Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1916-04-05

great uDrOar arose. The horde was
animated with a single emotion, that
of fear. The bluff side swarmed with
the folk, all gazing and pointing into
the northeast. did not know what
it was, but 1 scrambled all the way
up to the safety of my own high little
cave before ever I turned around to
see.
And then across the river, away into
the northeast, l saw for the first time
the mystery of smoke. 1t was the
biggest animal 1 had ever seen.
thought 1t was a monster snake, Up
ended, rearing its head high above the
trees and swaying back and forth
And yet somehow l seemed to gather
from the conduct of the folk that the
smoke itself was not the danger
They appeared to fear it as the tokeI
of something else. What this some
thing else was / was unable to guess
Nor could they tell me. Yet l was
soon to know, and / was to know il
rs a thing more terrible than the
Tawny One, than old Saber Tooth
than the snakes themselves. than
which it seemed there could be NJ
things more terrible.
Broken Tooth was another young
ster who lived by himself His moth
er lived in the caves, but two more
children had come after him and ht
had been thrust out to shift for him
self We had witnessed the perform
ance during the several preceding days
and it had given us no little glee. Bro
ken Tooth did not want TO go, ano
every time his mother left the cave h,
sneaked back into it. When she re
turned and found him there her rage>
were delightful. Half the horde mad,
a practice of watching for these mo
mentS. First from within the cave
would come her scOlding and shrek
ing. Then we could hear sounds Q.
the thrashing and the yelling of Bro
ken Tooth. About this time the two
younger children joined in. And final
ly, like the eruption of a miniature
volcano, Broken Tooth would come fl
ing out.
AT the end of several days his leav
ing home was accomplished. He wall
ed his grief unheeded from the cente
of the open space for at least half n
hour. and then came to live with Lol
Ear and me. Our cave was small. bu,
with squeezing there was room fOl
three. | have no recollection of Broker
Tooth spending more than one nigh;
with us, so the accident must have
happened right away.
lit came i'm the middle of the day III
the morning we had eaten our fill o!
the carrots and then, made needless b.!
play, we had ventured on to the bi;
trees just beyond. l cannot under
stand how Lop Ear got over his ha
bitual caution. but it must have beei
the play We were having a grea.
time playing tree tag. And such tag
We leaped ten or fifteen foot gaps a.
a matter of course And a twenty o:
twenty-five foot deliberate drop cleal
down to the ground was nothing TO us
In fact, I am almost afraid to say til,
great distances we dropped. As We
grew older and heavier we found we
had to be more cautious i'm dropping
but at that age our bodies were al
strings and springs. and we could q,
anything.
Broken Tooth displayed remarkabl.
agility in the game. He was 1T less
frequently than any of us, and i'm tbs
course of the game he discovered one
difficult slip that neither Lop Ea
nor ! was able to accomplish. To be
truthful. we were afraid to attempt ii
When we were it Broken Tooth
- -. Of Inf
branch i'm n certain tree. From the en-
of the branch to the ground it must
have been seventy feet and nothing in
tervened TO break fall But about
twenty feet lower down and fully fl
teen feet out from the perpendicular
was the thick branch of another tree.
AS we ran out the limb Broker
Tooth. facing us. would begin teeter
inc. This naturally impeded our prog
ress. but there was more in the teeter
ing than That He teetered with N.
hack TO the Jump lie was TO make. JUS
rs we nearly reached him he would lie
her 60. The lettering branch was like
n springboard. 1t threw him far out
backward as he fell And - he re!
no turned around SidewiSe in the al
so as to face the other branch irtt
which lie was falling. This bran"l
heut far down under the impact am
sometimes there was an ominou'
cracking. hut it never broke. and or
IF the leaves was always 70 be Seel
fbe face oC Broken Tooth grinning tri
umphantly UP at Us
was '.it' the last time Broker
Tooth tried this II" had gained the
opd ~ tho branch ana begun his tee
tering. and ] was creeping ont after
him. when suddenly there came low
u-orning cry from Iop Ear ! looked