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done was follow an improved food supply. Indeed, he had not left Asia, for those solid sheets of ice to the east had made Alaska in those years a part of the larger continent.
    AS THE FIRST WINTER PROGRESSED, MASTODON BECAME
    aware that he and the other mastodons were by no means 18
    alone in their favorable habitat, for a most varied menagerie had preceded them in their exit from the Asian mainland, and one cold morning when he stood alone in soft snow, cropping twig-ends from a convenient willow, he heard a rustle that disturbed him. Prudently, he withdrew lest some enemy leap upon him from a hiding place high in the trees, and he was not a moment too soon, for as he turned away from the willow, he saw emerging from the protection of a nearby copse his most fearsome enemy.
    It was a kind of tiger, with powerful claws and a pair of frightful upper teeth almost three feet long and incredibly sharp. Mastodon knew that though this sabertooth could not drive those fearsome teeth through the heavy skin of his protected rear or sides, it could, if it obtained a secure foothold on his back, sink them into the softer skin at the base of his neck. He had only a moment to defend himself from this hungry enemy, and with an agility that was surprising for an animal so big, he pivoted on his left front foot, swung his massive body in a half-circle, and faced the charging sabertooth.
    Mastodon had his long tusks, of course, but he could not lunge forward and expect to impale his adversary on them; they were not intended for that purpose. But his tiny brain did send signals which set the tusks in wide sweeping motions, and as the cat sprang, hoping to evade them, the right tusk, swinging with tremendous force, caught the rear legs of the sabertooth, and although the blow did not send the cat spinning or in any way immobilize it, it did divert the attack and it did cause a bruise which infuriated the sabertooth without disarming him.
    So the cat stumbled among the trees, then regained control, and circled swiftly so that it could attack from the rear, hoping with a giant leap to land upon Mastodon's back, from where the vulnerable neck could be punctured. The cat was much quicker than the mastodon, and after a series of feints which tired the larger animal as he tried to counter them, the sabertooth did land with a mighty bound, not on the flat of the back where it wanted to be, but half on the back, half on the side. It struggled for a moment to climb to a secure position, but in that time Mastodon, with a remarkable instinct for self-preservation, scraped under a set of low branches, and had the cat not wisely jumped free, it would have been crushed, which was what Mastodon intended.
    Repelled twice, the great cat, some nine times larger than the tiger we know today, growled furiously, lurked among the trees, and gathered strength for a final attack.
    This time, with a leap more powerful than before, it came at Mastodon 19
    from the side, but the huge animal was prepared, and pivoting again on his left front foot, he swung his tusks in a wide arc that caught the sabertooth in midair and sent it sprawling back among the trees, one of its legs painfully damaged.
    That was enough for the sabertooth. Growling and protesting, it slunk away, having learned that if it wanted to feast on mastodon, it must hunt in pairs, or even threes or fours, because one wily mastodon was capable of protecting itself.
    Alaska at this time contained many lions, huge and much hairier than the kind that would come later. These possessed no handsome manes or wavy tails, and the males lacked the regal quality that would someday be such a distinguishing characteristic; they were what nature intended them to be: great cats with remarkable hunting abilities.
    Like the sabertooth, they had learned never to attack a mastodon singly, but a hungry pride of six or seven could badger him to death, so Mastodon never intruded upon areas where a number of lions might be hiding.