FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74  
75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   >>   >|  
a man about it somewhere.... When night had come he went off down the river gorge to see if he could cut off either of the ledge's occupants. The ledge was empty, there were no signs of the red thing, but as he was rather hungry he did not loiter long that night, but pushed on to pick up a red deer fawn. He forgot about the drab animals. He found a fawn, but the doe was close by and made an ugly fight for her young. Andoo had to leave the fawn, but as her blood was up she stuck to the attack, and at last he got in a blow of his paw on her nose, and so got hold of her. More meat but less delicacy, and the she-bear, following, had her share. The next afternoon, curiously enough, the very fellow of the first white rock fell, and smashed precisely according to precedent. The aim of the third, that fell the night after, however, was better. It hit Andoo's unspeculative skull with a crack that echoed up the cliff, and the white fragments went dancing to all the points of the compass. The she-bear coming after him and sniffing curiously at him, found him lying in an odd sort of attitude, with his head wet and all out of shape. She was a young she-bear, and inexperienced, and having sniffed about him for some time and licked him a little, and so forth, she decided to leave him until the odd mood had passed, and went on her hunting alone. She looked up the fawn of the red doe they had killed two nights ago, and found it. But it was lonely hunting without Andoo, and she returned caveward before dawn. The sky was grey and overcast, the trees up the gorge were black and unfamiliar, and into her ursine mind came a dim sense of strange and dreary happenings. She lifted up her voice and called Andoo by name. The sides of the gorge re-echoed her. As she approached the caves she saw in the half light, and heard a couple of jackals scuttle off, and immediately after a hyaena howled and a dozen clumsy bulks went lumbering up the slope, and stopped and yelled derision. "Lord of the rocks and caves--ya-ha!" came down the wind. The dismal feeling in the she-bear's mind became suddenly acute. She shuffled across the amphitheatre. "Ya-ha!" said the hyaenas, retreating. "Ya-ha!" The cave bear was not lying quite in the same attitude, because the hyaenas had been busy, and in one place his ribs showed white. Dotted over the turf about him lay the smashed fragments of the three great lumps of chalk. And the air was full of the scent
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74  
75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

curiously

 

fragments

 

echoed

 

hyaenas

 

hunting

 

smashed

 
attitude
 

approached

 
lonely
 
couple

nights

 
called
 
caveward
 

happenings

 
unfamiliar
 

strange

 
dreary
 

ursine

 
lifted
 

overcast


returned

 
showed
 

retreating

 

Dotted

 

amphitheatre

 

lumbering

 

stopped

 

yelled

 

clumsy

 

scuttle


immediately

 

hyaena

 

howled

 
derision
 
suddenly
 

shuffled

 

feeling

 

dismal

 

jackals

 

points


forgot

 

animals

 
attack
 

delicacy

 
pushed
 
occupants
 

hungry

 
loiter
 
inexperienced
 

sniffed