f* Priuate^i 
 
 t 
 
 0f 
 
 'groiodl . ,^P Florence I 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 AROUND THE FIRE
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 of 
 
 HANFORD M. BURR 
 
 Author of " Donald McRea " 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM OLD WOOD-CUTS 
 
 Hssociation press 
 
 NEW YORK : 124 EAST z8TH STREET 
 LONDON: 47 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
 
 Copyright, 1912, 
 
 BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF YOUNO MEN'S 
 CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS
 
 7 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 WHEN the night is black about the camp- 
 fire, and the flames die down, and the 
 half-burned embers fall into the ashes, 
 we look into the red chamber of romance and see 
 the flickering shapes of the men of long ago. The 
 silence deepens and the world of today is swal- 
 lowed up by that of a yesterday older than his- 
 tory. The blood of Angle, Saxon and Jute, Kelt 
 and Slav, sings in our brains. Something touches 
 our eyes with a magic wand and we see at the 
 heart of the fire pictures of the world when man 
 was young. The backlog becomes a ruddy screen 
 upon which pass and repass the heroes who won 
 a world for us by their courage and skill. 
 
 These tales 'go with the moving pictures of 
 the backlog. There are more where these came 
 from, and the lover of the open fire can read them 
 for himself. 
 
 The world of these pictures was young. Every- 
 thing had to be learned everything had to be 
 won. But there were giants in those days and 
 the Revealer held the guiding torch. Slowly but 
 surely they won mastery over harsh nature, 
 savage beasts, and even more savage men, but 
 greatest of all, mastery over self, 
 v 
 
 1630309
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 And they were men and women of our own 
 race. Their blood runs in our veins. Their home 
 was in Angeln, old England, the low-lying land 
 where they lingered for awhile before they crossed 
 the Great Water to build an empire on which 
 the sun never sets. Some of their names were 
 passed down from father to son and mother to 
 daughter till they appeared in the Doomsday 
 Book of King William, where they can be seen 
 now by those who are curious. 
 
 Many of the animals who shared the forest 
 primeval with man in Old England have long 
 since disappeared, but they have left their bones 
 in caves and peat bogs. 
 
 "How Men Found the Great Spirit" has been 
 told about many camp-fires. There has been a 
 call for more stories of the same kind. Here 
 they are, and the writer hopes that others who 
 " see things at night" in the fire will enjoy them, 
 and see more for themselves. 
 
 H. M. BURR. 
 
 "THE PINES" 
 SPRINGFIELD, MASS., Dec., 1911. 
 
 VI
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE FIRE SPIRIT i 
 
 II. THE FIRST POTTER i9 
 
 III. THE FIRST GANG 29 
 
 IV. THE FIRST CHIEF 47 
 
 V. THE SMOKE WAY 69 
 
 VI. THE FIRST MILKMAN 79 
 
 VII. RANG, THE RED MAN 87 
 
 VIII. RANG OF THE THINKING HAND . i03 
 
 IX. THE FIRST SAILOR n5 
 
 X. THE GARDEN OF ULMA .... i23 
 
 XI. LET, THE FIRST ARTIST .... i33 
 
 XII. SAX, THE FIRST MUSICIAN . . . i45 
 
 XIII. THE CALL OF THE GREAT WATER i57 
 
 XIV. THE STORY OF LUP i77 
 
 XV. THE WOOING OF SENNA .... i89 
 
 XVI. HUN, THE HUNTER OF WHITE MEN i97 
 
 XVII. THE LAKE DWELLERS 2n 
 
 XVIII. How MEN FOUND THE GREAT 
 
 SPIRIT . 229 
 
 VII
 
 THE FIRE SPIRIT
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 I. THE FIRE SPIRIT 
 
 BEFORE the years were counted or the circuit 
 of the seasons reckoned, man lived where it 
 was always summer, and summer heat ruled the 
 north land, now ruled by winter cold. As the 
 scepter of the Frost King reached farther and 
 farther south, men slowly and reluctantly retreated 
 from the old homes. But some lingered through 
 the fireless winters for the love of the familiar places 
 and the beauty of the northern spring and summer. 
 
 Among those who lingered was Ang, the mighty 
 hunter. His home was in a cave at the edge of 
 the great forest. It faced the south so that it could 
 catch all the scant rays of the winter's sun. The 
 mouth of the cave was partly closed by a screen of 
 fir boughs, while a bark slab, torn from a big tree, 
 formed a rude door. Inside the cave were bunks 
 piled high with dry moss and leaves, with the 
 skin of animals which Ang had slain thrown over 
 them. 
 
 It was not yet midwinter, but it was cold, bitter 
 
 cold. As Ang sat in front of his cave, chipping 
 
 knife blades and arrow points from flint, he moved 
 
 from time to time to keep in the feeble light of 
 
 3
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 the sun, but it seemed to have little warmth, and 
 he shivered and grumbled to himself: " Every year 
 the cold grows stronger. The old men tell of a 
 time when it came late and went soon, but that 
 must have been long ago. Ugh ! but it is cold ! 
 It gets under my bearskin ; it nips my ears and 
 numbs my hands. I wish I had taken the long 
 journey to the south land, but it was far for the 
 woman and the child, and I hoped that the Ice 
 Giant would grow old and lose his strength and 
 I was born here ; my father and my father's father 
 hunted in these woods and fished in this river, and 
 men, like trees, take root." 
 
 The sun sank into a cold gray cloud in the 
 west. The bite of the wind grew sharper. The 
 hoarse cough of a child echoed from the cave be- 
 hind him, and the dull crooning song of the mother, 
 as she tried to warm the sick child at her breast, 
 could be heard as the wind was lulled for a 
 moment. 
 
 Colder and more cold it grew, but Ang would not 
 enter the cave. He could not bear to hear the 
 troubled breathing of the child or see the face of 
 the mother. He dreaded the coming of the grim 
 White Spirit for this, his last child. Sometimes 
 he fancied he could hear him rushing through the 
 woods above the cliff, and feel the chill of his 
 breath on his face. Had he no other food but 
 children, this dread hunter? 
 
 Colder and more cold it grew, but Ang still lin- 
 gered. He piled dry moss about his feet and tried 
 4
 
 THE FIRE SPIRIT 
 
 to bring warmth to his numb hands by hammering 
 off flakes of flint which he would later shape into 
 rough weapons and tools. He struck two flints 
 together in a kind of dumb fury. It was a glancing 
 blow, and one of the flints dropped into the dry 
 moss at his feet with a flicker of sparks. A coil 
 of gray smoke crept out of the moss like a serpent 
 coming out of his hole. A bright spot at its heart 
 grew brighter and brighter, and then red flames 
 lapped hungrily. 
 
 Ang leaped to his feet in astonishment. At the 
 smiting of the flint the Fire Spirit had been born. 
 Its breath was the breath of summer. He stretched 
 out his hands over the flames, and the cold loosened 
 its grip. He touched the flame, and it stung him 
 like an angry bee. Clearly the Spirit must not be 
 handled. Awe and wonder filled the mind of 
 Ang. He fell on his knees and prayed to the 'Fire 
 Spirit : H Spirit of light and heat, Thou hast come 
 in our hour of need I know not whence. Stay 
 and keep away the terrible cold Spirit with thy 
 red arrows. Stay! I will deny thee nothing. If 
 Thou art hungry, I will feed thec." 
 
 As Ang watched the fire, it hungrily ate up the 
 dry moss and lapped the dry sticks. He brought 
 more and fed them to the reaching flames. The 
 northern darkness had shut in the rest of the world, 
 light lingered at the door of the cave of Ang, and 
 the warm breath of the fire brought back the heat 
 of summer in the midst of winter. Joy filled the 
 heart of Ang, and he called to the mother and the 
 S
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 child : " Oma, Om, come ! The Great One has 
 heard. Come, come, come quickly." 
 
 The bark door opened, and the mother came out 
 holding the child to her breast. A cry of wonder 
 broke from her as she saw the fire, but wonder gave 
 way to the mother instinct. The All-Father had 
 heard. Here were warmth and light. The gray 
 huntsman should not have her child. She crouched 
 by the fire, holding the babe in her arms so that 
 she sheltered it from the encircling cold while the 
 glowing fire warmed and healed it. With grati- 
 tude and awe she watched the color come back to 
 the child's face, and then she looked with eager 
 questioning at the face of Ang, as it shone with 
 a light brighter than that of the fire. 
 
 Finally he spoke: " I sat at the going in of the 
 cave. Fear gripped me ; the cold smote me. I said, 
 Odin has forgotten. It may be that he has gone 
 to the south land because the cold was stronger 
 than he. I- heard the barking of the child. The 
 dread of the great robber was on me. I tried to 
 forget. I smote the flints together. Star flies 
 seemed to leap from the stone, and fire was born 
 in the heart of the moss." 
 
