Page:Silversheene (1924).djvu/21

 Often the gray dog-like beast thought dimly, "If I could only go nearer and know him better, I might learn to like him. He draws me strangely."

Finally it happened that the man creature one day discovered the mother gray beast playing with her five cubs at the mouth of a cave where they lived. They were so intent with their frolic that he crept up very carefully and killed the mother with his sharp stick which could fly so quickly through the air. Then he caught two of the cubs, a male and a female, and took them home to his cave and his own young.

The wild beasts were so young that they had not been taught the fear of this two-legged god who ruled over the wilderness, so they played and grew with the young of the man and knew not that they were the offspring of a wild beast.

They ate venison and fish just as the men did and became a part of the primitive life. They slept with the children in their cor-