They went up-stream, although it might lead to the very lair of the

cave bear, because there was no other way to go. Down the stream was the

tribe, and had not Ugh-lomi killed Uya and Wau? By the stream they had

to keep--because of drinking.

So they marched through beech trees, with the gorge deepening until the

river flowed, a frothing rapid, five hundred feet below them. Of all the

changeful things in this world of change, the courses of rivers in deep

valleys change least. It was the river Wey, the river we know to-day,

and they marched over the very spots where nowadays stand little

Guildford and Godalming--the first human beings to come into the land.

Once a grey ape chattered and vanished, and all along the cliff edge,

vast and even, ran the spoor of the great cave bear.

And then the spoor of the bear fell away from the cliff, showing,

Ugh-lomi thought, that he came from some place to the left, and keeping

to the cliff's edge, they presently came to an end. They found

themselves looking down on a great semi-circular space caused by the

collapse of the cliff. It had smashed right across the gorge, banking

the up-stream water back in a pool which overflowed in a rapid. The slip

had happened long ago. It was grassed over, but the face of the cliffs

that stood about the semicircle was still almost fresh-looking and white

as on the day when the rock must have broken and slid down. Starkly

exposed and black under the foot of these cliffs were the mouths of

several caves. And as they stood there, looking at the space, and

disinclined to skirt it, because they thought the bears' lair lay

Tales of Space and Time