I recall that it was then I first
regretted that she was only a little untutored savage and so far
beneath me in the scale of evolution.
Her first act was to beckon me to follow her outside, and there
she pointed to the explanation of our rescue from the bear--a huge
saber-tooth tiger, its fine coat and its flesh torn to ribbons,
lying dead a few paces from our cave, and beside it, equally mangled,
and disemboweled, was the carcass of a huge cave-bear. To have
had one's life saved by a saber-tooth tiger, and in the twentieth
century into the bargain, was an experience that was to say the
least unique; but it had happened--I had the proof of it before my
eyes.
So enormous are the great carnivora of Caspak that they must feed
perpetually to support their giant thews, and the result is that
they will eat the meat of any other creature and will attack anything
that comes within their ken, no matter how formidable the quarry.
From later observation--I mention this as worthy the attention
of paleontologists and naturalists--I came to the conclusion that
such creatures as the cave-bear, the cave-lion and the saber-tooth
tiger, as well as the larger carnivorous reptiles make, ordinarily,
two kills a day--one in the morning and one after night. They
immediately devour the entire carcass, after which they lie up and
sleep for a few hours.
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