One may imagine, then, my extraordinary interest in him when I actually met him in the flesh. Yet the thing came about quite simply, indeed more by accident than by design, an adventure open to all.
It so happened that I spent my vacation in Kentucky—the region, as everybody knows, of the great caves. They extend—it is a matter of common knowledge—for hundreds of miles; in some places dark and sunless tunnels, the black silence broken only by the dripping of the water from the roof; in other places great vaults like subterranean temples, with vast stone arches sweeping to the dome, and with deep, still water of unfathomed depth as the floor; and here and there again they are lighted from above through rifts in the surface of the earth, and are dry and sand strewn—fit for human habitation.
In such caves as these—so has the obstinate legend run for centuries—there still dwell cave-men, the dwindling remnant of their race. And here it was that I came across him.
I had penetrated into the caves far beyond my guides. I carried a revolver and had with me an electric lantern, but the increasing sunlight in the cave as I went on had rendered the latter needless.
There he sat, a huge figure, clad in a great wolfskin. Besides him lay a great club. Across his knee was a spear round which he was binding sinews that tightened under his muscular hand. His head was bent over his task. His matted hair had fallen over his eyes. He did not see me till I was close beside him on the sanded floor of the cave. I gave a slight cough.
“Excuse me!” I said.
The Cave-man gave a startled jump.
“My goodness,” he said, “you startled me!”
I could see that he was quite trembling.
“You came along so suddenly,” he said, “it gave me the jumps.” Then he muttered, more to himself than to me, “Too much of this darned cave-water! I must quit drinking it.”