Not an action of the beast had escaped the eyes of Ab. Well he knew the ways of wounded things. As the bear toppled over he gave utterance to a whoop and, with a word to the girl beside him, slid lightly to the ground, she following him at once. It was very good to be upon the earth again. Ab stamped with his feet and stretched his arms, and the woman danced upon the grass and laughed gleefully. But this was only for a moment or so. Ab started toward the cave, and as he reached the entrance, gave a great cry of rage and dismay. Lightfoot ran to his side and even her ready laugh failed her when she looked upon his perplexed and stormy countenance and saw what had happened. The rump of the monster he bear was what she looked upon. The beast, in his instinctive effort to crawl into some dark place to die, had fairly driven himself into the cave's entrance, dislodging some of the stones Ab had placed there, had wedged himself in firmly, and had died before he could extricate his great carcass. The two human beings were homeless and, with all the arrows gone, weaponless, in the midst of a region so dangerously infested that any movement afoot was but inviting death. They were hungry, too, for many hours had passed since they had tasted food. It was not matter of surprise that even the stout-hearted cave man stood aghast. The occasion for Ab's alarm was fully verified. From the spot where the cave bear lay at the forest's edge came a sharp, snapping growl. The lurking hyenas had found the food, and a long, inquiring howl from another direction told that the wolves had scented it and were gathering. For the instant Ab was himself almost helpless with fear. The woman was simply nerveless. Then the man, so accustomed to physical danger, recovered himself. He sprang forward, seized a stout fragment of limb which might serve as a sort of weapon, and, turning to the woman, said only the one word "fire."