Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net IN THE MORNING OF TIME IN THE MORNING OF TIME BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS Author of "The Kindred of the Wild," etc. [Illustration] NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1922, by Frederick A. Stokes Company All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I The World Without Man 1 II The King of the Triple Horn 20 III The Finding of Fire 41 IV The Children of the Shining One 70 V The Puller-Down of Trees 97 VI The Battle of the Brands 123 VII The Rescue of A-ya 149 VIII The Bending of the Bow 174 IX The Destroying Splendor 198 X The Terrors of the Dark 219 XI The Feasting of the Cave Folk 243 XII On the Face of the Waters 259 XIII The Fear 278 XIV The Lake of Long Sleep 295 IN THE MORNING OF TIME IN THE MORNING OF TIME CHAPTER I THE WORLD WITHOUT MAN It lay apparently afloat on the sluggish, faintly discolored tide--a placid, horse-faced, shovel-nosed head, with bumpy holes for ears and immense round eyes of a somewhat anxious mildness. The anxiety in the great eyes was not without reason, for their owner had just arrived in the tepid and teeming waters of this estuary, and the creatures which he had already seen about him were both unknown and menacing. But the inshore shallows were full of water-weeds of a rankness and succulence far beyond anything he had enjoyed in his old habitat, and he was determined to secure himself a place here. From time to time, as some new monster came in sight, the ungainly head would shoot up amazingly to a distance of five or ten, or even fifteen feet, on a swaying pillar of a neck, in order to get a better view of the stranger. Then it would slowly sink back again to its repose on the water.