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Story of Ab

<h3>THE BATTLE OF THE BARRIERS.</h3> While Ab had been occupied by home affairs trouble for him and his people had been brewing. By no means unknown to each other before the tiger hunt were Ab and Boarface. They had hunted together and once Boarface, with half a dozen companions, had visited the Fire Valley and had noted its many attractions and advantages. Now Boarface had gone away angry and muttering, and he was not a man to be thought of lightly. His rage over the memory of Ab's trophy did not decrease with the return to his own region. Why should this cave man of the West have sole possession of that valley, which was warm and green throughout the winter and where the wild beasts could not enter? Why had he, this Ab, been allowed to go away with all the tiger's skin? Brooding enlarged into resolve and Boarface gathered together his relations and adherents. "Let us go and take the Fire Valley of Ab," he said to them, and, gradually, though objections were made to the undertaking of an enterprise so fraught with danger, the listeners were persuaded. "There are other fires far down the river," said one old man. "Let us go there, if it is fire we most need, and so we will not disturb nor anger Ab, who has lived in his valley for many years. Why battle with Ab and all his people?" But Boarface laughed aloud: "There are many other earth fires," he said. "I know them well, but there is no other fire which chances to make a flaming fence about a valley close to the great rocks, and which has water within the space it surrounds and which makes a wall against all the wild beasts. We will fight and win the valley of Ab." And so they were led into the venture. They sought, too, the aid of the Shell People in this raid, but were not successful. The Shell People were not unfriendly to those of the Fire Valley, and had not Ab been really the one to kill the tiger? Besides, it was not wise for the waterside dwellers to engage in any controversy between the forest factions, for the hill people had memories and heavy axes. A few of the younger and more adventurous joined the force of Boarface, but the alliance had no tribal sanction. Still, the force of the swarthy leader of the Eastern cave men was by no means insignificant. It contained good fighting men, and, when runners had gone far and wide in the Eastern country, there were gathered nearly ten score of hunters who could throw the spear or wield the ax and who were not fearful of their lives. The band led by Boarface started for the Fire Country, intending to surprise the people in the valley. They moved swiftly, but not so swiftly as a fleet young man from the Shell People who preceded them. He was sent by the elders a day before the time fixed for the assault, and so Ab learned all about the intended raid. Then went forth runners from the valley; then the matron Lightfoot's eyes became fiery, since Ab was threatened; then old Hilltop looked carefully over his spears, and poised thoughtfully his great stone ax; then Moonface smote her children and gathered together certain weapons, and then Old Mok went into his cave and stayed there, working at none knew what. They came from all about, the Western cave men, for never in the valley had food or shelter been refused to any and the Eastern cave men were not loved. Many a quarrel over game had taken place between the raging hunters of the different tribes, and many a bloody single-handed encounter had come in the depths of the forest. The band was not a large one, the Eastern men being far more numerous, but the outlook was not as fine as it might be for the advancing Boarface. The force assembled inside the valley was, in point of numbers, but little more than half his own, but it was entrenched and well-armed, and there were those among the defenders whom it was not well to meet in fight. But Boarface was confident and was not dismayed when his force crept into the open only to find the ordinary valley entrance barred and all preparations made for giving him a welcome of the warmer sort. There was what could not be thoroughly barricaded in so brief a time, the entrance where the brook issued at the west. This pass must be forced, for the straight, uprising wall between the flames and across the opening to the north was something relatively unassailable. It was too narrow and too high and sheer and there were too many holes in the wall through which could be sent those piercing arrows which the Western cave men knew how to use so well. The battle must be up along the bed of the little creek. The water was low at this season, so low that a man might wade easily anywhere, and there had been erected only a slight barrier, enough to keep wild beasts away, for Ab had never thought of invasion by human beings. The creek tumbled downward, through passages, between straight-sided, ruggedly built stone heaps, with spaces between wide enough to admit a man, but not any great beast of prey. There was no place where, by a man, the wall could not easily be mounted and, above, there was no really good place of vantage for the defenders. So the invading force, concealment of action being no longer necessary, ranged themselves along the banks of the creek to the west of the valley and prepared for a rush. They had certain chances in their favor. They were strong men, who knew how to use their weapons well, and they were in numbers almost as two to one. Meanwhile, inside the valley, where the approach and plans of the enemy had been seen and understood, there