________________________________________________
_ I have no idea how long Lop-Ear and I wandered in the
land north of the river. We were like mariners wrecked
on a desert isle, so far as concerned the likelihood of
our getting home again. We turned our backs upon the
river, and for weeks and months adventured in that
wilderness where there were no Folk. It is very
difficult for me to reconstruct our journeying, and
impossible to do it from day to day. Most of it is
hazy and indistinct, though here and there I have vivid
recollections of things that happened.
Especially do I remember the hunger we endured on the
mountains between Long Lake and Far Lake, and the calf
we caught sleeping in the thicket. Also, there are the
Tree People who dwelt in the forest between Long Lake
and the mountains. It was they who chased us into the
mountains and compelled us to travel on to Far Lake.
First, after we left the river, we worked toward the
west till we came to a small stream that flowed through
marshlands. Here we turned away toward the north,
skirting the marshes and after several days arriving at
what I have called Long Lake. We spent some time
around its upper end, where we found food in plenty;
and then, one day, in the forest, we ran foul of the
Tree People. These creatures were ferocious apes,
nothing more. And yet they were not so different from
us. They were more hairy, it is true; their legs were
a trifle more twisted and gnarly, their eyes a bit
smaller, their necks a bit thicker and shorter, and
their nostrils slightly more like orifices in a sunken
surface; but they had no hair on their faces and on the
palms of their hands and the soles of their feet, and
they made sounds similar to ours with somewhat similar
meanings. After all, the Tree People and the Folk were
not so unlike.
I found him first, a little withered, dried-up old
fellow, wrinkled-faced and bleary-eyed and tottery. He
was legitimate prey. In our world there was no
sympathy between the kinds, and he was not our kind.
He was a Tree-Man, and he was very old. He was sitting
at the foot of a tree--evidently his tree, for we could
see the tattered nest in the branches, in which he
slept at night.
I pointed him out to Lop-Ear, and we made a rush for
him. He started to climb, but was too slow. I caught
him by the leg and dragged him back. Then we had fun.
We pinched him, pulled his hair, tweaked his ears, and
poked twigs into him, and all the while we laughed with
streaming eyes. His futile anger was most absurd. He
was a comical sight, striving to fan into flame the
cold ashes of his youth, to resurrect his strength dead
and gone through the oozing of the years--making woful
faces in place of the ferocious ones he intended,
grinding his worn teeth together, beating his meagre
chest with feeble fists.
Also, he had a cough, and he gasped and hacked and
spluttered prodigiously. Every time he tried to climb
the tree we pulled him back, until at last he
surrendered to his weakness and did no more than sit
and weep. And Lop-Ear and I sat with him, our arms
around each other, and laughed at his wretchedness.
From weeping he went to whining, and from whining to
wailing, until at last he achieved a scream. This
alarmed us, but the more we tried to make him cease,
the louder he screamed. And then, from not far away in
the forest, came a "Goek! Goek!" to our ears. To this
there were answering cries, several of them, and from
very far off we could hear a big, bass "Goek! Goek!
Goek!" Also, the "Whoo-whoo !" call was rising in the
forest all around us.
Then came the chase. It seemed it never would end.
They raced us through the trees, the whole tribe of
them, and nearly caught us. We were forced to take to
the ground, and here we had the advantage, for they
were truly the Tree People, and while they out-climbed
us we out-footed them on the ground. We broke away
toward the north, the tribe howling on our track.
Across the open spaces we gained, and in the brush they
caught up with us, and more than once it was nip and
tuck. And as the chase continued, we realized that we
were not their kind, either, and that the bonds between
us were anything but sympathetic.
They ran us for hours. The forest seemed interminable.
We kept to the glades as much as possible, but they
always ended in more thick forest. Sometimes we
thought we had escaped, and sat down to rest; but
always, before we could recover our breath, we would
hear the hateful "Whoo-whoo!" cries and the terrible
"Goek! Goek! Goek!" This latter sometimes terminated in
a savage "Ha ha ha ha haaaaa!!!"
And in this fashion were we hunted through the forest
by the exasperated Tree People. At last, by
mid-afternoon, the slopes began rising higher and
higher and the trees were becoming smaller. Then we
came out on the grassy flanks of the mountains. Here
was where we could make time, and here the Tree People
gave up and returned to their forest.
The mountains were bleak and inhospitable, and three
times that afternoon we tried to regain the woods. But
the Tree People were lying in wait, and they drove us
back. Lop-Ear and I slept that night in a dwarf tree,
no larger than a bush. Here was no security, and we
would have been easy prey for any hunting animal that
chanced along.
