The Pied Raven of Dun Kirk was pied simply because his body was jet black and his breast shone iridescent blue; then, too, he had white wing-shoulders and wore a white cap on top of his head. He looked like a widow but felt more like a bachelor, for he was a gentleman raven and kept bachelor hall in a tall tree on the Flemish sand dunes.

The Pied Raven was no fisherman, even though he did love the sight, smell and particularly the taste of fish; and in the sea to the north were the best of fishing-grounds. He envied the River Hawk and Sea Eagle who knew so well the habits of all finny creatures and could select the best, fresh and squirming from the water. The Pied Raven’s tastes were every bit as refined as the River Hawk’s, Sea Eagle’s or anybody else’s for that matter; but he was a poor raven, or rather, poor fisherman and his fish-diet was in accordance with his means. His means for catching fish were extremely limited; so all he could do was beg, borrow or steal from those more gifted than himself. Failing in all three of these methods, he had to wait around and content himself with such leavings as the Hawk and Eagle had no room for; and that is how the Pied Raven got into trouble.

The River Hawk caught a big, flapping fish, selected and served to suit his appetite to a nicety; no more, no less. After he had filled up and flown away, the Pied Raven, who all this time was watching and awaiting his turn, dropped down to take pot-luck. He found mostly bones and very little fish. This was exasperating, considering the time he had spent sitting around, so he tore loose a big back-fin and gobbled it down.

“Why is it that the River Hawk eats up all the meat and leaves me none?” he grumbled. “I never—awr-rk”; something stuck in his throat. Alas! That miserable back-fin had gone down the wrong way. He coughed and sputtered and did his best to be rid of it up or down, but the fin had a long spine and was stuck fast. He choked and gasped, his head began whirling and he rolled in the dirt; and while lying there with a hazy notion that he would not be a pied raven much longer, he began to see strange things.

Above him, towered a mighty giant, the largest and shaggiest he had ever seen. Its nose reached almost to the ground. Two wonderful horns curled and twisted from its mouth. Another marvelous creature appeared; a giant and shaggy too but smaller than the first. It was round and fat with stumpy legs. This giant had a short nose,—not long like the first one. A horn stuck straight up out of it like a sharp stake.

A third giant loomed up,—smaller yet and nothing like the first two. It squatted on its hind legs and made motions with the front ones. Its mouth stretched so queerly from ear to ear and so pleasantly that the Pied Raven was sure he had flown into another world. Mere earthly creatures never made such nice faces,—certainly not.

“What a strange-looking crow!” Number Three Giant was saying. “I never saw one with head and shoulders white. Arrah! it’s dead.”

Even in his dreams, the Pied Raven could not repress his indignation. To be mistaken for a crow, was more than he could bear.

“I saw it kick a little,” said Giant Number Two,—the one with the nose-horn.

“So?” The Pied Raven felt himself being lifted from the ground; but he was growing drowsier every moment and did not care much. Something pried his mouth open but that did not matter either. He was beyond feeling any interest in what happened to him.

“Choked by a big fish-bone!” cried a voice, and then a pair of fingers reached down his throat and pulled something loose that suddenly woke him up, it hurt so like fury.

“By my old white head!” squawked the Pied Raven; but, all the same, things stopped spinning around and he felt better. After a moment, he found himself flat on his back, staring at the sky and beginning to think it time to get up and go somewhere else.

“A man, a mammoth and a rhinoceros!” he said as the three giants assumed earthly shapes; and he scrambled to his feet, a Pied Raven once more, although a trifle the worse for wear. Giant Number Three now become a Trog-man,—a fairly young one—held the fish-bone between the first and second fingers of his right hand.

“Well for you we chanced to be passing this way,” he said and smiled again.

The Pied Raven jumped. Here was a Trog-man who could talk sense. All the rest of them he had seen, jabbered and made strange noises in their throats. This one could make his face all sunshine too. The Pied Raven thought him a pretty good sort.

“Well, indeed,” he rasped. “Trog-men usually throw stones at birds and never take fish-bones from their throats. I will do as well by you if I ever can.” He looked curiously at the group before him. “A man, a mammoth and a rhinoceros; queer combination, that. How did you three ever come to be together?”

