curiosity and some suspicion. So they sat, perched easily, these
excellent young, monkeyish boys of the time, each waiting for the other
to begin the conversation, just as two boys wait when they thus meet
today. Their talk would not perhaps be intelligible to any professor of
languages in all the present world, but it was a language, however
limited its vocabulary, which sufficed for the needs of the men and women
and children of the cave time. It was Ab who first broke the silence:

"Who are you?" he said.

"I am Oak," responded the other boy. "Who are you?"

"Me? Oh, I am Ab."

"Where do you come from?"

"From the cave by the beeches; and where do you come from?"

"I come from the cave where the river turns, and I am not afraid of you."

"I am not afraid of you, either," said Ab.

"Let us climb down and get upon that big rock and throw stones at things
in the water," said Oak.

"All right," said Ab.

And the two slid, one after the other, down the great tree trunks and ran
rapidly to the base of a huge rock overtopping the river, and with sides
almost perpendicular, but with crevices and projections which enabled the