In the morning, what of our new-gained respect for the
Tree People, we faced into the mountains. That we had
no definite plan, or even idea, I am confident. We
were merely driven on by the danger we had escaped. Of
our wanderings through the mountains I have only misty
memories. We were in that bleak region many days, and
we suffered much, especially from fear, it was all so
new and strange. Also, we suffered from the cold, and
later from hunger.
It--was a desolate land of rocks and foaming streams
and clattering cataracts. We climbed and descended
mighty canyons and gorges; and ever, from every view
point, there spread out before us, in all directions,
range upon range, the unceasing mountains. We slept at
night in holes and crevices, and on one cold night we
perched on top a slender pinnacle of rock that was
almost like a tree.
And then, at last, one hot midday, dizzy with hunger,
we gained the divide. From this high backbone of
earth, to the north, across the diminishing,
down-falling ranges, we caught a glimpse of a far lake.
The sun shone upon it, and about it were open, level
grass-lands, while to the eastward we saw the dark line
of a wide-stretching forest.
We were two days in gaining the lake, and we were weak
with hunger; but on its shore, sleeping snugly in a
thicket, we found a part-grown calf. It gave us much
trouble, for we knew no other way to kill than with our
hands. When we had gorged our fill, we carried the
remainder of the meat to the eastward forest and hid it
in a tree. We never returned to that tree, for the
shore of the stream that drained Far Lake was packed
thick with salmon that had come up from the sea to
spawn.
Westward from the lake stretched the grass-lands, and
here were multitudes of bison and wild cattle. Also
were there many packs of wild dogs, and as there were
no trees it was not a safe place for us. We followed
north along the stream for days. Then, and for what
reason I do not know, we abruptly left the stream and
swung to the east, and then to the southeast, through a
great forest. I shall not bore you with our journey.
I but indicate it to show how we finally arrived at the
Fire People's country.
We came out upon the river, but we did not know it for
our river. We had been lost so long that we had come to
accept the condition of being lost as habitual. As I
look back I see clearly how our lives and destinies are
shaped by the merest chance. We did not know it was
our river--there was no way of telling; and if we had
never crossed it we would most probably have never
returned to the horde; and I, the modern, the thousand
centuries yet to be born, would never have been born .
And yet Lop-Ear and I wanted greatly to return. We had
experienced homesickness on our journey, the yearning
for our own kind and land; and often had I had
recollections of the Swift One, the young female who
made soft sounds, whom it was good to be with, and who
lived by herself nobody knew where. My recollections
of her were accompanied by sensations of hunger, and
these I felt when I was not hungry and when I had just
eaten.
But to come back to the river. Food was plentiful,
principally berries and succulent roots, and on the
river bank we played and lingered for days. And then
the idea came to Lop-Ear. It was a visible process,
the coming of the idea. I saw it. The expression in
his eyes became plaintive and querulous, and he was
greatly perturbed. Then his eyes went muddy, as if he
had lost his grip on the inchoate thought. This was
followed by the plaintive, querulous expression as the
idea persisted and he clutched it anew. He looked at
me, and at the river and the far shore. He tried to
speak, but had no sounds with which to express the
idea. The result was a gibberish that made me laugh.
This angered him, and he grabbed me suddenly and threw
me on my back. Of course we fought, and in the end I
chased him up a tree, where he secured a long branch
and poked me every time I tried to get at him.
And the idea had gone glimmering. I did not know, and
he had forgotten. But the next morning it awoke in him
again. Perhaps it was the homing instinct in him
asserting itself that made the idea persist. At any
rate it was there, and clearer than before. He led me
down to the water, where a log had grounded in an eddy.
I thought he was minded to play, as we had played in
the mouth of the slough. Nor did I change my mind as I
watched him tow up a second log from farther down the
shore.
It was not until we were on the logs, side by side and
holding them together, and had paddled out into the
current, that I learned his intention. He paused to
point at the far shore, and resumed his paddling, at
the same time uttering loud and encouraging cries. I
understood, and we paddled energetically. The swift
current caught us, flung us toward the south shore, but
before we could make a landing flung us back toward the
north shore.
Here arose dissension. Seeing the north shore so near,
I began to paddle for it. Lop-Ear tried to paddle for
the south shore. The logs swung around in circles, and
we got nowhere, and all the time the forest was
flashing past as we drifted down the stream. We could
not fight. We knew better than to let go the grips of
hands and feet that held the logs together. But we
chattered and abused each other with our tongues until
the current flung us toward the south bank again. That
was now the nearest goal, and together and amicably we
paddled for it. We landed in an eddy, and climbed
directly into the trees to reconnoitre. _
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