g-continued chumming with Lop-Ear had
become a habit.

I might have married, it is true; and most likely I should have married
had it not been for the dearth of females in the horde. This dearth,
it is fair to assume, was caused by the exorbitance of Red-Eye, and it
illustrates the menace he was to the existence of the horde. Then there
was the Swift One, whom I had not forgotten.

At any rate, during the period of Lop-Ear's marriage I knocked about
from pillar to post, in danger every night that I slept, and never
comfortable. One of the Folk died, and his widow was taken into the cave
of another one of the Folk. I took possession of the abandoned cave, but
it was wide-mouthed, and after Red-Eye nearly trapped me in it one day,
I returned to sleeping in the passage of the double-cave. During the
summer, however, I used to stay away from the caves for weeks, sleeping
in a tree-shelter I made near the mouth of the slough.

I have said that Lop-Ear was not happy. My sister was the daughter of
the Chatterer, and she made Lop-Ear's life miserable for him. In no
other cave was there so much squabbling and bickering. If Red-Eye was
a Bluebeard, Lop-Ear was hen-pecked; and I imagine that Red-Eye was too
shrewd ever to covet Lop-Ear's wife.

Fortunately for Lop-Ear, she died. An unusual thing happened
that summer. Late, almost at the end of it, a second crop of the
stringy-rooted carrots sprang up. These unexpected second-crop roots
were young and juicy and tender, and for some time the carrot-patch was
the favorite feeding-place of the horde. One morning, early, several
score of us were there making our breakfast. On one side of me was the
Hairless One. Beyond him were his father and son, old Marrow-Bone and
Long-Lip. On the other side of me were my sister and Lop-Ear, she being
next to me.

There was no warning. On the sudden, both the Hairless One and my sister
sprang and screamed. At the same instant I heard the thud of the arrows
that transfixed them. The next instant they were down on the ground,
floundering and gasping, and the rest of us were stampeding for the
trees. An arrow drove past me and entered the ground, its feathered
shaft vibrating and oscillating from the impact of its arrested flight.
I remember clearly how I swerved as I ran, to go past it, and that I
gave it a needlessly wide berth. I must have shied at it as a horse
shies at an object it fears.

Lop-Ear took a smashing fall as he ran beside me. A