Such would have served me as well. Now is it
not a fact that man can outwalk the dog or horse? That he can wear
them out with the intelligence of his endurance?"
I nodded.
"Well?"
The light broke in on me, and I bade him continue.
"My valley was perhaps five miles around. The mouth was closed.
There was no way to get out. A timid beast was that bull mammoth,
and I had him at my mercy. I got on his heels again hollered like
a fiend, pelted him with cobbles, and raced him around the valley
three times before I knocked off for supper. Don't you see? A
race-course! A man and a mammoth! A hippodrome, with sun, moon,
and stars to referee!
"It took me two months to do it, but I did it. And that's no
beaver dream. Round and round I ran him, me travelling on the
inner circle, eating jerked meat and salmon berries on the run, and
snatching winks of sleep between. Of course, he'd get desperate at
times and turn. Then I'd head for soft ground where the creek
spread out, and lay anathema upon him and his ancestry, and dare
him to come on. But he was too wise to bog in a mud puddle. Once
he pinned me in against the walls, and I crawled back into a deep
crevice and waited. Whenever he felt for me with his trunk, I'd
belt him with the hand-axe till he pulled out, shrieking fit to
split my ear drums, he was that mad.
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