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Updated: June 2, 2025
It used to come down through that hole," said Strongarm, pointing to the smoke-hole. "But afterwards it went down another way." He sat thinking for a while. Then he said, "When I fought with the other young hunters and carried off your mother, I wanted a cave to bring her to. I came to look at this one. Bears were living here then.
Nearly every day Strongarm went out to hunt. But he did not always bring back meat to the cave, for he could not always kill an animal. But sometimes he brought home the meat of deer or bison, and then again it was that of mammoth or ox. Burr always took the meat when Strongarm brought it home, and sometimes she cut tendons from it. A tendon is a strong white cord that fastens a muscle to a bone.
Then from the ashes she pulled the roots she had put there to roast. After Strongarm had eaten, he lay down by the fire. Nodding toward it he said, "Where did you get it?" Flint then told him that he had brought it out of stones. Strongarm sat up and looked hard at Flint. Then Flint had to strike the stones together again, to let Strongarm see the fire come out.
The boys came running up to their father. They pointed to the meat on his shoulder, and laughed and shouted and clapped their hands. "We shall not go hungry to-day! We shall not go hungry to-day!" they sang as they danced along. "Ho, ho, ho!" sang Strongarm to his wife, as he went into the cave. He threw the horse meat upon the floor with a loud laugh, and lay down on a bear skin to rest.
Strongarm snatched his, and in a minute there was a clash of stone axes. The other men stood around and watched. They loved a good fight. Before long Strongarm's ax crashed down on the man's head, and he fell over and lay still. The others looked at him, and then went on breaking up the tusks.
Strongarm snatched his ax and made for the bear, but he had gone. His growls sounded farther and farther away. Still Strongarm stood with his ax ready, his heart thumping and his eyes big. When he saw that the bear was not coming back, he dropped his ax with a gruff laugh. Then Burr and the boys came creeping out of their holes.
Thorn was nearby making bone whistles and marrow scrapers, and soon Strongarm came up dragging a little tree. He threw down his old hunting club and said, "It is broken. I will make a new one." With his stone ax he hacked off the top and roots of the tree; then he stripped the bark from the small end, and rubbed it with sandstone.
When Strongarm came with the coals, the cave was already warm and light and full of the smell of good things cooking. He looked at the fire and wondered where it had come from, but said nothing. Near the fire his wife had a basket lined with clay. In it were the seeds of the wild grains and acorns, with hot coals. She shook the basket around and around until the seeds were roasted.
He put the lion's tooth on his necklace and held it up and looked at it and said, "Men will see that and say, 'There is a brave man. There is a good hunter. He has helped to kill a lion." The boys stood by, watching. Thorn pointed to the tiger's tooth. "How long and sharp it is! I never saw a tiger." "You never want to see one unless you are where he cannot see you," roared Strongarm.
While Strongarm and the boys were making pictures, the baby had been tumbling about on the floor. She crept around or pulled herself to her feet by holding to the rough places in the wall. After a while she grew sleepy; then her mother took her in her arms and sang this song: "Little child! Little sweet one! Little girl! Though a baby, Soon a-hunting after berries Will be going. Little girl!
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