had gone on swiftly, under Ab's stern direction, such preparation for the fray as seemed most adequate with the means at hand. The great advantage possessed was that the defenders, on firm footing themselves, could meet men climbing, and so, a little further up the creek than the beast-opposing wall, had been thrown up what was little more than a rude platform of rock, wide and with a broad expanse of top, on which all the valley's force might cluster in an emergency. Upon this the people were to gather, defending the first pass, if they could, by flights of spears and arrows and here, at the end, to win or lose. This was the general preparation for the onslaught, but there had been precautions taken more personal and more involving the course of the most important of the people of the valley. At the left of the gorge, where must come the invaders, the rock rose sheerly and at one place extended outward a shelf, high up, but reached easily from the Fire Valley side. There were consultations between Ab and the angry and anxious and almost tearful Lightfoot. That charming lady, now easily the best archer of the tribe, had developed at once into a fighting creature and now demanded that her place be assigned to her. With her own bow, and with arrows in quantity, it was decided that she should occupy the ledge and do all she could. Upon the ledge was comparative safety in the fray, and Ab directed that she should go there. Old Hilltop said but little. It was understood, almost as a matter of course, that he would be upon the barrier and there face, with Ab, the greatest issue. The old man was by no means unsatisfactory to look upon as he moved silently about and got ready the weapons he might have to use. Gaunt, strong-muscled and resolute, he was worthy of admiration. Ever following him with her eyes, when not engaged in the chastisement of one of her swart brood, was Moonface, for Moonface had long since learned to regard her grizzled lord with love as well as much respect. There were other good fighting men and other women beside these mentioned who would do their best, but these few were the dominant figures. Meanwhile, Boarface and his strong band had decided upon their plan of attack and would soon rush up the bed of the shallow stream with all the bravery and ferocity of those who were accustomed to face death lightly and to seize that which they wanted. The invaders came clambering up the creek's course, openly and with menacing and defiant shouts, for any concealment was now out of the question. They had but few bows and could, under the conditions, send no arrow flight which would be of avail, but they had thews and sinews and spears and axes. As they came with such rush as men might make up a tumbling waterway with slipping pebbles beneath the feet and forced themselves one by one between the heaped stone piles and fairly in front of the barrier there was a discharge of arrows and more than one man, impaled by a stone-headed shaft, fell, to dabble feebly in the water, and did not rise again. But there came a time in the fight when the bow must be abandoned. The assault was good and the demeanor of the men behind the barrier was good as well. Not more gallant was one group than the other for there were splendid fighters in both ranks. The boasted short sword of the Romans, in times effeminate, as compared with these, afforded not in its wielding a greater test of personal courage than the handling of the flint-headed spear or the stone knife or chipped ax. There, all along the barrier, was the real grappling of man and man, with further existence as the issue. The invaders, losing many of their number, for arrows flew steadily and a mass so large could not easily be missed even by the most bungling of those strong archers, swept upward to the barrier and then was a muscular, deadly tumult worth the seeing. To the south and nearest the side where Lightfoot was perched with her bow and great bunch of arrows Ab stood in front, while to his right and near the other end of the rude stone rampart was stationed old Hilltop, and he hurled his spears and slew men as they came. The fight became simply a death struggle, with the advantage of position upon one side and of numbers on the other. And Ab and Boarface were each seeking the other. So the struggle lasted for a long half hour, and when it ended there were dead and dying men upon the barrier, while the waters of the creek were reddened by the blood of the slain assailants. The assault now ebbed a little. Neither Ab nor Hilltop had been injured in the struggle. As the invaders pressed close Ab had noted the whish of an arrow now and then and the hurt to one pressing him closely, and old Hilltop had heard the wild cries of a woman who hovered in his rear and hurled stones in the faces of those who strove to reach him. And now there came a lull. Boarface had recognized the futility of scaling, under such conditions, a steep so well defended and had thought of a better way to gain his end and crush Ab and his people. He had heard the story of Ab's first advent into the valley when, chased by the wolves, he leaped through the flame, and there came an inspiration to him! What one man had done others could do, and, with picked warriors of his band, he made a swift detour, while, at the same time, the main body rushed desperately upon the barrier again. What had been good fighting before was better now. Lives were lost, and soon all arrows were spent and all spears thrown, and then came but the dull clashing of stone axes. Ab raged up and