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The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man by Stanley Waterloo
page 48 of 214 (22%)
trunk than there rose to view, mad with rage and charging viciously, the
mother of the calf rhinoceros.




CHAPTER VIII.


SABRE-TOOTH AND RHINOCEROS.

The rhinoceros of the Stone Age was a monstrous creature, an animal
varying in many respects from either species of the animal of the present
day, though perhaps somewhat closely allied to the huge double-horned and
now nearly extinct white rhinoceros of southern Africa. But the brute of
the prehistoric age was a beast of greater size, and its skin, instead of
being bare, was densely covered with a dingy colored, crinkly hair,
almost a wool. It was something to be dreaded by most creatures even in
this time of great, fierce animals. It turned aside for nothing; it was
the personification of courage and senseless ferocity when aroused.
Rarely seeking a conflict, it avoided none. The huge mammoth, a more
peaceful pachyderm, would ordinarily hesitate before barring its path,
while even the cave tiger, fiercest and most dreaded of the carnivora of
the time, though it might prey upon the young rhinoceros when opportunity
occurred, never voluntarily attacked the full-grown animal. From that
almost impervious shield of leather hide, an inch or more in thickness,
protected further by the woolly covering, even the terrible strokes of
the tiger's claws glanced off with but a trifling rending, while one
single lucky upward heave of the twin horns upon the great snout would
pierce and rend, as if it were a trifling obstacle, the body of any
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