When morning came, the dogs were still waiting hopefully for the humans
to come out. They appeared to expect the people to take another nice
long walk, on which they would accompany them. It was a brand-new
satisfaction they did not want to miss. After all, from a dog's
standpoint, humans are made to take long walks with, among other things.
The dogs greeted the people with tail-waggings and cordiality.
The dogs made a great difference in the adjustment of the tribe to life
upon the plateau. Their friendship assured the new status of human life.
Burl and his fellows had ceased to be fugitive game for any insect
murderer. They had hoped to become unpursued foragers,--because they
could hardly imagine anything else. But when the dogs joined them, they
were immediately raised to the estate of hunters. The men did not
domesticate the dogs. They made friends with them. The dogs did not
subjugate themselves to the men. They joined them,--at first
tentatively, and then with worshipful enthusiasm. And the partnership
was so inevitably a right one that within a month it was as if it had
always been.
Actually, save for a mere two thousand years, it had been.
At the end of a month the tribe had a permanent encampment. There were
caves at a suitable distance from the slope up which most wanderers from
the lowlands came. Cori's oldest child found the chrysalis of a giant
butterfly, whose caterpillar form had so offensive an odor that the dogs
had not attacked it. But when it emerged from the chrysalis, men and
dogs together assailed it before it could take flight. They ended the
enterprise with warm mutual approval. The humans had acquired great
wings with which to make warm cloaks,--very useful against the evening
chill. Dogs and men, alike, had feasted.
Then, one dawning, the dogs made a vast outcry which awoke the
tribesmen. Burl led the rush to the spot. They did battle with a monster
nocturnal beetle, less chilled than most such invaders. In the gray
dawnlight Burl realized that the darting, yapping dogs kept the
creature's full attention. He crippled, and then killed it with his
spear. The feat appeared to earn him warm admiration from the dogs. Burl
wore a moth's feathery antenna again, bound to his forehead like a
knight's plumes. He looked very splendid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account