Free Before Adam by Jack London Page A

one of the Folk who dared to face Red Eye. As their approval and acclamation arose on the air, Red Eye snarled down at them, and on the instant they were subdued to silence. Encouraged by this evidence of his power, he thrust his head into view, and by scowling and snarling and gnashing his fangs tried to intimidate me. He scowled horribly, contracting the scalp strongly over the brows and bringing the hair down from the top of the head until each hair stood apart and pointed straight forwards.
    The sight chilled me, but I mastered my fear, and, with a stone poised in my hand, threatened him back. He still tried to advance. I drove the stone down at him and made a sheer miss. The next shot was a success. The stone struck him on the neck. He slipped back out of sight, but as he disappeared I could see him clutching for a grip on the wall with one hand, and with the other clutching at his throat. The stick fell clattering to the ground.
    I could not see him any more, though I could hear him choking and strangling and coughing. The audience kept a death-like silence. I crouched on the lip of the entrance and waited. The strangling and coughing died down, and I could hear him now and again clearing his throat. A little later he began to climb down. He went very quietly, pausing every moment or so to stretch his neck or to feel it with his hand.
    At the sight of him descending, the whole horde, with wild screams and yells, stampeded for the woods. Old Marrow Bone, hobbling and tottering, followed behind. Red Eye took no notice of the flight. When he reached the ground he skirted the base of the bluff and climbed up and into his own cave. He did not look around once.
    I stared at Lop Ear, and he stared back. We understood each other. Immediately, and with great caution and quietness, we began climbing up the cliff. When we reached the top we looked back. The abiding place was deserted, Red Eye remained in his cave, and the horde had disappeared in the depths of the forest.
    We turned and ran. We dashed across the open spaces and down the slopes, unmindful of possible snakes in the grass, until we reached the woods. Up into the trees we went, and on and on, swinging our arboreal flight until we had put miles between us and the caves. And then, and not till then, in thesecurity of a great fork, we paused, looked at each other, and began to laugh. We held onto each other, arms and legs, our eyes streaming tears, our sides aching, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

10
    After we had had out our laugh, Lop Ear and I curved back in our flight and got breakfast in the blueberry swamp. It was the same swamp to which I had made my first journeys in the world, years before, accompanied by my mother. I had seen little of her in the intervening time. Usually, when she visited the horde at the caves, I was away in the forest. I had once or twice caught glimpses of the Chatterer in the open space, and had had the pleasure of making faces at him and angering him from the mouth of my cave. Beyond such amenities I had left my family severely alone. I was not much interested in it, and anyway I was doing very well by myself.
    After eating our fill of berries, with two nestfuls of partly hatched quail eggs for dessert, Lop Ear and I wandered circumspectly into the woods towards the river. Here was where stood my old home tree, out of which I had been thrown by the Chatterer. It was still occupied. There had been increase in the family. Clinging tight to my mother was a little baby. Also, there was a girl, partly grown, who cautiously regarded us from one of the lower branches. She was evidently my sister, or half-sister, rather.
    My mother recognised me, but she warned me away when I started to climb into the tree. Lop Ear, who was more cautious by far than I, beat a retreat, nor could I persuade him to return. Later in the day, however, my sister came down to the ground,and there and in neighbouring trees we romped and played all afternoon. And