Christmas Outside of Eden | Page 4

Conings Dawson
coat all bristly, scoffing and scoffing. He
was far too busy with his ill-natured merriment to hear them coming. In
a flash the dog had him by the throat, holding him while the man
robbed him of his clothing. When they had stripped him of everything,
even of his bushy tail, they let him go and he fled naked, howling the
alarm through the forest. By the time they got back to the Woman all
the underbrush was stirring. From every part of the wilderness, in twos
and threes, the animals were coming together. The night was alive with
their glowing eyes; the leaves trembled with their savage muttering.
"Be quick," whispered the Man. "Put this on."
She dried her tears as she felt the warmth of the fur. "It's comfy," she
sobbed. "It fits exactly." And then, "Oh, Man, I'm frightened. What
have you done? You gave me a present once before."
The Man was making a club out of a tree. As he stripped it of its
branches, he answered boastfully, "It was I and the dog; we did it
together. You were cold, so we stole the hyena's coat from him. All the
animals are angry. They know that we shall do again what we have
done once. They feel safe no longer. They say it must be stopped. They
want to get back the hyena's coat from us."
"And they will, oh, my master," the dog interrupted, "unless we protect
ourselves. Through the wilderness, not many miles from here, a
limestone ridge rises above the forest. In the limestone ridge there is a
cave. If we can win our way to it before our enemies come together, we
can stand in the entrance and guard the Woman."
So the dog ran ahead growling with such fierceness that everything fled
from his path. Behind him came the Man carrying the Woman very

closely because he loved her, and trailing his tremendous club. By
dawn, before their enemies could guess their purpose, they had gained
the cave. By the time the animals had held their conference and decreed
that the Man and the dog must be punished, they had escaped and were
ready to defy all comers.

IV
From that moment a new and exciting kind of life started. Not an hour
out of the twenty-four was free from anxiety. Always, whether it was
day or night, the Man and the dog had to take turns at guarding the
entrance. The Man gathered piles of stones and learnt how to throw
them unerringly. The dog trusted to his teeth and the fear which his
bark inspired. The animals were furiously determined; they never
ceased from attempting to surprise them. Quite often they would have
succeeded, had it not been for the robin, who hiding in the bushes,
overheard their strategies and flew back to the Man in time with
warnings.
The cave was well chosen. It was approached by a steep and narrow
path. Only one enemy could attack at once, so the defenders were
always able to roll down bowlders on him before he gained a footing.
That was how they treated the lion, when he came thrashing his tail and
roaring on the first morning to make them prisoners. They gave a rock
a big shove and knocked him over like a ninepin. He was so hurt in his
feelings that he sulked in bed for a week; for many more weeks he was
easily tired. Seeing that he was the King of the Beasts and the President
of their Conference, this made the animals the more indignant and the
more determined that the Man and the dog must be punished. The next
to attempt their capture were the elephant and the rhinoceros. They
boasted that they weren't afraid of rocks; nevertheless they came
together to back up each other's courage. Half way up the slope they
stuck. They were too heavy for so steep a path. The ground crumbled
from under them, the dog worried them, the Man struck them, and
away they went, bumping down the hill, rolling over and over. They
never stopped till they had reached the bottom, where they lay on their
backs with their feet in the air, grunting and panting like a pair of
upturned locomotives.
At first the Man and the dog regarded the enmity they had aroused in

the light of a huge joke; they got a good deal of fun out of fighting. But
the sporting side of the affair ceased to appeal to them when they were
compelled to recognize the seriousness of their predicament. They were
absolutely cut off from supplies at a season when food was running
short. They had to sneak out at night at the risk of capture to get
anything to
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