build, narrow-hipped and crooked-legged, and at the same time deep-
chested, with heavy arms and enormous hands. There was much hair
on their chests and shoulders, and on the outsides of their arms
and legs. Their heads were matted with uncut hair, long locks of
which often strayed before their eyes, beady and black and
glittering like the eyes of birds. They were narrow between the
eyes and broad between the cheeks, while their lower jaws were
projecting and massive.

It was a night of clear starlight, and below them, stretching away
remotely, lay range on range of forest-covered hills. In the
distance the heavens were red from the glow of a volcano. At their
backs yawned the black mouth of a cave, out of which, from time to
time, blew draughty gusts of wind. Immediately in front of them
blazed a fire. At one side, partly devoured, lay the carcass of a
bear, with about it, at a respectable distance, several large dogs,
shaggy and wolf-like. Beside each man lay his bow and arrows and a
huge club. In the cave-mouth a number of rude spears leaned
against the rock.

"So that was how we moved from the cave to the tree," old Long-
Beard spoke up.

They laughed boisterously, like big children, at recollection of a
previous story his words called up. Long-Beard laughed, too, the
five-inch bodkin of bone, thrust midway through the cartilage of
his nose, leaping and dancing and adding to his ferocious
appearance. He did not exactly say the words recorded, but he made
animal-like sounds with his mouth that meant the same thing.