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Updated: May 2, 2025
"It is old Flint, the ax maker," he said to his wife. "Grandfather!" cried the boys, and they ran to meet him. Soon they came back with an old man. His hair was rough and gray, but his eyes were bright under his bushy eyebrows. He wore an old brown bear skin. "Ho, man!" called Strongarm, "come on!" "Sit and rest, father," Burr said. The old man sat down on the root of a tree.
In fun they pushed her into the room behind the one they lived in. She cried out, because she was scared at the darkness. "How loud her voice sounds in there," said Thorn. "What is the rest of the cave like, father?" asked Pineknot. "Is it very big?" "Yes, it goes far back into the hill," said Strongarm. "I have never been to the end of it, myself."
Little sweet one! Little child!" The baby went to sleep, and Burr laid her on a bear skin on the floor. Soon afterwards Pineknot fell asleep on another skin, and in a little while Thorn lay beside him. Then Burr put ashes over the coals, while Strongarm threw burning logs before the door. Soon all was quiet in the cave. The cave folks had gone to sleep.
He did so; and all the way home he kept shooting with his little bow, and wondering about it. Early one morning Strongarm went out to hunt. Cattle with wild eyes were eating grass on the edge of the wood. Strongarm dropped to his knees and slowly, carefully, crawled through the bushes toward them. "Just a little nearer, and I will throw my spear!" he thought. A dry branch snapped beneath him!
But one evening while they were all away, I came in and made a fire at the door." Strongarm laughed long and loud, and the rest laughed to hear him. "Since then the cave has been mine," he went on. "Well, you should have seen the floor! It was covered with old bones that the bears had brought in to gnaw. I threw them all out and broke off the rocks that stood up from the floor.
The men with spears stood far back from a tree. One threw. His spear struck the tree, but fell. Everybody laughed. The next man threw. His spear missed the tree. Everybody yelled and roared. Strongarm threw. His spear struck and stood in the tree shaking. "Strongarm!" shouted the people. Other men threw, whose spears stood in the tree.
The boys and Strongarm snatched it up and tore it to pieces with their white teeth. "Um-m! how good and tender and juicy!" said the boys, grinning, and smacking their lips. When the meat was all gone, the bones were broken and the sweet marrow scraped out and eaten; for that was good, too. While the family was still eating, a big black bear came along.
"Tell us about the lion hunt, father," begged Pineknot. "We watched the lion for days," said Strongarm. "We found that he slept nearly all day in the thick reeds by the river. At sundown he went out to hunt. He hunted all night; we heard him roar at times. In the early light he went back to his bed of reeds by the river and went to sleep.
And there were tall ferns and gray rocks and little brooks, and there was a sweet smell of rotting leaves. "The wild horse ran very fast, But I ran faster!" still sang the young hunter, shaking his red hair gaily. He was not tall, but his legs were big, for he ran after the wild horse and deer and ox. And his arms were big, because he threw a great spear and a stone ax. His name was Strongarm.
Already we could hear the hammers and axes of the police whom Kennedy had called upon before, as they battered at the outside door. At that door a moment before, the lookout suddenly had given a startled stare and a suppressed cry. Glancing down the street he had seen a police patrol in which were a score or more of the strongarm squad.
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