 Then Ang stood by the mother and the child 
 and placed his left hand on the head of the mother 
 and raised his right hand to the sky to which the 
 leaping flames pointed and said :(" Great Father, 
 now I know that none is greater than Thou ; not 
 even the giants of the north. Thy shining arrows 
 have driven the huntsman back. And I know that 
 6
 
 THE FIRE SPIRIT 
 
 Thine eyes see farther than the eagle floating in 
 the sky, for thou hast seen us alone in the great 
 woods, and Thine ear is quicker to hear than that 
 of the mother listening for the cry of her first 
 born, for thou hast heard the cry that did not rise 
 to our lips. Henceforth the fire shall be the sign 
 of Thee. As the flames leap up to the sky, so shall 
 our thoughts leap to Thee, Our Father."} 
 
 All through the long cold winter Arrg and Oma 
 fed the fire, and Om grew well and strong again. 
 They very soon found that the fire, though it gave 
 so freely the life-giving light and heat, had to he 
 treated with great care. It was a good servant 
 but a poor master. One day little Om toddled 
 too close and burned his hand on a live coal. On 
 another day the wind blew the sparks from the fire 
 into the dry rushes which screened the entrance 
 to the cave, and in a moment the cave was filled 
 with flames and smoke, and Oma had to cover her 
 head and that of Om with skins and dash out into 
 the open. All the bedding of dry leaves was burned 
 up, and some of the skins were badly scorched. The 
 wooden handles of many of Ang's spears and arrows 
 and knives were burned also. It took many days 
 of hard work to replace what the fire had eaten. 
 So they came to fear as well as to love it. 
 
 But Ang and Oma learned one thing from the 
 fire which burned out their cave that was worth 
 more than a thousand fires could destroy. Part of 
 a deer which Ang had killed hung inside of the 
 cave. It had been very hard to get, and it was 
 7
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 almost the first thing which Ang thought of after 
 the 'fire had burned down. If that had been de- 
 stroyed, they might starve before he could kill an- 
 other one. He dashed into the cave to see if any- 
 thing was left, the fear of hunger already gripping 
 his vitals. A strange new odor filled . his nostrils 
 and doubled his hunger the smell of roasted 
 venison. The deer still hung from the side of the 
 cave. The hair had been burned off and the skin 
 hung in rolls, but the flesh was there, brown, hot, 
 dripping red. 
 
 At Ang's call Oma hurried in. It needed but 
 one whiff of the fragrant air to convince her that 
 the touch of fire had made of the cold frozen meat 
 food more delicious than the fruits of summer. 
 She snatched a long stone knife from her belt and 
 cut strips of venison steak from the smoking mass 
 and gave to Ang and Om. 
 
 After they had eaten, Ang looked into the glow- 
 ing embers of the fire in front of the cave and 
 pondered. The Fire Spirit had grown angry be- 
 cause they had taken only one of the gifts of the 
 Great Father and had burned out the cave, but 
 it had showed them what its magic touch would do 
 to the frozen meat. The wonder of it grew on him. 
 As he looked into the world at the heart of the 
 coals, he saw the promise of a better one than that 
 in which he lived a world in which the sons of 
 his son's sons should have discovered all the gifts 
 of the Fire Spirit. 
 
 As Ang looked into the fire, Oma looked into
 
 THE FIRE SPIRIT 
 
 the face of Ang and wondered at what she saw 
 there. His look seemed to pierce the blackness 
 behind the fire a hundred days' journey. " Father 
 of my son, what seest thou in the fire ? " "I see," 
 said Ang, " the spirits of the things which are to 
 be. I see, but do not understand all that I see. 
 I see our son's sons talking fire, the flames leaping 
 from their mouths like tongues ; I see them cross- 
 ing the big Water in great logs which breathe 
 out fire and smoke. I see but there are no 
 words to tell thee all that I see." 
 
 And Oma looked into the embers, and she too 
 saw the flickering spirits of the things to be. She 
 saw countless fires fires in the woods, fires in 
 caves, fires on altars but those who tended the 
 fires were the daughters of her daughters. , 
 
 In a few days the damage done by the fire was 
 repaired. It was Oma who discovered that water 
 stopped the hunger of the fire, and when it grew 
 too fierce she beat it back with boughs dipped in 
 the stream which ran before their cave. 
 
 The warmth of the fire and the cooked meat 
 made little Om grow as no boy had ever grown 
 in the cold season, and before the winter was over 
 he was running about as sturdily as a young bear. 
 But it made trouble for Oma. The woods were 
 full of savage wild beasts, bears, panthers, and 
 wolves. Even Ang, with his strength and cunning 
 and great stone axe and sharp knives, was in con- 
 stant danger. When he went out to hunt, Oma 
 always feared till lie came back. What chance then 
 9
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 would little Om have? So she tried to keep him 
 always in the clearing before the cave, but the task 
 grew harder and harder as the weather grew warmer 
 and Om's legs stronger and his eyes more curious. 
 
 One evening, just as the dark was shutting in, 
 Oma was cracking some bones to get some choice 
 marrow for Ang's supper after he returned from 
 his hunting, and for a moment her back was turned 
 to the boy. When she looked for him, he had 
 slipped away into the darkness. The cry of a 
 hyena broke on the stillness of the night, savage, 
 blood-curdling. Then came a terrified scream from 
 little Om. She leaped to her feet in terror. Where? 
 Where? Which way? The sound seemed to come 
 from all directions. Not knowing what she did, 
 she snatched a burning brand from the fire and 
 dashed into the darkness, leaving a trail of flame 
 behind her. 
 
 She had gone only a few yards when she came 
 upon the beast crouching over little Om. Thought- 
 less of all danger to herself, Oma leaped at the 
 savage beast, whirling the burning brand about her 
 head. The hyena gave a snarl of surprise and 
 fear, dropped Om, and sprang away into the thicket, 
 with leaps longer than any he had made in his 
 life, for the fear of the fire was on him. 
 
 Oma snatched her baby to her breast and hur- 
 ried back to the cave, crooning over him as she 
 went. She brought him to the fire and stripped off 
 his little fur coat; that was in shreds, but the 
 child's skin was only slightly scratched. 
 10
 
 THE FIRE SPIRIT 
 
 As she locked him in her arms to comfort him, 
 Ang suddenly leaped out of the darkness, his great 
 stone axe swinging in his hands. Terror was in 
 his face ; sweat dropped from him like rain. " The 
 hyena ! I heard his cry here and that of little Om ! " 
 
 Oma pointed to the baby in her arms, to the torn 
 skin at her feet, to the smoldering branch and 
 to the darkness which had swallowed the great 
 beast. " It was only a moment, but he slipped 
 away into the darkness; I heard the cry, the cry 
 of the beast and the cry of the child. I caught 
 up a brand from the fire and ran ; the fearless 
 one ran at the sight of it. The child is safe, see! " 
 And Om smiled at his father through tear-dimmed 
 eyes. 
 
 Then Ang knelt by the side of the child and its 
 mother and prayed :/ " O Thou who art greater 
 than the greatest anch mightier than the mightiest, 
 again Thou hast saved us by the red magic. By 
 it Thou hast made us^Thy children, jnaslers of tHe 
 beasts of the wood 1 , for the fear of the" Re'cf One is 
 upon them all." 
 
 SkX* As the strength of the winter passed and the 
 
 |\[ snow began to melt, Ang had a visit from Wang, 
 
 who lived some days' journey to the east. During 
 
 the winter the men of the north saw little of each 
 
 other. Each family needed a large hunting ground, 
 
 and men had not learned to live together. The 
 
 distances between the families were so great that 
 
 when the snow was deep in the woods months passed 
 
 in which the isolated families saw no human beings 
 
 II
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 outside of their own circle. But when the ice broke 
 up and the snow melted, the men who were on 
 fairly friendly terms paid visits to each other and 
 exchanged stories of the winter's experiences. 
 
 Now Wang approached the cave of Ang with 
 great ceremony. It was neither good manners nor 
 safe to approach another man's home too suddenly. 
 One could not be sure of a welcome, and it was 
 always assumed that one who came suddenly was 
 an enemy. So Wang strolled out on an open spot 
 by the bank of the river which flowed by the cave 
 of Ang, and acted as if he did not know that there 
 was another human being within a day's journey. 
 He tossed stones into the water and watched the 
 ripples, apparently absorbed in meditation. Then 
 he imitated the call of the wild fowl which swarmed 
 the river banks. 
 
 For a time Ang ignored him, going about as if 
 he saw no one. But Oma and Om peered out 
 curiously from the mouth of the cave. At last 
 Ang wandered down to the river's edge and looked 
 aimlessly everywhere but where Wang stood. He 
 too tossed many stones into the river. Finally, 
 apparently satisfied that all the demands of primi- 
 tive etiquette had been met, Ang turned to Wang 
 and put his left hand over his heart and raised 
 his right to the sky. Wang did the same ; they 
 were of one blood and children of the Great Father. 
 Both dropped their weapons where they stood and' 
 went to meet each other unarmed. Ang and Wang 
 had played together as hoys, hunted together as 
 12
 
 THE FIRE SPIRIT 
 
 young men and taken wives from the same family, 
 but each spring, after the winter's separation, they 
 met with the same elaborate ceremony, because it 
 was the man custom. 
 
