The beasts came over the barrier and the fires like a yelling flood.
But now, finding all opposition so suddenly withdrawn, the flood
divided upon the massive, thrusting figure of Ook-ootsk as upon a
black rock in mid-stream. It united again behind him, surging
pell-mell for the Cave-mouths, where in the crush the weaker and
lighter were savagely torn and trampled underfoot.

Then the Mammoths came thundering and trumpeting across the plateau,
going through and over the lesser beasts like a tidal wave. Grom,
having seen the last of his warriors pass down the beach paths, turned
for one more glimpse of the monstrous and incredible scene. He had a
swift vision of the squatting form of Ook-ootsk thrusting upward with
reddened spear at the breast of a black monster which hung over him
like a mountain. Then the mountain rolled forward upon him, blotting
him out, and Grom slipped hurriedly over the brink and down the path.

* * * * *

At the rafts it was bedlam. A score or more of the women and children,
as they were crossing to the water's edge, had been wiped out of
existence by the rush of maddened bison along the beach, and the
keenings of their relatives rose above the shouts and cries of
embarkation. Fully half the rafts were afloat, with their loads, by
now, and men grunted heavily in the effort to pry the others free,
while women and children crowded into the water around them, waiting
to struggle aboard as soon as the men would let them.

As Grom and his panting band, covered with blood from head to foot,
reached the waterside and flung their dripping weapons upon the rafts,
a fringe of animals came over the edge of the steep, crowded aside
from the caves. Some, being sure-footed, like the lions and bears,
made their way with care down the paths. Others, pushed over and
struggling frantically, came rolling downward, bouncing from rock and
ledge, and landing on the beach a mass of broken bones. Then behind
them, along the brink, black and gigantic against the blue sky-line,
appeared a group of the Mammoths. They waved their long trunks, and
trumpeted piercingly, but hesitated to try the descent.

"Hurry! hurry!" thundered Bawr, straining at the stranded timbers till
the great veins stood out on neck and forehead as if they would
burst.

Under the added efforts of Grom and his band the last of the rafts
floated. The children were thrown aboard, the women clambered after