staring at the
footmarks of the great bear as they came to the gully--they were as wide
as his head and twice as long. Then he jumped up and went along the
cliff face until the ledge was visible. Here he sat down for some time
thinking, while Eudena watched him. Presently she saw the bears had
gone.

At last Ugh-lomi rose, as one whose mind is made up. He returned towards
the gully, Eudena keeping close by him, and together they clambered to
the ledge. They took the firestone and a flint, and then Ugh-lomi went
down to the foot of the cliff very cautiously, and found his axe. They
returned to the cliff as quietly as they could, and set off at a brisk
walk. The ledge was a home no longer, with such callers in the
neighbourhood. Ugh-lomi carried the axe and Eudena the firestone. So
simple was a Palaeolithic removal.

They went up-stream, although it might lead to the very lair of the
cave bear, because there was no other way to go. Down the stream was the
tribe, and had not Ugh-lomi killed Uya and Wau? By the stream they had
to keep--because of drinking.

So they marched through beech trees, with the gorge deepening until the
river flowed, a frothing rapid, five hundred feet below them. Of all the
changeful things in this world of change, the courses of rivers in deep
valleys change least. It was the river Wey, the river we know to-day,
and they marched over the very spots where nowadays stand little
Guildford and Godalming--the first human beings to come into the land.
Once a grey ape chattered and vanished, and all along the cliff edge,
vast and even, ran the spoor of the great cave bear.

And then the spoor of the bear fell away from the cliff, showing,
Ugh-lomi thought, that he came from some place to the left, and keeping
to the cliff's edge, they presently came to an end. They found
themselves looking down on a great semi-circular space caused by the
collapse of the cliff. It had smashed right across the gorge, banking
the up-stream water back in a pool which overflowed in a rapid. The slip
had happened long ago. It was grassed over, but the face of the cliffs
that stood about the semicircle was still almost fresh-looking and white
as on the day when the rock must have broken and slid down. Starkly
exposed and black under the foot of these cliffs were the mouths of
several caves. And as they stood there, looking at the space, and
disinclined to skirt it, because they thought the bears' lair lay
somewhere on th