Page:Tudor Jenks--Imaginotions.djvu/225

Rh to have read of the ancient Irish elk. I knew I was in the British isles, years before historic times. As I was coming to this conclusion, I was also making rapid progress toward the valley. I found that I was dressed in a short tunic of a dark blue color, and that my legs were covered by loose trousers bound tight with small twisted bands of cloth. Upon my feet were rough shoes of hide. My head was bare and my hair was very long. I carried a club in one hand, and saw that it had a head of sharp stone.

"Why, I'm a regular savage!" I said to myself, laughingly. The elk had not pursued me far and I soon dropped into a walk, and leisurely made my way into the valley.

I came upon a settlement. It was a collection of huts, made, as I could see from an unfinished one, of willow rods covered with mud and turf. I looked curiously at them, and yet the scene was not unfamiliar to me. All through the time I was there I seemed somehow to be both an ancient and a modern.

Upon entering the road that ran near the groups of huts, I met a man dressed not unlike myself.

"Ah, Anton," he said without the least surprise, "you are back from the hill. Did you see the elk?" "Yes," I answered. "He came after me. If I had had my gun with me, I would have shot him."

He seemed puzzled by my answer, but only asked, "Where was the elk?"

"Upon the eastern hill," I replied.

"We will go and hunt him," said the man.

We walked together toward one of the largest huts, and entered it. There was a fire upon a block of stone in the middle of the floor, and the smoke drifted out through a hole in the center of the domed roof. Around the fire sat the members of the chief's household: his wife and several children.