“We have lost our way,” answered the Trog-man—Pic, of course. “We went north to search for something but were forced to hurry back.”

“Searching for something?” asked the Pied Raven, cocking his head on one side. “That sounds interesting. What can it be that you three would hunt for together?”

“Treasure,” Hairi broke in with a most business-like air. “We did not find it but we are glad enough to get back alive.”

“Treasure?” inquired the Pied Raven, becoming more and more interested. “What kind?”

“That is what we wish to find out,” the Mammoth replied. “All we know is, that somewhere in the world there is treasure buried beneath a stone in a cave on the side of a mountain. We do not know just where to look for it.”

“Rather indefinite,” observed the Pied Raven. “Er-awk; let me think.” He gazed thoughtfully at the ground. “Mountain, cave, stone; that may help a little. I know of many mountains, caves and stones but none of them seem to fit together. Awrk; I have it!” he suddenly exclaimed. “I remember a cave on a mountain. It has a stone in the entrance. I know because I once perched on it.”

“Where?” asked Hairi and Wulli in chorus.

“Far from here,” said the Pied Raven. “Too far for such fat animals to walk. You will never get there.” He shook his head dubiously at the two great beasts.

“How far?” grumbled the Mammoth who was quick to resent the slur cast upon his figure. “I can walk farther than any crow flies.”

“Awrk-k-k! do stop calling me a crow,” squawked the Pied Raven. “I am a raven; not a crow. Please remember that.”

“And we are large, not fat; do not forget that,” retorted the Mammoth.

“Where must we go to reach this cave?” Pic inquired. “We cannot go too far out of our way. We must be south before the cold weather comes.”

The Pied Raven pointed his bill eastward. “It may save you time if I go along too,” he said. “I have nothing in particular to do and would help you who have done me a good turn.”

It was finally agreed that the Pied Raven should join the party and all go to where the treasure supposedly lay buried in the cave-floor awaiting their pleasure. None knew where the cave was—none but the Pied Raven. Pic mounted the Mammoth’s neck and the bird perched in front of him on the head-peak. Wulli trotted by the side of his partner. After some discussion—in which the idea was suggested then abandoned of having the Pied Raven ride on Wulli’s nose-horn and thus relieve the Mammoth of a double burden—the expedition set forth.

From Dun Kirk, the trio—now become a quartette—moved eastward over the Flemish sand-dunes and lowlands. Gradually the days and nights grew colder, the country higher and more broken up by rocks, rivers and ravines. Squirrels, woodchucks and all were busy lining their nests and laying up stores for the oncoming winter. The winds blew sharp and bitter and Pic was forced to bury his feet and hands deeply in the Mammoth’s long hair to keep them warm. Without being aware of the fact and caring less, the party passed the Belgian frontier and marched into southern Holland and out again the same day—into western Germany. None bade them halt. No arbitrary boundary lines prevented their travelling without passports or other unheard-of things. Belgium, Holland, Germany and all went to make up one big country—western Europe—where creatures might live and go about just where they pleased.

Guided by the Pied Raven, Pic and his friends arrived at last on the western heights overlooking the Rhine. They descended to the river and crossed. The Mammoth acted as a ferry-boat for Pic and the Pied Raven who climbed to the top of his shoulder hump and had a busy time of it keeping their legs clear of the icy water. The Mammoth and Rhinoceros revelled in breaking up the ice and breasting the cold, swift current. They were powerful swimmers and had all the fun while the other two held their breaths and thanked their lucky stars when safe on solid ground once more.

After crossing the river, the party passed through bedraggled groups of trees, bordering a deep ravine, at whose bottom flowed a stream, the DÜssel. As they proceeded along the heights the ravine gradually deepened as the limestone cliffs reared upwards on both sides. The stream narrowed, the walls rose higher and higher and at last the trio stood on the brink of the Neander Gorge itself.

The northern crest on which they were now placed, looked across and upward to the southern line of cliffs, whose summit rose far above the frozen surface of the DÜssel. The Pied Raven suddenly emitted his strange rasping cry:

“The cave is before us,” he announced so unexpectedly that his three hearers nearly jumped out of their skins.

