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The she-bear snoozed sulkily in her corner for she was fond of pig and monkey and Andoo was busy licking the side of his paw and smearing his face to cool the smart and inflammation of his wounds. Afterwards he went and sat just within the mouth of the cave, blinking out at the afternoon sun with his uninjured eye, and thinking. "I never was so startled in my life," he said at last.
Even now, that the great and wonderful Andoo was killed was beyond her believing. Then she heard far overhead a sound, a queer sound, a little like the shout of a hyæna but fuller and lower in pitch. She looked up, her little dawn-blinded eyes seeing little, her nostrils quivering.
Andoo stood on the edge of the chalk cliff for some time, shifting his vast weight from foot to foot, and swaying his head to and fro, with his mouth open, his ears erect and twitching, and the nostrils of his big, black muzzle sniffing.
Andoo yawned. "Well," he said. He strolled to the cave mouth and stood with his head projecting, surveying the amphitheatre. He found he had to turn his head completely round to see objects on his right-hand side. No doubt that eye would be all right to-morrow. He yawned again.
She was a young she-bear, and inexperienced, and having sniffed about him for some time and licked him a little, and so forth, she decided to leave him until the odd mood had passed, and went on her hunting alone. She looked up the fawn of the red doe they had killed two nights ago, and found it. But it was lonely hunting without Andoo, and she returned caveward before dawn.
"If it bites it can't be a plant." "No I don't know," said Andoo. "But it's curious, anyhow." "I wonder if they are good eating?" said the she-bear. "They look it," said Andoo, with appetite for the cave bear, like the polar bear, was an incurable carnivore no roots or honey for him. The two bears fell into a meditation for a space. Then Andoo resumed his simple attentions to his eye.
He thrust the red handkerchief into his pocket, clapped his hat firmly over his eyes, and bent towards his work with his usual cross frown. Dickie looked up with a twinkling smile as Nurse came bustling in. "Andoo tell Dickie pitty story," she said. "Ho, indeed!" said Nurse with a sharp glance at Andrew's silent figure.
She began to examine the smashed fragments of chalk that lay about Andoo. For a space she stood still, looking about her and making a low continuous sound that was almost a moan. Then she went back incredulously to Andoo to make one last effort to rouse him. In the days before Ugh-lomi there was little trouble between the horses and men.
A pause. "The advantage he had was merely accidental," said Andoo. "These things will happen at times." "I can't understand why you let go," said the she-bear. That matter had been discussed before, and settled. So Andoo, being a bear of experience, remained silent for a space. Then he resumed upon a different aspect of the matter.
He had been after red deer fawn that night, for the cave bear was a miscellaneous hunter, but this quite turned him from that enterprise. "Ya-ha!" yelled the hyænas behind. "Ya-ha-ha!" Peering through the starlight, Andoo saw there were now three or four going to and fro against the grey hillside. "They will hang about me now all the night ... until I kill," said Andoo. "Filth of the world!"
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