CHAPTER XII
I have no idea how long Lop-Ear and I wandered in the land north ofthe river. We were like mariners wrecked on a desert isle, so far asconcerned the likelihood of our getting home again. We turned our backsupon the river, and for weeks and months adventured in that wildernesswhere there were no Folk. It is very difficult for me to reconstruct ourjourneying, and impossible to do it from day to day. Most of it is hazyand indistinct, though here and there I have vivid recollections ofthings that happened.
Especially do I remember the hunger we endured on the mountains betweenLong Lake and Far Lake, and the calf we caught sleeping in the thicket.Also, there are the Tree People who dwelt in the forest between LongLake and the mountains. It was they who chased us into the mountains andcompelled us to travel on to Far Lake.
First, after we left the river, we worked toward the west till we cameto a small stream that flowed through marshlands. Here we turned awaytoward the north, skirting the marshes and after several days arrivingat what I have called Long Lake. We spent some time around its upperend, where we found food in plenty; and then, one day, in the forest,we ran foul of the Tree People. These creatures were ferocious apes,nothing more. And yet they were not so different from us. They were morehairy, it is true; their legs were a trifle more twisted and gnarly,their eyes a bit smaller, their necks a bit thicker and shorter, andtheir nostrils slightly more like orifices in a sunken surface; but theyhad no hair on their faces and on the palms of their hands and thesoles of their feet, and they made sounds similar to ours with somewhatsimilar meanings. After all, the Tree People and the Folk were not sounlike.
I found him first, a little withered, dried-up old fellow,wrinkled-faced and bleary-eyed and tottery. He was legitimate prey. Inour world there was no sympathy between the kinds, and he was not ourkind. He was a Tree-Man, and he was very old. He was sitting at the footof a tree--evidently his tree, for we could see the tattered nest in thebranches, in which he slept at night.
I pointed him out to Lop-Ear, and we made a rush for him. He started toclimb, but was too slow. I caught him by the leg and dragged him back.Then we had fun. We pinched him, pulled his hair, tweaked his ears, andpoked twigs into him, and all the while we laughed with streaming eyes.His futile anger was most absurd. He was a comical sight, striving tofan into flame the cold ashes of his youth, to resurrect his strengthdead and gone through the oozing of the years--making woeful facesin place of the ferocious ones he intended, grinding his worn teethtogether, beating his meagre chest with feeble fists.
Also, he had a cough, and he gasped and hacked and splutteredprodigiously. Every time he tried to climb the tree we pulled him back,until at last he surrendered to his weakness and did no more than sitand weep. And Lop-Ear and I sat with him, our arms around each other,and laughed at his wretchedness.
From weeping he went to whining, and from whining to wailing, until atlast he achieved a scream. This alarmed us, but the more we tried tomake him cease, the louder he screamed. And then, from not far awayin the forest, came a "Goek! Goek!" to our ears. To this there wereanswering cries, several of them, and from very far off we could hear abig, bass "Goek! Goek! Goek!" Also, the "Whoo-whoo!" call was rising inthe forest all around us.
Then came the chase. It seemed it never would end. They raced us throughthe trees, the whole tribe of them, and nearly caught us. We were forcedto take to the ground, and here we had the advantage, for they weretruly the Tree People, and while they out-climbed us we out-footed themon the ground. We broke away toward the north, the tribe howling on ourtrack. Across the open spaces we gained, and in the brush they caughtup with us, and more than once it was nip and tuck. And as the chasecontinued, we realized that we were not their kind, either, and that thebonds between us were anything but sympathetic.
They ran us for hours. The forest seemed interminable. We kept to theglades as much as possible, but they always ended in more thick forest.Sometimes we thought we had escaped, and sat down to rest; butalways, before we could recover our breath, we would hear the hateful"Whoo-whoo!" cries and the terrible "Goek! Goek! Goek!" This lattersometimes terminated in a savage "Ha ha ha ha haaaaa!!!"
And in this fashion were we hunted through the forest by the exasperatedTree People. At last, by mid-afternoon, the slopes began rising higherand higher and the trees were becoming smaller. Then we came out on thegrassy flanks of the mountains. Here was where we could make time, andhere the Tree People gave up and returned to their forest.
The mountains were bleak and inhospitable, and three times thatafternoon we tried to regain the woods. But the Tree People were lyingin wait, and they drove us back. Lop-Ear and I slept that night in adwarf tree, no larger than a bush. Here was no security, and we wouldhave been easy prey for any hunting animal that chanced along.
