The Pagan's Progress

Old One Eye sat in the mouth of his cave and blinked. Though he blinked both eyes, he could see only out of one of them. Years ago, when One Eye was called Swift Foot, and could...

Now if you or I had been in the glade in front of One Eye’s cave, we would not have known that there was anybody but One Eye, Strong Hand and Fish Catch within a hundred miles....

No man was very sore because he had been beaten and robbed. Fish Catch being dead, he particularly hated Strong Hand and wanted Strong Hand’s blood. But he was afraid to go and...

This No Foot had once been a mighty hunter, but as luck would have it a great stone had rolled upon him as he climbed a hill and smashed one of his feet so that it dragged after...

But No Foot carried the flints to his cave, and fitted them to his arrows, and he fitted feathers to the string ends, and having devoured, raw, a seven pound fish that had been...

She Wolf was the name of a woman. She lived in a cave of her own, and supported herself by hunting and fishing. Men had wooed her, but had been so ferociously rejected, that the...

Old One Eye, who was just awake, heard them as they passed up the valley below his cave. And he said, “that is No Man and he is running with She Wolf, I do not see why she has a...

No Man and She Wolf kept the secret of the bow safe in their cave, and in the early mornings She Wolf went forth to hunt armed with spear and club, while No Man sat in the sun,...

After a time she came wearily, and slowly. With her left hand she dragged along the ground two great haunches of moose. In her right hand she held her club and her spear and her...

When he had finished strutting and boasting, No Man trotted off into the woods to get what he needed for the safe accomplishment of the deed which he was still minded to do. And...

It grew cold and dark and there was a singing in Strong Hand’s ears so that he could distinguish no longer any but the most pronounced sounds of the forest; for instance, the pl...

When the night, the day following, and the next night had passed, She Wolf took her son in the hollow of her arm and went to look for No Man. It was beginning to be autumn in th...

A number of years passed, and Maku kept the cave while She Wolf did the hunting. She Wolf was so occupied with the business of provider, meat-getter and fish-catcher, that she d...

When the children were old enough, She Wolf took them with her on little hunts, and taught them the signs of the forest, and the ways of the beasts and as much as she knew of th...

“They were like stars,” he told She Wolf, “only more bright; yet when I went to pick them up there was nothing. Nor could old No Foot instruct me, tho’ he said that in working w...

Panting he bade She Wolf and Dawn leave the cave and run till they could run no further, and he dashed from cave to cave and called upon his people to run for their lives.

Miles behind them, to the southward, the fire still raged on their trail. East and West as far as the eye could travel, black smoke poured upward, but thro’ and above the smoke...

From now on Sunrise was the leader of his people. They never got over the bullying which he gave them, when they were numb and empty of fight. He only had to command and he was...

“There is a time for all things,” he said presently, “Hitherto I have been very busy with a number of things. But I have always intended one day to make a cave of my own and tak...

Sunrise went to the cave of Fish Catch—a young man a few years older than himself, who was so ugly that no woman would have him, and who therefore lived alone. Fish Catch was bu...

Sunrise ran in a great circle and found where the trail of Dawn and the man left the grassy glade, and bending to the right, wound along among the foothills of the mountains.

Fear and hate and love eats up the miles even as the sun eats up the white mist of the morning. But the distance that was between the two men neither increased nor diminished; i...

Sunrise, carrying his bow and arrows, toiled over the plain heavy with moo the recent rain. The sun shone strongly and the sky was blue. Behind him the snow capped mountains gli...