6
THE UNIVERSITY COURIER.
ening of the eyebrows. She was so glad her hair had been done up on rhinoceros skin curlers, all day, for her new bangs looked just too dear for anything. Yes she really looked quite captivating, she thought as she adjusted her-er-er-a- that is she let her thick hair fall in profusion around her.
When she returned to Adamo's side the stranger had almost reached the spot. He was of a fine appearance Evetta thought. His head did not have that long narrow shape which she so disliked in Adamo.
(Modern anthropologists have raised the question as to whether the owner of the Neanderthal skull were not an idiot. How little did they know Adamo.)
The stranger carried a long staff with a large flint point upon one end. His dress well it was the conventional, etc., etc., so much in vogue at that time. Drawing within close proximity, he bowed low to the two before him. "It is with surprise and pleasure that I find other creatures in this vast universe. Since my evolution I have been traveling ever onward in hope of finding another such a creature as myself."
Adamo eyed the stranger suspiciously. The new arrival seemed a little older than himself—and if his undisputed right to evolutionary precedence was to be contested, the stranger would have to go. So mused Adamo.
Evetta gave the stranger no time, however, to notice Adamo's reticence, and burst forth in innocent impulsiveness.
"Oh I am so glad you have come Don't you know it was getting so awfully stupid and" whispering softly in his ear, "Adamo is really such a bore."
"Indeed," said the stranger, pleased with his cordial reception. 'Then I suppose I may stay? You will not care?"
"Care answered Evetta "Well I don't think. Come into the cave and have some refreshment."
The stranger was evidently "on to his job" and "knew a good thing when he saw it." "Ah, thanks awfully—don't care if I do But really nothing strong, you know—honest, 'pon honor.'"
Into the cave they went. Evetta mildly rebuking the untimely hilarity of the young cave hyenas who persisted in snarling and snapping at the new arrival.
Adamo was practically "not in it." Stifled with rage and emotion he stood for many moments panting beneath the oak. "Aha is it thus?" he angrily muttered. "I am to be foiled? No he shall not have her. She is mine--mine. Rather shall they both die e'er I give her up."
In his frenzy he rushed into the cave. There a sight met his eyes which turned his blood to fire. There in the stranger's arms sat Evetta. And insult upon insult-over the floor were strewn the empty skins in which his favorite "spirits" had been preserved The hilarity within the cave increased his rage. Quickly picking up the stranger's weapon, with one well aimed movement he plunged it deep into his rival's breast He pulled it forth--another violent thrust sent Evetta into the shades of eternity. Both stranger and sweetheart were dead.
Then the awful realization of the consequences of his crime came upon him. "Alone in the world" he murmured, throwing his arms around a young cave bear, who all this time had been regarding the tragic developments of the "affair de coeur" with open eyed astonishment. "Alas! What have I done? I cannot bear the sight of these forms. I will burn them to ashes."
A roaring fire was soon started in the end of the cave, and in this funeral pyre the last rites of Evetta and her "latest" were held. While the fire was still leaping and crackling about the forms of the departed—an awful spirit of desolation oppress d the lone survivor.
"Now that Evetta is dead" he said, "what care I to live? Yes I will die too. Not as Evetta has done. No I will sever this unworthy head from its body."
So saying he picked up a sharp leaf shaped piece of flint, and in a moment Adamo's head had parted company with its better half. Adamo was "game" to the last. Let us hope he was "dead easy." As he fell upon the funeral pyre of his late victims, his head rolled out into the center of the cave, away from the flames. Thus saved from the fire, has it passed down to posterity to trouble anthropologists and thenologists.
How little do these great men of science know the true, romantic story of the Neanderthal skull.