gathered fighting men toward where, across the forest path, lay part of a woman. As the place was neared the band gathered close together and there were outpointing spears, just as the mammoths' tusks outpointed when the beasts guarded their young from the thing now hunted. But there came no attack and no sound from the forest. The tiger must be sleeping. Beneath a huge tree bordering the pathway lay what remained of the woman's body. Fifty feet above, and almost directly over this dreadful remnant of humanity, shot out a branch as thick as a man's body. There was consultation among the hunters and in this Ab took the lead, while Boarface and the Shell Men who had come to help assented readily. No need existed for the risk of an open fight with this great beast. Craft must be used and Ab gave forth his swift commands.

The Fire Valley leader had seen to it that his company had brought what he needed in his effort to kill the tiger. There were two great tanned, tough urus hides. There were lengths of rhinoceros hide, cut thickly, which would endure a strain of more than the weight of ten brawny men. There was one spear, with a shaft of ash wood at least fifteen feet in length and as thick as a man's wrist. Its head was a blade of hardest flint, but the spear was too heavy for a man's hurling. It had been made for another use.

There was little hesitation in what was done, for Ab knew well the quality of the work he had in hand. He unfolded his plan briefly and then he himself climbed to the treetop and out upon the limb, carrying with him the knotted strip of rhinoceros hide. In the pouch of his skin garment were pebbles. He reached a place on the big limb overhanging the path and dropped a pebble. It struck the earth a yard or two away from what remained of the woman's body and he shouted to those below to drag the mangled body to the spot where the pebble had hit the earth. They were about to do so when from the forest on one side of the path came a roar, so appalling in every way that there was no thought of anything among most of the workers save of sudden flight. The tiger was in the wood and very near and a scent had reached him. There was a flight which left upon the ground beneath the tree branches only old Hilltop and the rough Boarface and some dozen sturdy followers, these about equally divided between the East and the West men of the hills. There was swift and sharp work then.