horses, and great luck had followed, for one of them had been killed, and
so this was a holiday in the cave. The man and wife were at ease and had
each an appetite.

The nuts gathered by the woman were tossed in a heap among the ashes and
live coals were raked upon them, and the popping which followed showed
how well they were being roasted. A sturdy twig, two yards in length and
sharpened at the end, was utilized by the man in cooking the strips of
meat cut from the haunch of the wild horse and very savory were the odors
that filled the cave. There was the faint perfume of the crackling nuts
and there was the fragrant beneficence of the broiling meat. There are no
definite records upon the subject; the chef of to-day can give you no
information on the point, but there is reason to believe that a steak
from the wild horse of the time was something admirable. There is a sort
of maxim current in this age, in civilized rural communities, to the
effect that those quadrupeds are good to eat which "chew the cud or part
the hoof." The horse of to-day is a creature with but one toe to each
leg--we all know that--but the horse of the cave man's time had only
lately parted with the split hoof, and so was fairly edible, even
according to the modern standard.

The father and mother of Ab were not more than two years past their
honeymoon. They, in their way, were glad that their union had been so
blest and that a lusty man-child was rolling about and crowing and cooing
upon the earthen floor of the cave. They lived from hand to mouth, and
from day to day, and this day had been a good one. They were there
together, man, woman and child. They had warmth and food. The entrance to
the cave was barred so that no monster of the period might enter. They
could eat and sleep with a certainty of the perfect digestion which
followed such a life as theirs and with a certainty of all peace for the