 When the men were seated, Oma'and Om came 
 out and sat near by. " A long winter," said Ang. 
 " A long winter," answered Wang. " Much cold," 
 said Ang. " Much cold," answered Wang. ' The 
 woman and the boy? " asked Wang. ' The woman 
 is well, and the child grows like a bear's cub," 
 replied Ang. 
 
 Wang turned and looked at Oma and Om and 
 gave a grunt of surprise. " Why, they are as fat 
 and sleek as if it was the time of fruits and nuts 
 instead of the end of the great cold, when even 
 the bear is so thin that he casts no shadow. Has 
 the eagle carried thee to the south land on its 
 wings? Have you found food that cold does not 
 harden? Has Odin fed you? My woman sits all 
 day at the going in of the cave. She looks old 
 like the moss-bearded oak. She notices nothing, 
 but talks ever about the little one whom the Black 
 Robber took ; she cares not for the child that is 
 left, who cries for food like a young kid whose 
 mother the wolves have eaten. And my strength 
 has not come again. My traps and snares take 
 nothing, and my arrow is slower than the flying 
 deer." 
 
 At this Oma leaped to her feet and brought a 
 piece of dried i venison from the cave and a cake 
 made from a flour of pounded nuts and seeds and 
 13
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 put them before the hungry man. He ate raven- 
 ously, like a famished wolf, in silence, but ques- 
 tioning with eager eye, " How? Why? What?" 
 And Ang answered the unspoken question : " It 
 was cold, so cold that the blood in one's body ran 
 slow and became like ice in the stream. The meat 
 became like stone. The supply of nuts failed. 
 The woman grew weak. The huntsman from the 
 north took the child by the throat. His breath 
 came hard. I said, ' He will be taken as the others 
 have been taken, and the mother will not stay with- 
 out the child, and I shall be alone,' and I cried to 
 the Great One, to Odin, the All-Father : ' We are 
 cold, give us heat; we are hungry, give us food.' 
 I heard no answer; there was no voice; but the 
 prayer was heard. I sat by the going in of the cave, 
 making knives of flint, not thinking to use them, 
 but hoping to forget and cover up the hoarse cry- 
 ing of the child with the noise of the flints. So 
 I smote two stones together, and the chips fell into 
 the dry moss at my feet. There was a buzzing noise 
 like that of a bee in a flower; a little white cloud 
 rose from the moss, then spots of light like star- 
 flies at night. Red tongues reached out and ate up 
 the moss and the dry sticks. I saw that the Red 
 One was hungry, and I gave him more moss and 
 dry wood to eat. He grew big and bright, and his 
 breath was warm like that of summer, and Oma 
 brought out the child, and he drove away the bark- 
 ing sickness from the child's throat. Then we knew 
 that Odin had heard us and sent him to save us." 
 14
 
 THE FIRE SPIRIT 
 
 And Ang told Wang how they had learned to 
 cook the venison ; how they had learned to feed the 
 Red One and keep him from wandering. He told 
 how the fear of him was on all the beasts of the 
 woods, so that not even the most savage and the 
 most hungry dared stand before him ; and the small- 
 est child was safe within the circle of light. 
 
 Then they took the wondering Wang and showed 
 him the sacred fire, gift of the Keeper of Secrets; 
 they cooked venison over the coals so that he might 
 taste it. And when Wang started for home Oma 
 gave him a shoulder of smoked deer's meat and 
 cakes made of acorn meal and cooked on flat stones. 
 
 And now a strange thing happened. Pity stirred 
 the heart of Ang. Odin had helped him in the time 
 of his troubles; why should he not help Wang? 
 He turned to Oma. ' The hunting is good ; the 
 stream is full of fish ; the Red One can warm 
 more than three. I will go and bring Wang and 
 his woman and his child. They can live in the 
 cave which we thought should be Om's. It is 
 the will of the All-Father that men should live 
 together." 
 
 And the men went together and brought Wang's 
 wife and child, and they made a screen and a bark 
 door for the new cave home. Oma taught Suta, 
 wife of Wang, the mysteries of the fire, and Ang 
 and Wang became the first neighbors, and that also 
 was one of the gifts of the Revealer, through the 
 Spirit of the Fire. 
 
 As time went on, the story of Ang, the fire-man, 
 15
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 spread through all the north country, and often 
 men came as Wang had done, many days' journey, 
 through trackless forest, to' see the Wonderful fire 
 In front of the cave of Ang. But Ang told to no 
 one but Wang the secret of how to call the Fire 
 Spirit. To men "who were friendly he gave live 
 coals to carry away in bowls hollowed out of soap- 
 stone. Men who were the enemies of Ang did not 
 dare come near his cave for fear of the red knives 
 which guarded it. 
 
 By and by men began to say to each other, as 
 they went to hunt or sat about the carefully tended 
 h're, that Ang, the fire-man, must be loved by Odin, 
 "and they came to Ang and said: "Tell us of the 
 (ireat One," and Ang was troubled because he had 
 not heard his voice or seen him. As he hunted in 
 the stillness of the forest, he pondered : " Why had 
 no one ever seen the Great" Spirit? Or was the 
 sky his face and the sun and moon his eyes? Why 
 had no one heard his voice? Or was the thunder 
 his voice? If so, no one understood his language." 
 The more he thought, the more troubled he became. 
 For days at a time he rarely spoke and went about 
 as one in a dream, and Oma said to Wang and 
 to others who came, " The spell of Odin is on 
 him," and they began to look on Ang with awe 
 and wonder and something of fear. 
 
 One night as Ang w_as_jarjrom home .and. _slept 
 
 in a cave on a hill-sideBhe dreamed that his shadow 
 
 self left his body and journeyed to a far country, 
 
 and there he saw his father and his father's father 
 
 16
 
 THE FIRE SPIRIT 
 
 and the men of long ago. They all sat about a 
 great fire and beckoned to him to join their circle. 
 Not a word was spoken. There was a silence like 
 that before the storm breaks, and each one in the 
 mystic circle looked steadfastly into the fire, which 
 burned on and on., though no one fed its flames. 
 + As Ang ceimnued tK> loolclPmto the flames, it 
 seemed as if something was lifted from his eyes 
 and he saw what no one had seen before. The 
 earth" was the body of Odin. His life was the 
 life of all. He had not one voice like man, but 
 many. He spoke in the thunder, in the voice of the 
 storm, but also in the song of the birds and in the 
 words of one's best beloved. 
 
 Ang awoke just as the sun was driving the mists 
 from the valley beneath him, and these words came 
 to his lips as if they were a message from the dream 
 world which he had just left: "The wise son of 
 the All-Father sees him everywhere and hears his 
 voice always." For the first time in his life Ang 
 saw the beauty of the world at his feet, and the 
 song of the birds which filled the vibrant air awoke 
 a new joy of melody and harmony in his soul. 
 
 As Oma and Om came out to meet him, he looked 
 at them with newly opened eyes. How beautiful 
 was the ruddy brown sheen of Oma's hair and the 
 light in her eyes as she welcomed him! And little 
 Om's eyes sparkled like dewdrops in the light of 
 early morning, and his laughter was like the splash- 
 ing of a brook over its pebbles! 
 
 When Ang told Oma of his dream, she answered: 
 17
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 " The men were right. The spell of the Keeper 
 of Secrets was on thee. Thou art a man apart. 
 Henceforth thou shalt tell men the will of the 
 one who hides himself." 
 
 And so Ang became one of the voices of Odin. 
 From far and near men in trouble and men in doubt 
 came to him, and he spoke words of comfort and 
 wisdom. And every year before the cold kept 
 men apart they gathered at the home of Ang. They 
 built a great stone altar, and each man threw a 
 log upon the fire which Ang had kindled. And they 
 brought the choicest from their hunting and had a 
 great feast, but they always gave the best to Ang, 
 and he put it in the fire, saying, " The best we 
 have is Thine and we are Thine." And when they 
 had feasted and were satisfied, Ang talked to them 
 of the All-Father, and each year his words were 
 wiser and more winning. 
 
 Before the men departed each took a brand from 
 the fire and marched about the altar chanting: 
 
 Spirit red, Spirit red, 
 Thine hunger has been fed. 
 
 Spirit hot, Spirit hot, 
 Forget us not, forget us not 
 
 As the year grows old 
 Keep us from the cold! 
 
 In the darkness of the night 
 Be our shining light, 
 Spirit white, Spirit white! 
 