down, and, ever in the front, faced the oncoming foe and slew as could slay the strong and utterly desperate. More than once his life was but a toy of chance as men sprang toward him, two or three together, but ever at such moment there sang an arrow by his head and one of his assailants, pierced in throat or body, fell back blindly, hampering his companions, whose heads Ab's great ax was seeking fiercely. And, all the time, nearer the northern end of the barrier, old Hilltop fought serenely and dreadfully. There were many dead men in the pools of the creek between the barrier and the entrance to the valley. And about Ab ever sang the arrows from the rocky shelf. There was wild clamor, the clash of weapons and the shouting of battle-crazed men but there was not enough to drown the sound of a scream which rose piercingly above the din. Ab recognized the voice of Lightfoot and raised his eyes to see the woman, regardless of her own safety, standing upright and pointing up the valley. He knew that something meaning life and death was happening and that he must go. He leaped backward and a huge Western cave man sprang to his place, to serve as best he could. Not a moment too soon had that shrill cry reached the ears of the fighting man. He ran backward, shouting to a score of his people to follow him as he ran, and in an instant recognized that he had been outwitted, at least for the moment, by the vengeful Boarface. As he rushed to the east toward the wall of flame he saw a dark form pass through its crest in a flying leap. There were others he knew would follow. His own feat of long ago was being repeated by Boarface and his chosen group of best men! It was not Boarface who leaped and it was hard for a gallant youth of the Eastern cave men that he had strength and daring and had dashed ahead in the assault, for he had scarcely touched the ground when there sank deeply into his head a stone ax, impelled by the strongest arm of all that region, and he was no more among things alive. Ab had reached the fire wall with the speed of a great runner while, close behind him, came his eager following. The forces could see each other clearly enough now, and those on the outside outnumbered those on the inside again by two to one. But those leaping the flames could not alight poised ready for a blow, and there were adroit and vengeful axmen awaiting them. There was a momentary pause for planning among the assailants, and then it was that Ab fumed over his own lack of foresight. His chosen band who were with him now were all bowmen, and about the shoulder and chest of each was still slung his weapon, but there were no more arrows. Each quiverful had been shot away early in the fight and then had come the spear and ax play. But what a chance for arrows now, with that threatening band preparing for the rush and leap together, and, while out of reach of spear or ax, within easy reach of the singing little shafts! Oh, for the shafts now, those slender barbed things which were hurled in his new way! And, even as he thus raged, there came a feeble shout from down the valley behind him and he saw something very good! Limping, with effort, but resolutely forward, was a bent old man, bearing encircled within his long arms a burden which Ab himself could not have carried for any distance without stress and labored breathing. The lean old Mok's arms were locked about a monster sheaf of straight flint-headed arrows, a sheaf greater in size than ever man had looked upon before. The crippled veteran had not been idle in his cave. He had worked upon the store of shafts and flintheads he had accumulated, and here was the result in a great emergency! The old man cast his sheaf upon the ground and then sank down, somewhat totteringly, beside it. There needed no shout of command from Ab to tell those about him what to do. There was one combined yell of sudden exultation, a rush together for the shafts and a swift filling of empty quivers. It was but the work of a moment or two. Then something promptly happened. The great fellows, though acting without orders, shot almost "all together," as the later English archers did, and so close just across the flame wall was the opposing group that the meanest archer in all the lot could scarcely fail to reach a living target, and stronger arms drew back those arrows than were the arms of those who drew bowstring in the battles of mediæval history. With the first deadly flight came a scattering outside and men lay tossing upon the ground in their death agony. There was no cessation to the shot, though Boarface sought fiercely to rally his followers, until all had fled beyond the range of the bowmen. Upon the ground were so many dead that the numbers of the two forces were now more nearly equal. But Boarface had brave followers. They ranged themselves together at a safe distance and then started for the flame wall with a rush, to leap it all together. There was another arrow-flight as the onslaught came, and more men went down, but the charge could not be stopped. Over the low flame-crests shot a great mass of bodies, there to meet that which was not good for them. The struggle was swift and deadly, but the forces were almost evenly matched now and the insiders had the advantage. Boarface and Ab met face to face in the melée and each leaped toward the other with a yell. There was to be a fight which must be excellent, for two strong leaders were meeting and there were many lives at stake. <h2>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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