cliff, going to and fro, shaking his mane of hair, and waving the
axe of stone--the first axe of stone--while he chanted of the killing
of Uya. The cave bear was far up the gorge, and he saw the thing
slanting-ways and far off. He was so surprised he stood quite still upon
the edge, sniffing the novel odour of burning bracken, and wondering
whether the dawn was coming up in the wrong place.

He was the lord of the rocks and caves, was the cave bear, as his
slighter brother, the grizzly, was lord of the thick woods below, and as
the dappled lion--the lion of those days was dappled--was lord of the
thorn-thickets, reed-beds, and open plains. He was the greatest of all
meat-eaters; he knew no fear, none preyed on him, and none gave him
battle; only the rhinoceros was beyond his strength. Even the mammoth
shunned his country. This invasion perplexed him. He noticed these new
beasts were shaped like monkeys, and sparsely hairy like young pigs.
"Monkey and young pig," said the cave bear. "It might not be so bad. But
that red thing that jumps, and the black thing jumping with it yonder!
Never in my life have I seen such things before!"

He came slowly along the brow of the cliff towards them, stopping thrice
to sniff and peer, and the reek of the fire grew stronger. A couple of
hyaenas also were so intent upon the thing below that Andoo, coming soft
and easy, was close upon them before they knew of him or he of them.
They started guiltily and went lurching off. Coming round in a wheel, a
hundred yards off, they began yelling and calling him names to revenge
themselves for the start they had had. "Ya-ha!" they cried. "Who can't
grub his own burrow? Who eats roots like a pig?... Ya-ha!" for even in
those days the hyaena's manners were just as offensive as they are now.

"Who answers the hyaena?" growled Andoo, peering through the midnight
dimness at them, and then going to look at the cliff edge.

There was Ugh-lomi still telling his story, and the fire getting low,
and the scent of the burning hot and strong.

Andoo stood on the edge of the chalk cliff for some time, shifting his
vast weight from foot to foot, and swaying his head to and fro, with his
mouth open, his ears erect and twitching, and the nostrils of his big,
black muzzle sniffing. He was very curious, was the cave bear, more
curious than any of the bears that live now, and the flickering fire and
the incomprehensible movements of the man, let alone the intrusio