who lived in that neighbourhood, came wandering down from the region of the high

peaks. They looked lean and appeared to be starving.

 

They uttered sounds which no one could understand. They seemed to say that they

were hungry. There was not food enough for both the old inhabitants and the

newcomers. When they tried to stay more than a few days there was a terrible

battle with claw-like hands and feet and whole families were killed. The others

fled back to their mountain slopes and died in the next blizzard.

 

But the people in the forest were greatly frightened. All the time the days grew

shorter and the nights grew colder than they ought to have been.

 

Finally, in a gap between two high hills, there appeared a tiny speck of

greenish ice. Rapidly it increased in size. A gigantic glacier came sliding

downhill. Huge stones were being pushed into the valley. With the noise of a

dozen thunderstorms torrents of ice and mud and blocks of granite suddenly

tumbled among the people of the forest and killed them while they slept. Century

old trees were crushed into kindling wood. And then it began to snow.

 

It snowed for months and months. All the plants died and the animals fled in

search of the southern sun. Man hoisted his young upon his back and followed

them. But he could not travel as fast as the wilder creatures and he was forced

to choose between quick thinking or quick dying. He seems to have preferred the

former for he has managed to survive the terrible glacial periods which upon

four different occasions threatened to kill every human being on the face of the