 18
 
 THE FIRST POTTER
 
 II. THE FIRST POTTER 
 
 ANG was a mighty hunter and also a priest of 
 Odin, but Oma was a famous housewife or 
 cave-wife, and not only Suta, the wife of Wang, 
 came to take lessons of her, but many other women 
 who had heard of her wonderful skill in cooking 
 old food in new ways and discovering new foods 
 which the magic of the fire made palatable. She 
 had learned not merely how to cook the meat which 
 Ang brought, but to dry it so that it would keep 
 for a long time. She discovered how to make a 
 coarse flour from nuts and acorns and to bake cakes 
 on flat stones. At the fire feast the cooking of 
 Oma made as great an impression as the wisdom 
 and strength of Ang. 
 
 13 ut her greatest discovery was the art of making 
 pottery dishes out of clay and baking them before 
 the fire. For a long time women had made baskets 
 of reeds and willow twigs in which they could carry 
 dry foods, but the problem was to get something 
 in which they could carry liquids. Sometimes they 
 used skin bottles, but they soon leaked and the 
 water rotted them out. Then some clever woman 
 smrrirrd the inside of a closely woven basket with 
 resinous pitch. Another lined her baskets with clay 
 
 21
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 and baked them in the sun, but water would soon 
 soften the clay. Then came Oma and the fire and 
 the art of baking clay. This is the way it hap- 
 pened. Oma had been lining some baskets with 
 clay, and little Om tried to imitate her. Since it 
 was cold he sat as near to the fire as he could, and 
 after he had finished one he would put it on a 
 stone near the fire until he had a row of them. 
 Then the wind changed suddenly and blew the fire 
 towards him, and he had to move quickly, leaving 
 his clay baskets on the rock. He called to his 
 mother to get them, but she had no notion of get- 
 ting burned for so small a cause and she was too 
 busy to bother, as mothers often are. 
 
 That night after Om had gone to sleep she sat 
 by the fire with Ang, and her eyes spied the little 
 row of clay baskets. She picked one up to show 
 the father what a clever boy his son was getting 
 to be. As she touched the clay, she found it dry 
 and hard as no clay she had ever touched before. 
 Some of the baskets were dry and crumbly, but 
 two or three in the center were hard as stone. 
 A thought came to her. She ran to the brook and 
 filled the hardest with water and brought them 
 back to the fire. They did not soften or leak. 
 Then she put them on a flat stone and pushed them 
 almost into the fire. Soon the water in them began 
 to bubble and steam. 
 
 " Look ! " cried Oma. " At the touch of the 
 Red One a little Cloud Spirit goes up to the great 
 Cloud Spirits that fly in the blue above us." Then 
 
 22
 
 THE FIRST POTTER 
 
 Ang knew that Odin had given a new gift. " This 
 time the Red One has spoken to you; what has 
 he said?" 
 
 Oma carefully drew the little clay pots from the 
 fire, and after they had cooled she examined them. 
 Two of them were cracked, but one was firm and 
 solid as if it had been cut from stone. She held 
 it up before Ang in triumph. ' This is what we 
 have been waiting for since the beginning of time. 
 The Red One has worked magic on the clay, and 
 its old enemy, the water, cannot eat through it." 
 
 The next day Oma made baskets lined with clay 
 and then, putting them on flat stones, pushed them 
 into the heat of the fire. Some of them crumbled, 
 but others baked hard and firm. As the heat burned 
 off the inclosing basket, the pattern was left molded 
 on the clay. 
 
 After many experiments Oma learned just what 
 clay to use and how to bake it. And she made 
 pots of all sizes and arranged them on ledges of 
 her cave and filled them with nuts and seeds. Then 
 she learned how to use the clay pots for cooking. 
 In the old days she placed scraps of meat and bone 
 and roots in a pitch-lined basket and then added 
 water and hot stones from the fire. Of course 
 the pitch softened and gave an unpleasant taste to 
 the stew, and often the hot water softened it so 
 much that the basket became like a sieve. But now 
 Oma could mix her stews and brews and boil them 
 until they were soft and delicious and the clay dish 
 was just as good as before. 
 23
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 And Sutn and other women came to look ; and 
 they wondered and tasted, and smacked their lips, 
 and asked how it was done, then went home to do 
 likewise. And the fame of Ang and Oma grew 
 in the north land, and men said, " They are loved 
 by the Great One." 
 
 But if Oma made the first pottery and the most 
 useful, Suta, wife of Wang, made the most beau- 
 tiful. After she had learned to bake the clay so 
 that neither fire nor water would touch it, she 
 amused herself by making dishes of queer shapes. 
 Then she discovered it was not necessary to make 
 the basket molds, and that if she made marks on 
 the clay they would be baked in. She began by 
 making a little row of nail prints about the rim 
 (((((((((( Then she made rough pictures of 
 animals and men with a sharpened stick. And the 
 fame of Suta went out also through the north land, 
 and they came from far away to see the wonderful 
 things which she had done. Others tried, but no 
 one could make such beautiful dishes as Suta. 
 
 Before the great fire feast an idea came to Suta 
 like a dream in the night, she knew not from where. 
 She would make a great bowl for Odin and she 
 would mold on it pictures of his gifts, so that all 
 who saw would remember from whom the good 
 things came. With great care she shaped a bowl 
 as high as a five-year-old child and so large that 
 a grown man could not circle it with his arms. On 
 it she pictured the man who shot the first deer with 
 a stone-tipped arrow, the man who made the first 
 24
 
 THE FIRST POTTER 
 
 snare for the wild birds, the man who first crossed 
 the deep water in a hollowed log, Ang striking fire 
 from the flints, Oma baking the clay dishes. Then 
 she hesitated. These and many things more the 
 Great One had given ; what would He give next ? 
 What did she want most? 
 
 Now Suta was not like Ang or Wang or even 
 like Oma. Wang had thought sometimes that she 
 was not so good a cook as Oma and that she spent 
 too much time listening to the song of the birds 
 and watching the play of the light on the water 
 and the woods and the far-off hills. She did these 
 things sometimes when he thought she ought to get 
 wood for the fire or cook something for him, and 
 he grumbled a little. Hut now that she made dishes 
 of clay which no one else could make and all men 
 said, " What a fortunate man Wang is to have a 
 woman that can make such things! " Wang began 
 to be very proud of her. He even went so far as 
 to get wood for the fire, which he did not think 
 man's work. 
 
 And what did Suta the dreamer want? She did 
 not want more food or more clothes or a bigger 
 cave; she wanted the power to mold in clay the 
 things she saw and loved and the things which she 
 saw with her eyes closed. So she put on the great 
 bowl for the All-Father a picture of a woman, with 
 her back turned on the lookers and a sharpened 
 stick in her hand, just ready to work the soft clay, 
 but waiting for the power to draw on clay the 
 picture in her mind. It was the first expression 
 25
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 of the unsatisfied yearning of the artist for beauty 
 and the power to express it. For Suta was the 
 mother of those who love the beautiful and long 
 to give it permanent form. 
 
 When the bowl for the Giver was finished, it 
 was placed on a stone foundation in front of the 
 stone altar, which Ang and Wang had made. At 
 the feast it was filled with sparkling water from 
 a spring near by, and as the men danced about the 
 fire they dipped their hands in it as they passed 
 by and sprinkled the water on the fire and on 
 themselves and sang: 
 
 Singing water of the brook, 
 Shining laughter of the wood, 
 
 Talking picture of the clay, 
 Earth and fire and water, all 
 
 Are voices of the Great. 
 
 All who saw the great bo\vl which Suta had 
 made were filled with wonder, and they wanted 
 her to make something for them. Then the great 
 idea came to Wang. Now Wang was not so 
 strong as Ang or so good a hunter, but he wanted 
 just as much to eat and just as warm furs to wear. 
 He liked better to sit talking with some crony, in 
 the shade in summer or by the fire in winter. 
 Talking and sitting were the two things of which 
 he never tired. Now when the world was young 
 such men went hungry and cold, and Wang had 
 done so often, and, more 's the pity, Suta and little 
 Sut; but then came the idea. Every one wanted 
 Suta's clay dishes ; he wanted deer's meat and bear's, 
 26
 
 THE FIRST POTTER 
 
 and furs, and the choicest seeds and nuts. He would 
 barter the things which Suta made for the things 
 lie wanted. Suta would do the work ; others would 
 bring food anoTurs and fruits ; he would sit in 
 front of the cave and give as little of the first 
 for as much of the second as possible. And the 
 idea worked. Suta loved to mold the plastic clay 
 and decorate it. Many wanted the things which she 
 had made, and Wang's wily tongue multiplied the 
 number of those who were willing to pay for what 
 they wanted. 
 
 So Wang became the father of a long line of 
 traders, and the Wang family had more food than 
 they could eat and more furs than they could wear, 
 and Wang grew thick in the belly and thin in the 
 calf, but it suited him, and Suta was too busy 
 with her clay to care. At least she said nothing. 
 And Wang^jhe trader became almost as great a 
 man as Ang the priest. 
 