In the morning, what of our new-gained respect for the Tree People, wefaced into the mountains. That we had no definite plan, or even idea, Iam confident. We were merely driven on by the danger we had escaped. Ofour wanderings through the mountains I have only misty memories. We werein that bleak region many days, and we suffered much, especially fromfear, it was all so new and strange. Also, we suffered from the cold,and later from hunger.
It--was a desolate land of rocks and foaming streams and clatteringcataracts. We climbed and descended mighty canyons and gorges; and ever,from every view point, there spread out before us, in all directions,range upon range, the unceasing mountains. We slept at night in holesand crevices, and on one cold night we perched on top a slender pinnacleof rock that was almost like a tree.
And then, at last, one hot midday, dizzy with hunger, we gained thedivide. From this high backbone of earth, to the north, across thediminishing, down-falling ranges, we caught a glimpse of a far lake. Thesun shone upon it, and about it were open, level grass-lands, while tothe eastward we saw the dark line of a wide-stretching forest.
We were two days in gaining the lake, and we were weak with hunger; buton its shore, sleeping snugly in a thicket, we found a part-grown calf.It gave us much trouble, for we knew no other way to kill than with ourhands. When we had gorged our fill, we carried the remainder of the meatto the eastward forest and hid it in a tree. We never returned to thattree, for the shore of the stream that drained Far Lake was packed thickwith salmon that had come up from the sea to spawn.
Westward from the lake stretched the grass-lands, and here weremultitudes of bison and wild cattle. Also were there many packs of wilddogs, and as there were no trees it was not a safe place for us. Wefollowed north along the stream for days. Then, and for what reason I donot know, we abruptly left the stream and swung to the east, and thento the southeast, through a great forest. I shall not bore you with ourjourney. I but indicate it to show how we finally arrived at the FirePeople's country.
We came out upon the river, but we did not know it for our river. We hadbeen lost so long that we had come to accept the condition of being lostas habitual. As I look back I see clearly how our lives and destiniesare shaped by the merest chance. We did not know it was our river--therewas no way of telling; and if we had never crossed it we would mostprobably have never returned to the horde; and I, the modern, thethousand centuries yet to be born, would never have been born.
And yet Lop-Ear and I wanted greatly to return. We had experiencedhomesickness on our journey, the yearning for our own kind and land;and often had I had recollections of the Swift One, the young female whomade soft sounds, whom it was good to be with, and who lived byherself nobody knew where. My recollections of her were accompanied bysensations of hunger, and these I felt when I was not hungry and when Ihad just eaten.
But to come back to the river. Food was plentiful, principally berriesand succulent roots, and on the river bank we played and lingered fordays. And then the idea came to Lop-Ear. It was a visible process,the coming of the idea. I saw it. The expression in his eyes becameplaintive and querulous, and he was greatly perturbed. Then his eyeswent muddy, as if he had lost his grip on the inchoate thought. Th
is wasfollowed by the plaintive, querulous expression as the idea persistedand he clutched it anew. He looked at me, and at the river and the farshore. He tried to speak, but had no sounds with which to express theidea. The result was a gibberish that made me laugh. This angered him,and he grabbed me suddenly and threw me on my back. Of course we fought,and in the end I chased him up a tree, where he secured a long branchand poked me every time I tried to get at him.
And the idea had gone glimmering. I did not know, and he had forgotten.But the next morning it awoke in him again. Perhaps it was the hominginstinct in him asserting itself that made the idea persist. At anyrate it was there, and clearer than before. He led me down to the water,where a log had grounded in an eddy. I thought he was minded to play, aswe had played in the mouth of the slough. Nor did I change my mind as Iwatched him tow up a second log from farther down the shore.
It was not until we were on the logs, side by side and holding themtogether, and had paddled out into the current, that I learned hisintention. He paused to point at the far shore, and resumed hispaddling, at the same time uttering loud and encouraging cries. Iunderstood, and we paddled energetically. The swift current caught us,flung us toward the south shore, but before we could make a landingflung us back toward the north shore.
Here arose dissension. Seeing the north shore so near, I began to paddlefor it. Lop-Ear tried to paddle for the south shore. The logs swungaround in circles, and we got nowhere, and all the time the forest wasflashing past as we drifted down the stream. We could not fight. We knewbetter than to let go the grips of hands and feet that held the logstogether. But we chattered and abused each other with our tongues untilthe current flung us toward the south bank again. That was now thenearest goal, and together and amicably we paddled for it. We landed inan eddy, and climbed directly into the trees to reconnoitre.