Drifting away in various directions toward their homes the Cave and Shell People still kept in groups, by instinct. Social functions terminated before dark and guests going and coming kept together for mutual protection in those days of the cave bear and other beasts. But on the day of the Feast of the Mammoth there was somewhat less than the usual precaution shown. There were vigorous and well-armed hunters at hand by scores, and under such escort women and children might travel after dusk with a degree of safety, unless, indeed, the great cave tiger, Sabre-Tooth, chanced to be abroad, but he was more rarely to be met than others of the wild beasts of the time. When he came it was as a thunderbolt and there were death and mourning in his trail. The march through the forest as the shadows deepened was most watchful. There was a keen lookout on the part of the men, and the women kept their children well in hand. From time to time, one family after another detached itself from the main body and melted into the forest on the path to its own cave near at hand. Thus Hilltop and his family left the group in which were Ab and Oak, and glances of fire followed them as they went. The two girls, Lightfoot and Moonface, had walked together, chattering like crows. They had strung red berries upon grasses and had hung them in their hair and around their necks, and were fine creatures. Lightfoot, as was her wont, laughed freakishly at whatever pleased her, and in her merry mood had an able second in her sturdy companion. There were moments, though, when even the irrepressible Lightfoot was thoughtful and so quiet that the girl who was with her wondered. The greater girl had been lightly touched with that unnamable force which has changed men and women throughout all the ages. The picture of Ab's earnest face was in her mind and would not depart. She could not, of course, define her own mood, nor did she attempt it. She felt within herself a certain quaking, as of fear, at the thought of him, and yet, so she told herself again and again, she was not afraid. All the time she could see Ab's face, with its look of longing and possession, but with something else in it, when his eyes met hers, which she could not name nor understand. She could not speak of him, but Moonface had upon her no such stilling influence. "They look alike," she said. Lightfoot assented, knowing the girl meant Ab and Oak. "But Ab is taller and stronger," Moonface continued, and Lightfoot assented as indifferently, for, somehow, of the two she had remembered definitely one only. She became daring in her reflections: "What if he should want to carry me to his cave?" and then she tried to run away from the thought and from anything and everybody else, leaping forward, outracing and leaving all the company. She reached her father's cave far ahead of the others and stood, laughing, at the entrance, as the family and Moonface, a guest for the night, came trotting up.