Adventure Magazine Cover — page 145: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Fight for the Cave who had fought in the wars back in the days when the world began. Lean Ak then was as ardent a devotee of the hunting-tradition as could have been found among the cave people. Iso- lated with his small tribe in their native valley, he had heard from _ occasional wanderers of men who did not hunt wild beasts, but lived craftily by snaring water creatures. The hunters could not understand this, for it was well known that a man scarcely once a year contrived to lay his hands on one of these elusive things that lived in the rivers and lakes. And there was something in the idea of fishing that stirred a vague repugnance. Lean Ak’s first contact with fishermen came when the tribe’s wanderings took them to the cave by the river. Ufu the Great was considered the most subtle of magicians. He ruled his tribe with a greater authority than was usual among the Cro-Magnons. He had more wives than any other man. And well did Ufu the Great merit these honors. Lean Ak and his men came as lean as desert hares, to be astonished by the sight of the chieftain-magician’s followers larded like hippopotami. And yet this potentate of the cave had begun life as a lowly starve- ling. The tribe had followed the art of fishing for several generations with no great pro- ficiency. Their fish-hooks were too crude to enable them to secure a sufficient food- supply from the water. Their life had been a hungry one until the future Ufu the Great had astonished his fellows by his skill at working bone. He developed an efficient fish-hook, which immediately brought the tribe’s food- supply to comfortable proportions. There was but one way to account for the extraordinary fish-hook—the young man was gifted with supernatural powers in the way of fabricating fish-hooks.. It was thus that Ufu the Great had gained his reputation for magic. The tribe at that time still worshiped the terrestial animal gods of their hunting- ancestors, but the ancient cult had lost its hold; it did not fit the changed conditions of life, and remained an empty survival. It was not long before the young magician, in the pride of his newly acquired station, had transferred his allegiance to new divinities. 139 What deity was there for him to worship, save the fish? His magic contrived to snare the sacred creatures; he ate them and absorbed their mystical essences. The Fish was the god for fishermen. And he set about bringing his fellow-tribesmen to the worship of the piscatorial divinity. They listened favorably; but the old chief of the tribe clung obstinately and bellicosely to the outworn worship of his fathers. They killed him, and made the powerful young magician their chief. Ufu the Great soo had instructed his followers in the rite of eating daily sacrificial banquets, great abdomen-distending ban- quets; he provided them with a life of plenty and of little exertion that fattened them marvelously, and made them the envy of wide regions. And peace and comfort reigned undisturbed among them for many years. : Peace and comfort! The fishermen were wedded to these twin beatitudes. After many Summers of the chieftain-magician’s happy reign they had forgotten what care and anxiety were like. Then one morning a shaggy cave leopard leaped from ambush on the hillside, and carried off a child that was playing with its mother outside the grotto. The fishermen soon found that a pair of leopards had made the hillside their haunt. The monster cats were seen several times. One of them charged boldly upon a fisher- man and carried away a large fish the man had just caught. On another occasion Ufu the Great had come running panic- stricken into the cave; he said that a thou- sand leopards had set upon him. The fish-worshipers had lost the hunting- spirit utterly. They knew nothing of the combat with great beasts that their an- cestors had engaged in. They felt heip- less before this terrible invasion, an in- vasion that would have tested the metal of any cave’s inhabitants. For the “shaggy leopards were invested with a terrible reputation among the Cro-Magnons. it was at this point that Lean Ak and his wandering band made their entrance. Ufu the Great now saw a way out of the leopard difficulty. He reasoned that the tribe of hunters, led by what appeared to be a fighting chief were the men for the leopards, and he was congratulating him- self upon the excellence of the idea when Lean Ak dubiously offered the service of COmiclooolks (C@