 And Oma, wife of Ang, grew envious of Suta, 
 wife of Wang. And she grumbled to Ang: " Did 
 not you find the Red One and bring Wang and 
 Suta so that they should not perish from the cold? 
 Have you not fed them with meat of your own 
 hunting? Did not I learn from the Red One how 
 to harden and mold the clay? Did I not show 
 Suta? Do I not work harder than she? Am I not 
 a better cook? Can I not make better coats of 
 fur? But see, little Sut has finer furs than Om 
 and is fatter. And all who come now pass by our 
 cave, except at the great feasts, or when they are 
 27
 
 AROUND THE FTRE 
 
 sick and in trouble, and go to talk with Wang and 
 look at Suta. Is she so much better to look at 
 than Oma? " 
 
 But Ang comforted her with wisdom that had 
 come from long broodings under the shadow of the 
 Keeper of Secrets. ' The Giver has differing gifts. 
 To the fire he gives one, to the water another, to 
 the earth another. To Suta he gave the love of 
 beauty; to you he gave the love of doing and 
 making; and the joy of doing is greater than the 
 joy of having. To each her gifts as the Great One 
 wills. And I would rather be the man of Oma 
 than of Suta." So Oma was comforted, though she 
 often sighed wistfully as she saw men and women 
 go by to the cave of Wang or watched Suta deftly 
 mold some new thought into the yielding clay. 
 
 28
 
 THE FIRST GANG
 
 I
 
 III. THE FIRST GANG 
 
 THE years went by, and Om and Sut were 
 almost men. They had trapped the smaller 
 animals, now and then shooting a deer with their 
 arrows or driving one into a pitfall. But now they 
 aspired to bigger game. They wanted to sit with 
 the men about the campfire, to be treated by the 
 women, and especially by the girls of their own age, 
 as if they were grown up. And there was just one 
 way to demonstrate to the satisfaction of all that 
 they had arrived at man's estate, and that was to 
 prove themselves hunters strong enough and cunning 
 enough to match their wits and weapons against 
 the strength and fury of the bear and the wild 
 buffalo. 
 
 They spent long days in the woods together plan- 
 ning and contriving. They provided themselves 
 with bows of the strongest and arrows of the sharp- 
 est, with saw-edged knives, lances, and stone axes. 
 For hours they shot at a mark, taking turns and 
 criticizing each other's shooting and handling of 
 the bow. Sometimes the men found them and 
 smiled at them indulgently. But the women and 
 girls laughed and jibed at the boys and pretended 
 to be very much alarrjied at the idea of two smooth- 
 31
 
 AROUND THE F1UE 
 
 faced boys going hunting alone in tlie woods. That 
 made the boys work all the harder and keep more 
 and more by themselves. 
 
 Now in a valley, some distance away, there was 
 a herd of wild buffalo, the most dreaded of all the 
 wild beasts. The bear was ugly only when hungry 
 or wounded. The leopards rarely attacked men in 
 the daylight and in the open. Even the wolves 
 did not like to fight men unless they could take 
 them at a disadvantage. But the buffalo bulls 
 seemed to have in their breasts the concentrated fury 
 of all the savage creatures of the wild. They feared 
 nothing. Their thick hide and powerful muscles 
 defended their vital parts from the arrows and spears 
 of men. They would charge at sight, and when 
 their keen eyes did not detect their enemies their 
 sensitive nostrils did. The only possibility of escape 
 was to climb the nearest tree, and sometimes the 
 mad bull would lie in wait at the foot of the 
 tree till the man dropped from cold or exhaustion. 
 Many men had been already killed. Even the 
 boldest and the hardiest rarely ventured near the 
 buffalo valley. The boys were warned from it as 
 from sure death. 
 
 For that reason, perhaps, it had a peculiar fasci- 
 nation for Om and Sut. They talked about it and 
 dreamed about it. They climbed hills from which 
 they could look down into it. They never forgot 
 the time when they first saw the herd in the dis- 
 tance, the bulls feeding on the outside, the cows 
 and calves on the inside. Now and then some young 
 32
 
 THE FIRST GANG 
 
 bull would get too bold and rouse the anger of 
 one of the kings of the herd and there would be 
 a terrible battle. When the dust hid the lighters 
 from the boys' sight, they could hear the terrible 
 bellovvings. 
 
 As time went on, buffalo valley had a greater 
 and greater attraction for the boys. They ventured 
 nearer and nearer. They lay on the bluffs over- 
 looking the Valley and boasted to each other how 
 they would kill a bullock and carry it back to their 
 cave homes ; and they imagined how envious the men 
 . and boys who had been afraid would be and how 
 humble the girls. 
 
 But one day they ventured a little too near, and 
 a stray bullock caught sight of the boys and im- 
 mediately charged. Each boy climbed a tree with 
 a swiftness which did credit to his bringing up, and 
 there they stayed hour after hour during the long 
 day, the bull watching them from blood-red eyes. 
 Now and then he would stroll away to browse and 
 drink, but at the slightest movement would dash 
 back to the foot of the trees where the boys roosted. 
 As night came on, the boys grew colder and colder 
 and hungrier and hungrier. They remembered 
 tke men who had gone into the buffalo valley and 
 never come back, and they wished they were at 
 home, even though the girls did laugh at them and 
 they had to sit back of the men at the fire. 
 
 Finally they escaped, but by good fortune, not 
 by any prowess of their own. A great bear came 
 out of the wood, looking for something to fill his 
 33
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 empty stomach. He had missed a deer as it came 
 to drink. He was tired of roots and ants' nests. 
 He wanted meat good red meat and plenty of 
 it. When he saw the bullock, he hesitated for a 
 moment, for big as he was he usually passed bulls 
 by. A fight with one was such uncertain business, 
 and even if he killed the bull the appetite was 
 likely to be killed too. But the bear was very 
 big and the bullock not very large and he was out 
 of sorts and he hesitated too long. The bull spied 
 him and charged instantly. The bear stood on his 
 hind feet like a great boxer. As the bull struck 
 him, he gave him a blow with his great paw which 
 would have broken the neck of any other animal 
 and buried his great fangs in his shoulder. But the 
 bull's sharp horns pierced the chest of the bear and 
 bore him back to the ground. Deeper and deeper 
 the cruel horns reached, while the claws of the 
 bear tore great strips from the bull's flanks. It was 
 a terrible spectacle, but the boys were too near to 
 enjoy it. Quick as a flash they slid down and ran 
 up the cliffs above them like two monkeys. At 
 the top they stopped, panting for breath, and looked 
 down into the valley. The air was filled with 
 terrible roarings and bellowings. In the dim light 
 they could see a huge brown mass rolling back and 
 forth below them. Now they thought the bear had 
 won and now the bull. 
 
 \S By and by the dark settled down, and nothing 
 could be seen ; the sounds grew fainter and finally 
 all was still. The boys did not dare to go through 
 34
 
 THE FIRST GANG 
 
 the woods in the dark, so they found a bed of 
 leaves and lay down where they were. But there 
 was not much sleeping that night. A leopard's 
 shrill cry woke them from their first doze ; the bay- 
 ing of wolves from the next ; and when a great owl 
 gave his weird wail just above their heads, they 
 gave it up. 
 
 The crackling of twigs told them that they were 
 being hunted by some night prowler. In the dark 
 and with no weapons for they had dropped every- 
 thing but their knives they were at the mercy 
 of any wild beast which discovered their hiding 
 . place. Then Om remembered the fire which had 
 ^ saved his life when a child, the fire which no animal 
 was bold enough to come near. Could he make a 
 fire? The moss upon which they lay was dry. A 
 rough flake of flint which had not been shaped was 
 in his skin pouch and his flint knife was in his 
 belt. He had seen his father call the Red Spirit 
 from the moss by striking flints together. Once or 
 twice he had succeeded in doing it himself, but it 
 was no easy task. Still, there was nothing for it 
 but to try. With trembling hands he gathered the 
 driest of the moss into a little pile and pulled to- 
 gether some dry twigs. Sut got on his knees ready 
 to blow the smallest spark into flame. Om took 
 the flint flake in his left hand and struck it a glanc- 
 ing blow w r ith his knife. A dull spark flew, but did 
 not light the moss. Again and again he tried, but 
 in vain. Meanwhile soft but ominously heavy foot- 
 falls came nearer and nearer. It was now or never. 
 35
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 In desperation he struck a terrific blow which shat- 
 tered the knite in his hand and brought the blood 
 to his battered hand. He saw nothing, but Sut 
 suddenly stooped lower and blew gently and then 
 more strongly. A tiny glow appeared, a wisp of 
 smoke, and then a red flame. Om crouched by the 
 fire, exhausted, speechless, and helpless; but Sut 
 skillfully fed the growing flames till they leaped 
 high, and the hunter in the dark leaped away with 
 great bounds into the deep woods. 
 
