Mammoth Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

expression, he said with a tone of finality, “Now we go.”
    The preparations were soon done. Watched by Urrell, the mammoth-mimic shinned up his improvised ladder to stow the fire-stick, fire-log, spare tinder and odds and ends of the bundle in the gap under the shelter roof, and came back down the climbing pole, which he hid in the undergrowth outside. He then trod the ashes, some still glowing, the heat not seeming to affect his feet, the club foot or the other, scattered the hearthstones and swept away the mammoth sketch and their footprints with a fir branch till the shelter floor looked as though no-one had been there for months.
    Urrell wondered why but did not ask. His own clan hunters never troubled to hide their passage.
    When all was as he wanted, after a last glance round, Agaratz led the way onwards in the same direction as before, broadly parallel with the cliffs which were gradually becoming lower. The forest scene was changing too, the fir trees giving way to ash, beech, oak and their accompanying understorey, more like the woodlands Urrell was accustomed to.

CHAPTER 5
    A s they went on, Agaratz grew warier, pausing occasionally to listen; the boy obediently stopping too. Apart from a few bird sounds there seemed to be nothing to hear. Although they saw deer, always at a distance, game was less plentiful than in Urrell’s home valley. In any case, Agaratz was evidently not bent on hunting but on arriving at his destination. Whatever it was that kept Agaratz alert remained invisible.
    In this unquestioning way Urrell kept behind his guide, hunter fashion. By nightfall the cliff-face, which had been declining in height, was little more a than a long bluff, broken by scrub-filled gullies. Streams became more frequent and the wooded landscape through which they had been travelling opened into grassland interspersed with clumps of trees.
    Agaratz paused, crouched and pointed towards a bluff. “Cave: you come.”
    At this, Urrell scanned the bluff for signs of life, expecting the tell-tale smoke of cooking fires, a hint of movement. But there was nothing. This was so much against his boyish experience that he exclaimed in surprise, “Where are your people?”He remembered those bison hunters. “Were the bison hunters from your people?
    “No. From far.”
    Agaratz being obviously disinclined to expand on the matter, the boy kept his questions to himself.
    They now moved forward again, Agaratz no longer wary. He turned towards the bluff, leading the way through the scrub at its foot till a cleft appeared, scarcely noticeable a spear’s cast away, and entered it. Urrell followed. There were none of the signs of life that indicated a home camp – no rubbish, no trampled plants, no smoke. It must be another of Agaratz’s camps, like the one they had eaten at earlier that day.
    The cleft angled sharp left and opened out into a sort of small gulch, a self-contained and hidden patch of grass and scrub surrounded by rock walls. In the left-hand rock-face the opening to a small cave could be seen, well beyond reach, at twice the height of the tallest man.
    “You stay, Urrell.”
    Agaratz searched among the bushes at the foot of the rock-face to lift out a climbing-pole, as he had done at the earlier shelter, and propped it beneath the cave entrance. It was over twice the height of that first one. Was Agaratz about to toss down another roast, more fire-making material?
    “You follow, Urrell.” Agaratz swarmed up the pole, his club foot no hindrance. With his pouch and spears, the boy followed, feeling less nimble.
    When they were both up Agaratz hauled in the climbing pole and laid it along one side of the cave, a cave which Urrell saw was the entrance to a gallery that disappeared into the bluff. Its floor was clear of all litter. Ranged round the walls were bundles and piles of objects, shadowy in the gloom. He squatted, not knowing what to expect. His trust in Agaratz was complete, but was this just another