This charming lady of the period had reached her perch in the beech tree top none too soon. Even as she swung herself into place upon the huge bough, there came rushing across the space beneath, snarling, smelling and seeking, a brute as foul and dangerous as could be imagined for mother and son upon the ground. It was of a dirty dun color, mottled and striped with a lighter but still dingy hue. It had a black, hoggish nose, but there were fangs in its great jaws. It resembled a huge wolf, save as to its massiveness and club countenance, It was one of the monster hyenas of the time, a beast which must have been as dangerous to the men then living as any animal except the cave tiger and the cave bear. Its degenerate posterity, as they shuffle uneasily back and forth when caged to-day, are perhaps not less foul of aspect, but are relatively pygmies. Doubtless the brute had scented the sleeping babe, and, snarling aloud in its search, had waked it, inducing the cry which proved the child's salvation. The beast scented immediately the prey above him and leaped upward ferociously and vainly. Was the woman thus beset thus holding herself aloft and with her child upon one arm in a state of sickening anxiety? Hardly! She but encircled the supporting branch the closer, and laughed aloud. She even poked one bare foot down at the leaping beast, and waved her leg in provocation. At the same time there was no doubt that she was beset. Furthermore she was hungry, and so she raised her voice, and sent out through the forest a strange call, a quavering minor wail, but something to be heard at a great distance. There was no delay in the response, for delays were dangerous when cave men lived. The call was answered instantly and the answering cry was repeated as she called again, the sound of the reply approaching near and nearer all the time. All at once the manner of her calling changed; it was an appeal no longer; it was a conversation, an odd, clucking, penetrating speech in the shortest of sentences. She was telling of the situation. There was prompt reply; the voice seemed suddenly higher in the air and then came, swinging easily from branch to branch along the treetops, the father of Ab, a person who felt a natural and aggressive interest in what was going on.