 All night the boys sat by the fire, hungry and 
 exhausted, but happy and safe. In the morning 
 they looked down on the open spot below them 
 which had been the scene of the terrible fight of 
 the night before; and there, still locked together 
 by horn and claw and jaw, were the bear and the 
 bull, both defeated or both victorious. A fox came 
 out of the bush and sniffed at the pool of blood in 
 which they lay; a flock of red-eyed buzzards hov- 
 ered in the air above and finally lit on a dead tree 
 near by. 
 
 The boys were looking with mingled awe and 
 delight at the bodies of their savage foes of the 
 day before, when a brilliant thought came to Sut. 
 "Om! The horns and claws! We will take them 
 to the camp, and who will laugh at us then ! " No 
 sooner thought than done. Down the cliff they 
 clambered, forgetful of everything but the coveted 
 trophies. At the foot they found thc-ir weapons 
 where they had dropped them. The fox skulked 
 away, the buzzards screamed and flapped to a little 
 36
 
 THE FIRST GANG 
 
 more distant tree, while the boys hacked off with 
 rude knife and stone bludgeon one of the bear's 
 claws and the horns of the bull. Then they 
 fled up the cliff again and started hot foot for 
 home. 
 
 As they approached the stream by which they 
 lived, Sut began to hasten, but Om went slower 
 and slower. " Hurry, you snail," said Sut, " the 
 women and girls will be pounding the meal and 
 making ready for the men to eat and they will see 
 by these that we are not boys to be laughed at." 
 "But," said Om, "we did not kill them; we ran 
 away." " Oh ! but we don't need to tell all that," 
 said Sut; "hurry up, hurry up! " But Om would 
 not hurry. He went more and more slowly and 
 finally sat down to think it out. The temptation 
 was a very strong one. Perhaps all they would 
 need to do would be to be silent, and it would 
 he very pleasant to be treated like mighty hunters 
 and men. But the trouble was that deep down 
 in their hearts they would know that they had not 
 proved it. 
 
 Then a thought came to Om which settled his 
 uncertainty. If it had not been for Odin who 
 sent the bear to fight the bull, and sent the Red 
 One at the prayer of the flints to drive away the 
 leopard, they would not be here and there would 
 be no story to tell. Then he remembered that his 
 father had said that the Great One loved truth as 
 he loved light. He turned to Sut with all his inde- 
 cision gone. "We will tell the truth! We will 
 37
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 not win the man-right by telling a lie." Sut grum- 
 bled a little, but yielded as he always did to the 
 stronger will of Om. 
 
 ^When the boys came to the river bank, there was 
 a great shout, and all went out to meet them, for the 
 villagers had grown anxious at their long absence. 
 And they were pleased that no one laughed at them, 
 not even the girls. As the boys were being fed, they 
 told the story of their adventures amid the eager 
 questionings of the home group. The horns of the 
 bull and the paws of the bear were passed about, 
 and the older men told how large the bear must 
 have been from the size of the paw. Then they 
 told stories of bears which they had seen and fights 
 of many kinds in the forest till Om and Sut were 
 all but forgotten. But Om was pleased to notice 
 that his father looked at him with quiet approval 
 in his eyes, and he heard him say to Oma: " Our 
 son will be a great hunter, for his feet are swift 
 and his hands are strong, and his head is chief over 
 them all, and more than that, he is beloved by the 
 Great One." And Om was glad. 
 
 For a while the boys brooded over their adventure 
 and kept away from the buffalo valley. But the 
 horns and the great claws kept reminding them, 
 and again all their hunting trips seemed to lead 
 towards the dangerous valley. Oma had tried to 
 make Om promise that he would not go there 
 again, but Ang had said : " Do not make him prom- 
 ise. He must prove his man-right as we all have 
 done, and the Great One loves him." 
 38
 
 THE FIRST GANG 
 
 Finally Om said to Sut : " We cannot escape the 
 call of the death valley. Something tells me that 
 we will either leave our bones there or win our man- 
 right. I have been thinking it over, . and it seems 
 to me that one of the reasons why so many men 
 have lost their lives there is that they have not used 
 their brains and they have not worked together. 
 Why should n't we be the first to do it? My idea is 
 this. We will get together ten boys of our own 
 age and we will have only those who will promise 
 under the sacred oak tree to hunt together and 
 not each for himself. Then we will choose one 
 who shall be to the others as the head is to the 
 hands and feet. All shall obey him. When we 
 have learned to work together, we will go where 
 the cliffs which overlook the buffalo valley draw 
 together, and we will pile great stones where a 
 push will send them crashing down. Trfen we will 
 keep watch, and some time when the wind blows 
 up the valley and the herd is well up to where the 
 cliffs are too steep to climb, where they come 
 together like two streams, we will pray to the Fire 
 Spirit and take burning brands from the fire and 
 light the tall dead grass at the opening of the val- 
 ley. Six will start from one side and six from the 
 other, and we must outrun the deer. The buffalo 
 will run from the wall of fire farther and farther 
 up into the narrow part of the valley, and when 
 they are bunched together like fish in a trap we will 
 hurl down great stones and shoot our arrows, and 
 there will be meat enough for all the men of the 
 39
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 north country, and every cave shall have its buffalo 
 skin at the going in." 
 
 So Om and Sut got the other boys together with 
 great secrecy, and every one was made to take the 
 oath of loyalty to the gang under the sacred oak. 
 And Sut was chosen Chief, because he was the best 
 talker. Om could make the plans and carry them 
 out, but Sut could explain them to others so that 
 they would understand and want to carry them out. 
 In the working of the thing Sut did most of the 
 talking, but he always kept his eye on Om and did 
 what Om wanted, and when it came to doing things 
 Om was leader. 
 
 For weeks the clan scouted the valley, often 
 having hairbreadth escapes when they ventured too 
 near. It seemed as if the wind would never he 
 in the right direction when the herd was at the 
 small end of the runway. But the delay was a 
 good thing. The boys learned to hang together and 
 obey the commands of their chief. One boy nearly 
 lost his life by disobeying, but the lesson was 
 learned, and the gang hung together as no boys 
 had ever done since the man-story began. 
 
 At last the day came when the look-out reported 
 the herd well up in the narrow end of the valley 
 and the wind blowing up. Nothing was said, but 
 by common consent Om was leader for the day. 
 He sent Sut and five other boys to the south, while 
 he and five more went to the north. Each gang 
 was to build a fire where the smoke would not blow 
 \ip the valley, and dry torch sticks were made ready 
 40
 
 THE FIRST GANG 
 
 to light. At midday, when a spear driven into the 
 ground cast no shadow, Om shot an arrow high 
 into the air. Each boy seized a torch from the fire 
 and dashed across the mouth of the valley, lighting 
 the dry grass as he ran. 
 
 It was a wild rush. Never had the boys run 
 as they ran that day. In the years after, they 
 told the tale to their children and grandchildren 
 and they set the pace faster with each telling. In 
 less time than it takes to tell, the boys had spread 
 their net of fire and the wind was drawing it for 
 them. 
 
 When the boys reached the cliffs, the frightened 
 herd was already crowding up into the narrow end 
 of the wedge-shaped valley, fleeing in terror from 
 the pursuing wall of fire. Then the boys rolled 
 the great stones down upon the seething mass below 
 them ; shooting their arrows till the supply was 
 exhausted. The maddened buffaloes trampled on 
 and gored each other until scarcely more than half 
 the herd escaped alive. 
 
 The young hunters, exhausted but triumphant, 
 danced along the ledges, filling the air with savage 
 yells. 
 
 The next thing was to send word to the scattered 
 homes. Three boys were left to keep watch, and 
 the rest ran as if running a race to carry the 
 news of the feast that was waiting for all who 
 would come. 
 
 Before night every man, woman, and child within 
 a distance of twenty miles was on the spot. Old 
 41
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 suspicions were forgotten and old grudges ignored, 
 for the time being, at legist. A great fire was built, 
 and the men stripped the hides from the dead 
 buffaloes and the women rolled them up to carry 
 away for tanning. One of the largest of the bulls 
 was dragged to the fire and roasted whole. Far into 
 the night they worked and feasted. Finally, as they 
 stretched themselves about the fire, exhausted but 
 satisfied, Ang spoke: 
 
 " I have seen the Cold Spirits come and go many 
 times, but I have never seen so many men together 
 as now. Men have not been like the wolves who 
 hunt in packs or like the buffaloes which feed in 
 droves or like the ducks and geese which come 
 and go in flocks. Each man, with his mate, has 
 lived apart like the bear or the lion. There have 
 been fear and hatred between us because each man 
 feared that some other man would spoil his hunt 
 or rob his traps. And we have lived far apart. 
 To-night we sit about the same fire as some of 
 us have sat before at the feasts of the Great One. 
 As I look into the fire, into the cave of the Red 
 One within it, I see that whenever men come to- 
 gether to hunt, to feast, and there is no hatred in 
 their hearts, it is a feast of Odin. I have told you 
 many times before of the will of him whose voice 
 I am as I watch the tongues of flame. It is his 
 will that men learn to live together. These boys 
 have heard the whisper in the heart which we have 
 not heard. They have killed more buffaloes since 
 the sun rose this morning than we have done in all 
 42
 
 THE FIRST GANG 
 
 our lives and our fathers before tis. They have 
 not come to their full strength ; they have not 
 learned to shoot as far or as straight as we have 
 done, but together they have done what no one of 
 us could do." 
 
