The way we had treated Saber-Tooth was the way we
treated all animals that invaded the village. We kept
our run-ways and drinking-places to ourselves by making
life miserable for the animals that trespassed or
strayed upon our immediate territory. Even the fiercest
hunting animals we so bedevilled that they learned to
leave our places alone. We were not fighters like
them; we were cunning and cowardly, and it was because
of our cunning and cowardice, and our inordinate
capacity for fear, that we survived in that frightfully
hostile environment of the Younger World.
Lop-Ear, I figure, was a year older than I. What his
past history was he had no way of telling me, but as I
never saw anything of his mother I believed him to be
an orphan. After all, fathers did not count in our
horde. Marriage was as yet in a rude state, and
couples had a way of quarrelling and separating.
Modern man, what of his divorce institution, does the
same thing legally. But we had no laws. Custom was
all we went by, and our custom in this particular
matter was rather promiscuous .
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