Presently Lightfoot raised her eyes and they met those of Ab. The young people looked at each other steadily for a moment and then the glance of the girl was turned away. But, meanwhile, the man had recovered himself. He had been eating, absent-mindedly, a well-cooked portion of a great steak of the mammoth's choicest part. He now tore it in twain and watched the girl intently. She raised her eyes again and he tossed her a half of the smoking flesh. She saw the movement, caught the food deftly in one hand as it reached her, and looked at Ab and laughed. There was no mock modesty. She began eating the choice morsel contentedly; the two were, in a manner, now made formally acquainted. The young man did not, on the instant, pursue his seeming advantage, the result of an impulsive bravery requiring a greater effort on his part than the courage he had shown in conflict with many a beast of the forest. He did not talk to the young woman. But he thought to himself, while his blood bubbled in his veins, that he would find her again; that he would find her in the wood! She did not look at him more, for her people were clustering about her and this was a great occasion. Ab was recalled to himself by a hoarse exclamation. Oak was looking at him fiercely. There was no other sound, but the young man stood gazing fixedly at the place where the girl had just been lost amid the group about her. And Ab knew instinctively, as men have learned to know so well in all the years, from the feeling which comes to them at such a time, that he had a rival, that Oak also had seen and loved this slender creature of the hillside. There was a division of the mammoth flesh and hide and tusks. Ab struggled manfully for a portion of one of the tusks, which he wanted for Old Mok's carving, and won it at last, the elders deciding that he and Oak had fought well enough upon the cliff to entitle them to a part of the honor of the spoil, and Oak opposing nothing done by Ab, though his looks were glowering. Then, as the sun passed toward the west, all the people separated to take the dangerous paths toward their homes. Ab and Oak journeyed away together. Ab was jubilant, though doubtful, while the face of Oak was dark. The heart of neither was light within him. CHAPTER XVII. THE COMRADES.