 Then Ang picked some long grasses from a tuft 
 beside him and took out a single one. Holding it 
 where all could see, he snapped it as if it were a 
 spider's web ; then he put two together and snapped 
 them ; afterward more and more until he had twisted 
 a rope of grass which the strongest man could not 
 break. He passed it about the circle, and each 
 tried in vain to break it. Then Ang took it and 
 held it high above his head where all could see, 
 the women and boys as well as the men. ' The 
 single grass which the child can break is man 
 alone ; this rope of twisted grass is man united." 
 
 A shout of assent broke from the group: " It is 
 the will of the Great Spirit." Then Wang, who 
 had been restless in his place, leaped to his feet: 
 " If we are to hunt together like the wolf, we must 
 learn from him. Each pack has its head which all 
 the others obey. When the geese fly to the south, 
 a great bird who is wise always leads the flock. Let 
 us learn from the beasts and the birds. Who shall 
 be our chief? " 
 
 They all looked at Ang, and some one said, 
 " Let Ang be our chief." But Ang shook his head : 
 " I have told you for many years the will of Odin. 
 I will do so still as I see it in the fire or hear it 
 in the whisper to the heart, but my eyes do not 
 43
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 see as they did, my feet are not so swift in the 
 chase, or my hands so strong at the kill. The head 
 of the wolf pack is the strongest and the most cun- 
 ning, not the oldest. The whisper within tells me 
 that it is not time to choose a chief to-night. He 
 must be proven first." 
 
 The men looked about on each other and knew 
 that the words of Ang were wise. There was no 
 one that they could all follow without question. 
 The time to choose had not come yet. It came 
 when But that is a tale for another telling. 
 \C Then Om and Sut and the boys who had fol- 
 lowed them were brought into the men's circle 
 by the fire, and they told the story of how they 
 had trapped the buffalo. It was Sut who told the 
 story, and his eyes shone like stars and his voice 
 bubbled like the brook. As he talked on, Wang 
 would wag his head now and then, as much as to 
 say: "See! like father, like son." The girls lis- 
 tened eagerly to Sut, but the older ones looked at 
 Om, who sat a little back where the light did not 
 shine so brightly on his face, and nodded their 
 heads and said to each other, " Some day, perhaps, 
 if the Great One wills." 
 
 From that time on men began to do things 
 together as they had never done before. They 
 hunted together and fished together. Groups of 
 related and friendly families lived near, in favored 
 spots, as Ang and Wang had done. And they had 
 more to eat and more to wear. Fewer lost their 
 lives in hunting the more dangerous animals. The 
 44
 
 THE FIRST GANG 
 
 women and children were safer in the little vil- 
 lages than they had been in their lonely caves and 
 huts. 
 
 And Om and Sut were remembered in the sagas 
 of the tribe as those who taught men how to live 
 together. 
 
 45
 
 THE FIRST CHIEF
 
 IV. THE FIRST CHIEF 
 
 THE years went by, and Om and Sut and their 
 fellows became men. Their muscles hardened 
 and the beard came upon their faces, and when 
 they spoke at the council fire older men listened. 
 They had grown more strong and more cunning. 
 They had learned to hunt together so well that 
 no one was hungry or without warm skins for his 
 back and his bed. Some of them had taken mates 
 from the girls who had ceased to laugh at them 
 after the great slaughter at Death Valley. But 
 Om and Sut seemed to be enough for each other. 
 Day and night they were always together. 
 
 Oma grew anxious and said : " The years go by and 
 you take no mate. It is not the man custom. There 
 are many girls. I will choose one." But Om shook 
 his head. " When Freya shows me one like Oma, 
 but not before." And the mother could say no more. 
 
 One year, as the cold grew stronger, disturbing 
 rumors came to the village of Angwang. Some 
 young hunters who had gone far to the east had 
 seen fires at night a long way off. The next night 
 the fires had been nearer. Then Ang remembered 
 that his father had told him that many days' jour- 
 ney to the sun-rising there were other men not like 
 49
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 themselves. Their hair was black, coarse, and 
 straight, their cheek bones high and wide, and they 
 hunted men as well as beasts. They killed the 
 men and the children and took away the women. 
 They came like the great tempest and left none 
 behind to tell whence they came or whither they 
 had gone. By a common instinct all the scattered 
 families and groups gathered at Angwang. Men 
 feared to go far to hunt. The terror of the dreaded 
 foes grew greater, and food began to grow more 
 scarce. Ang called the men together to take coun- 
 sel. They did not dare build a fire, for fear it 
 should be seen. 
 
 " The time has come," said Ang, " for the men 
 to have a chief. Who shall he be? " " Let the one 
 who can save us from the red men be our chief," 
 cried some one. Many talked, and many at the 
 same time, but no one seemed to know what 
 to do, and the fear grew. At last Om, who had 
 been silent, stood up, and all listened. " I have been 
 silent because I am not so wise as many of you. 
 I speak now, not because I am wiser than the old 
 men, but because I am freer. I have no women or 
 children in my cave to starve or be fed by others 
 if I am killed. I and some who are like me will 
 go and see who these men are whose terror has 
 fallen upon us till we shake like the rushes by the 
 river bank when the wind blows upon them. Who 
 will go with me ? " 
 
 Sut and Lack rose and joined Om, and together 
 they slipped away in the darkness. They stopped 
 50
 
 OM, THE CHIEF 
 
 under the sacred oak to make tlicir plans. They 
 would travel by night and watch from hill tops 
 and high trees by day and learn what these men 
 from the east were like and what they wanted. 
 
 They provided themselves with three days' food 
 and their finest weapons. Under the leadership of 
 Om they journeyed all night and part of the next 
 day toward the east, but saw nothing. After a 
 few hours' rest they kept on through most of the 
 second night. On the morning of the second day 
 they reached the top of the Black Hills, and from 
 the highest peaks they could see still another day's 
 journey to the east. At first nothing could be 
 seen but the wide expanse of forest, threaded here 
 and there by streams, with occasional meadows by 
 the river banks. 
 
 As the mist gradually lifted, they studied with 
 care each meadow opening. The dim haze of morn- 
 ing gave way to the full blaze of day, and still their 
 searching eyes found nothing to arouse suspicion. 
 
 But finally Om, whose eyes were the keenest of 
 the three, saw on the edge of one of the farthest 
 meadows what appeared to be a herd of buffaloes or 
 possibly wild horses. After examining them as care- 
 fully as possible, he noticed that they did not seem 
 to move about as. a group of wild animals would do 
 if feeding. Then he thought he saw smaller objects 
 moving in and among the herd. What could they 
 be? If they were men, surely the buffaloes or 
 wild horses would not let them move about among 
 them in that way. 
 
 51
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 At last the moving in and out stopped and the 
 herd began to advance, going in single file like 
 wolves. More strange still, on the back of each 
 animal there seemed to be a moving hump. The 
 three young men looked at each other with ques- 
 tioning and dread. What could these strange ani- 
 mals be? " If they were only men, I would not 
 mind," said Sut. " Let us go back and consult 
 with the wise ones," said Lack, whom the fear of 
 the unknown was gripping. But Om shook his 
 head : " It is for us to find out and not for the 
 wise ones at the village. I will go forward and 
 find out what these strange animals are. If I do 
 not return by the next sunrise, Lack will go back 
 to the village. If I do not return by nightfall of 
 the same day, Sut will return also, and may Odin 
 help you." 
 
 They tried in vain to persuade Om to go back 
 with them or at least to wait until they could see 
 more from their lookout. " If I wait," said Om, 
 " it may be too late to warn the villagers if it 
 is the red men in disguise." So he took his share 
 of the food, and having fixed the directions in his 
 mind by studying the sun, the slant of the shadows, 
 and the direction of the wind, he slipped down the 
 hill-side and vanished into the forest. Sut and Lack 
 watched him anxiously. Their fears grew, after 
 Om had left, and if it had not been for their 
 love for Om and their dread of what would be 
 said if they returned alone, they would have fled 
 from the mystery they dreaded. It was Sut who 
 52
 
 OM, THE CHIEF 
 
 finally said, " If Om can go on, we can at least stay 
 the appointed time." So they settled down to that 
 hardest of all tasks, waiting, when the fever of 
 unrest is in the blood and the legs twitch to be 
 going. 
 
