The men, well up in the tree with the boys, were undetermined what to do. They might steal along to the eastward and approach the calf from another direction without disturbing the great brute by their scent. But it was becoming darker every moment and the region was a dangerous one. In the valley and away from the trees they were at a disadvantage and at night there were fearful things abroad. Still, they decided to take the risk, and the four, following the crest of the slight hill, moved along its circle southeastward toward the river bank, each on the alert and each with watchful eyes scanning the forest depths to the left or the valley to the right. Suddenly One-Ear leaped back into the shadow, waved his hand to check the advance of those behind him, then pointed silently across the valley and toward the clump of trees. Not a hundred yards from the pitfall the high grass was swaying gently; some creature was passing along toward the pitfall and a thing of no slight size. Every eye of the quartet was strained now to learn what might be the interloper upon the scene. It was nearly dark, but the eyes of the cave men, almost nocturnal in their adaptation as they were, distinguished a long, dark body emerging from the reeds and circling curiously and cautiously around the pitfall; nearer and nearer it approached the helpless prisoner until perhaps twenty feet distant from it. Here the thing seemed to crouch and remain quiescent, but only for a little time. Then resounded across the valley a screaming roar, so fierce and raucous and death-telling and terrifying that even the hardened hunters leaped with affright. At the same moment a dark object shot through the air and landed on the back of the creature in the shallow pit. The tiger was abroad! There was a wild bleat of terror and agony, a growl fiercer and shorter than the first hoarse cry of the tiger, and, then, for a moment silence, but only for a moment. Snorts, almost as terrible in their significance as the tiger's roar, came from the marsh's edge. A vast form loomed above the slight embankment and there came the thunder of ponderous feet. The rhinoceros mother was charging the great tiger! There was a repetition of the fierce snorts, with the wild rush of the rhinoceros, another roar, the sound of which reechoed through the valley, and then could be dimly seen a black something flying through the air and alighting, apparently, upon the back of the charging monster. There was a confusion of forms and a confusion of terrifying sounds, the snarling roar of the great tiger and half whistling bellow of the great pachyderm, but nothing could be seen distinctly. That a gigantic duel was in progress the cave men knew, and knew, as well, that its scene was one upon which they could not venture. The clamor had not ended when the darkness became complete and then each father, with his son, fled swiftly homeward.