All came to a stop and looked up. On the opposite side of the gorge, about fifty feet above the level on which they stood, a cavity opened in the face of the limestone wall,—a mere hole, but one of Nature’s landmarks built to endure for a thousand generations—the Cave of the Neander Gorge.

“And now my work is done,” said the Pied Raven. “The mountain and cave are there; the stone rests in the entrance. I leave them to you. Good-bye and good-luck.”

With a bound, he was high in the sky soaring westward before any one of the trio realized that their goal was reached and that their guide had taken his departure.

“Strange that he chose to take his leave without seeing the treasure,” said Pic as he watched the dark speck disappear in the distance.

“He might have helped us further,” the Mammoth sighed. “The cave is beyond our reach. Only a bird could get up there.”

“Up, yes,” laughed Pic who had been studying the cliffs above the cave. “But why not down? I can reach it from the top.”

The rock fell sheer and smooth from the dark hole; but above it, sharp corners and crevices suggested the possibility of a descent from the plateau above; a venture which appealed strongly to Pic. It was no easy matter to reach the cave but well worth the trying.

After a brief search, he discovered a cross-cleft which made it a simple matter for him to descend to the level of the DÜssel. The stream was now frozen over sufficiently to bear his weight. Hairi and Wulli stood still and watched. They saw him cross the ice, moving diagonally up-stream to where a portion of the great rock-wall had crumbled and fallen, thereby forming a rugged incline or causeway from base to summit. Pic ascended this causeway with no great difficulty. He reached the top, and then proceeded downstream along the heights until he stood almost directly over the cave some one hundred feet below him. He waved his arm and shouted to his friends on the opposite crest; then slowly and with a skill born of long experience, he began the perilous descent, clinging to every projecting corner that gave him a secure hold. He held his ax-handle between his teeth, thus leaving both arms free. To the Mammoth and Rhinoceros, he appeared like a fly crawling down the face of the rock.

He reached the cave at last and leaped down to the threshold, ax in hand all ready to do battle with any who might resent his visit. But no fierce enemy leaped forth; no sound came from within. As his eyes became accustomed to the dim inner light, he saw that the cave was a small one and unoccupied except for a pile of something lying in one corner.

“An eagle’s nest,” he muttered. “The Mammoth was right. Only a bird would choose such a place for his home.”

He entered the cave. The pile he had first noticed, was a mass of leaves hollowed in the center like a large nest; but no feathers lay scattered about,—no refuse of any kind suggesting a bird. Pic noted the absence of such signs,—a trivial matter but disconcerting, none the less.

“What was that noise?” He raised his ax and crouched with back to the side-wall, then laughed as he saw the cause of his alarm—a tiny stream of water trickling through a crack to a shallow pool in the floor. “Water dripping through the roof—nothing else,” he assured himself. Then came another sound, a faint rustling. In a moment it ceased. “Only a bat,” and he breathed once more.

“I seem to be imagining all sorts of absurd things,” thought Pic but the thought failed to soothe his nerves. “All because of that old nest.” He kneeled beside it and sniffed. The nest had a strange odor—of what he could not say, but one fact was clear; it belonged to some animal and not a bird. He rose to his feet. He was about to seek the platform outside when something on the cave-floor caught his eye—something that made his heart beat fast. There at his feet lay a handful of roots and herbs—freshly picked.

He sank to the ground on one knee and bent low to more closely examine these alarming objects so strangely out of place in the den of a wild beast.

“A cave man’s home? Can it be possible?” he asked himself. As if in reply, an almost inaudible scraping sound broke the dead stillness of the cave, followed by the low breathing of some living thing behind him. A dim shadow spread itself over the floor, creeping forward inch by inch until it reached the side wall and rose slowly upward. Pic followed it with a fascinated horror that robbed him of power to use his voice or limbs. Gradually the grey phantom ascended the wall before his eyes and resolved itself into the silhouetted head and shoulders of a man.

With a hoarse cry, Pic sprang to his feet. Before he could turn, something descended upon his head with crushing force. Slowly he rolled over in a crumpled heap. His limbs stiffened, then relaxed and his senses flew to the winds, shutting out all sight and sound and thought of the Mammoth and Rhinoceros anxiously awaiting on the opposite side of the gorge.

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