Adventure Magazine Cover — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

The Fight for the Cave amazement as Lean Ak entered upon. a long harangue, which grew wildly impas- sioned. The six sisters took their stand beside their lover, and remained motion- less in the spell of his words. The other members of the two tribes, who had come up, gathered behind their respective leaders. The fish-catchers lis- tened to Lean Ak’s objurgations with. as much astonishment as their chieftain- magician displayed; the hunters felt the old, brave spirit growing hot in them as they listened to their artist-chief’s mighty words of homage to the Rhinoceros. Finally Ufu the Great could contain him- self no longer. He might have contained an unlimited amount of indignation, but not of amusement. He laughed loud and long. Worship a rhinoceros! His tribe in the old days had—and very foolishly—wor- shiped the Asiatic Ass, but the Rhinoceros was too preposterous. The fish-catchers laughed raucously along with their leader. Lean Ak stepped back at the mocking out- burst of mirth. Icy rage shot through him. “We will fight,” he screamed. “And I will have the women. We will take them.” He turned to his men. A wave of panic came over him as he saw that they were without their weapons. Ufu the Great did not fail to comprehend the situation. “You will fight,’ he shouted in huge raillery. ‘You will take the women. We will fight. And we will take your women.” He stepped back among his men and cried, “Strike them,” in a great voice. The fishermen bellowed like warriors, brandished their bludgeons, and moved ponderously toward their enemies. The disarmed hunters retreated before the charge. Lean Ak, after striking for a moment, gave way. And soon the hunters were fleeing nimbly, pursued by the fishermen. The fat anglers were wretched fellows in a foot-race with the lank men of the chase, and were outdistanced. And the hunters passed from view over a hill-crest as they continued their flight toward the last red glow of sunset. THE TWO CAVE LEOPARDS RETURNED tq A BAND of wandering merchants ri Ha were journeying to the cave of Ufu the Great. They carried with them a stock of precious small sea-shells and several reindeer-hides, which they 143 purposed exchanging for a supply of the bone fish-hooks fabricated at the cave, the best bone fish-hooks known among the Cro-Magnons. As the merchants forded the river some miles below the cave, they came upon one of Lean Ak’s hunters, who, dropping all precautions, approached them and begged a morsel of food. While he ate the bit of dried flesh that was given him the mer- chants demanded of him who he was, to which the starveling replied with an ac- count of his tribe’s recent misfortunes. After they had been driven away from the fishermen’s cave the hunters had found themselves in the predicament of being in the open country with one set of weapons among them, Lean Ak’s. They were filled with impotent rage at the loss of their women; unarmed, the only gratification afforded them was to listen to Lean Ak’s promises of a ferocious revenge aS soon as their lack of weapons had been remedied. The hunters were experts at the art of shaping a flint fragment by chipping it with another piece of flint, but even so days elapsed before the impatient band found itself armed for a fight. During this time they were unable to procure any save the scantiest food, so that when their equipment of arms was complete enough for the projected raid of revenge, the hunt- ers were too weak to attempt it. They scouted over the surrounding country, but found the same scarcity of game that had faced them during their wanderings. They were compelled to delay their vengeance until they had found a sizable head of game which would give them the strength to fight. Lean Ak was tormented with fury during these unhappy days. Even hunger did not stay his passion for the six daughters of Ufu the Great; the desire that they had aroused in him stuck in his steadfast soul like a fixed idea. And the tightening of famine made him more bitterly resolved to drive the fish-catchers from their cave, and.to possess himself of the walls of the rear tunnel for the purposes of his picture magic. A wild pitch of feeling got the better of his judgment one day. He ordered his starving hunters on a raid against the fishermen, and at their head challenged Ufu the Great, after the custom of honor- able warfare. But the hunters were too S COnICLOO (C@