 Meanwhile Om was making his way through 
 the trackless forest with the skill of one born in 
 the wild. In the excitement of rapid motion his 
 fears left him. He picked his way by the slant of 
 the light, by the moss on the trees. Sometimes he 
 climbed a tree to test the wind and see if he could 
 catch some guiding object. His plan was to strike 
 the river on whose banks the meadow lay and then 
 follow it. If the strange animals or men were 
 coming east, they would follow the stream. At the 
 very thought of them a chill of fear crept up to 
 the roots of his hair. Hour after hour passed. 
 He took a little of the food which he carried and 
 drank often at the numerous brooks. A leopard 
 in the tree top glared at him and was about to 
 spring, but Om was gone before it made up its 
 mind. Then a big bear sniffed at his track and 
 the leopard decided that it had other business. Now 
 and then a pair of timber wolves would follow his 
 trail for a short distance, but they were full-fed and 
 they did not altogether like the strange man-smell. 
 
 It was not until almost nightfall that Om reached 
 the banks of the river. Exhausted with the day's 
 journey and the excitement, he decided to find a 
 sheltered place where he could see and not be seen, 
 and wait. If the dreaded ones were coming this 
 53
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 way, he would gain nothing by going to meet them. 
 So he found a bluff which overlooked a small 
 meadow by the river bank and lay down to rest 
 and watch. Overcome by fatigue, he fell asleepr, 
 but was awakened by strange noises, just as the sun- 
 light was leaving the tree tops. Some heavy animals 
 were crashing through the woods and drawing near 
 the meadow. There were hoarse cries men's 
 voices, but unlike any that he had ever heard. He 
 peered out through his screen of ferns and looked 
 in fear and dread at the fringe of the forest from 
 whence the "strange noises came. 
 
 The crashing and shouting grew louder and 
 louder, the boughs parted, and there came out upon 
 the open a man a red man with black hair. 
 Om shuddered at the size of him and his savage 
 look. Behind him, led by a rope of twisted grasses, 
 was a horse, such as Om had sometimes seen on 
 distant plains, wilder even than the deer; but this 
 horse followed the man as a child follows its mother. 
 Behind the first man came another, and another, 
 each leading a horse. On the backs of some of 
 the horses were lashed skins and strange dishes 
 and weapons. Man followed man until it seemed 
 as if the whole meadow was filled with the most 
 savage-looking group Om had ever seen. Even 
 the men whom he had beheld in his troubled 
 dreams as a child had not been so terrible. Last 
 of all there came out of the wood a horse which 
 was also led, and on its back was Om rubbed his 
 eyes and looked again a woman, though she was 
 54
 
 OM, THE CHIEF 
 
 not a red woman. It was too dark to see clearly, 
 but her hair was not straight like that of the red 
 men, but waved like the water when the wind 
 blows upon it gently. 
 
 The horse on which the woman rode was led to 
 the very center of the meadow, and as the woman 
 was taken down Om could see that her hands were 
 tied behind her with thongs. Some of the men 
 made a rough bed of skins and placed the woman 
 upon it. Then they untied her hands and tied 
 her feet together instead. Om wondered why they 
 needed to take such pains to keep one woman 
 amongst so many men. Then they brought food 
 and made a rough screen of skins about her. 
 
 The men tied their horses where they could 
 feed on the grass of the meadow and ate from 
 something which they carried in skin bags on the 
 backs of their horses, and then they lay down to 
 sleep on piles of leaves. 
 
 At , last all was still and dark, and Om lay 
 and thought and thought. These were the red 
 men who hunted for men. They came from far 
 because the four feet of their horses could carry 
 them and their burdens. But they must have come 
 from a country where there were many meadows 
 and not so many trees. Here a man could travel 
 faster than any animal with four feet except the 
 wolf. Why should these men of the plains tear 
 their way through the woods? And the woman 
 with the hair like Oma's, with hands tied? What 
 did it all mean? Om could not read the riddle, 
 55
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 but some things were plain. The red men were 
 going straight to the village of his people. In 
 three days, or four at the most, they would be there, 
 and what could his people do against these men? 
 They must be stopped before they came to the vil- 
 lage. With the horses there was only one way 
 that they could get through the hills, and that 
 was by a narrow pass through which ran one of 
 the brooks to feed the stream by which they were 
 camped. The red men must be stopped there. But 
 how could it be done ? The pass was a day's jour- 
 ney; the village three hard days. He could not 
 stop them alone. 
 
 As he lay and thought, a desperate plan came to 
 him. The horses were tethered together at one 
 end of the meadow. He remembered that the 
 ground was soft and the stakes were not driven in 
 very deeply. If he could frighten the horses, they 
 might bolt and pull their tether stakes and be 
 lost in the woods. That might delay the red men 
 till he could send word to the village and get help. 
 
 Om crept down from his hiding place and crawled 
 like a fox towards the horses. Every now and then 
 his ears caught the stealthy sounds of other creepers, 
 and he wondered whether he might not feel their 
 fangs in his neck before he had accomplished his 
 purpose. Sometimes he saw yellow eyes in the 
 dark, but the Great One must have been with 
 him, for nothing harmed him. At last he got near 
 the horses, who were snorting uneasily, afraid of 
 the things they had heard and smelled in the dark 
 56
 
 OM, THE CHIEF 
 
 about them. Waiting till all was quiet, Om dashed 
 at the horses, with blood-curdling yells, which 
 seemed to combine all the most dreaded noises of 
 the wood, the shriek of the hyena, and the cry of 
 the gray wolf as he leaps upon his prey. 
 
 In an instant all was confusion. The horses, 
 with wild snorts of terror, bolted. The shouts of 
 the men only added to their fear, and they dashed 
 into the woods. Om did not wait to hear what 
 the red men would do. Sight was impossible, as 
 the night was moonless and there was no fire. As 
 fast as possible he groped his way along the river's 
 bank, now falling over roots and tangled vines, and 
 now splashing through the haunts of the deadly 
 watersnakes. He had no time to think of any 
 other enemies than the red men. It might be that 
 the hidden enemies of the wood and water would 
 forget their hatred of man for to-night. At any 
 rate he must get on, get on! 
 
 The night was like a black dream, long drawn 
 out. Sometimes Om wondered dully if he had not 
 dreamed it all. But as the morning light began 
 to filter into the darkness of the wood, Om's brain 
 cleared and he went faster and faster. If the full 
 strength of man when men were young had not 
 been his, he would have fallen by the way. 
 
 When it was light enough to see, he climbed a 
 tree and looked off. The stream had led him right. 
 The hills loomed above him. He was almost at 
 the pass through which the red men must go if they 
 went west. 
 
 57
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 As he came into the narrow gorge, he noted with 
 satisfaction how the rocks rose up straight on either 
 side. The men would have to go in wolf-file. Then 
 his people on the rocks above would hurl down 
 great stones and crush them as the bullocks had 
 been crushed in Death Valley. 
 
 Before the sun had climbed so high that the 
 tree trunks cast no shadow, Om reached the spot 
 where Sut and Lack were anxiously waiting. Lack 
 was sent hot foot to the village to bring the men 
 to guard the pass, while the others remained to 
 watch. 
 
 While Om had been gone, Sut had set some 
 snares for the wild hares which were very numer- 
 ous, so that the young men had food for several 
 days and could give their undivided attention to 
 the pass. Om went to the eastern entrance and 
 Sut to the other end, and they rolled all the loose 
 stones which they could find to the edge of the cliffs 
 so that they could be pushed down on the red men. 
 
 It was strenuous and exhausting labor, and 
 anxious fears made it even harder. Notwith- 
 standing the fierce labor of pushing the great stones 
 into position, the hours seemed to drag with snails' 
 feet. Every moment they expected to hear the din 
 of the coming of the red men, but night came at 
 last and there was no sign of them. By morning 
 the villagers would be there, if Lack had been swift 
 and the men courageous. Om was so exhausted by 
 the sleepless night and the terrific labors of the 
 day that he fell asleep as soon as the shadows began 
 58
 
 OM, THE CHIEF 
 
 to fall. Sut found him lying on a moss-covered 
 rock and thought him dead at first. Remembering 
 how long he had been without sleep and how much 
 he would need strength on the morrow, Sut let him 
 sleep and kept his lonely watch. As for himself, 
 sleep was out of the question! Every nerve, was 
 tense and every sense alert. The crackling of a 
 dry twig warned him of the stealthy movement of 
 some wild animal, but he dared not light a fire. 
 He leaped to his feet and grasped his stone axe 
 at the sudden hoot of an owl. 
 
 As the darkest of the night passed and gave way 
 to the dull gray of morning, Sut also fell asleep, 
 and the two young men lay as motionless as if 
 carved from the rock on which they slept. They 
 saw nothing, heard nothing. They did not hear 
 the crunch of approaching footsteps; they did not 
 see the face which finally looked out through the 
 screen of a near-by thicket a face which appeared 
 and disappeared in a most mysterious manner. 
 
 The light grew brighter and still the men slept, 
 when a woman, stepped out of the thicket and 
 sprang lightly upon the rock on which they lay. 
 She was scantily clothed in a loose tunic of deerskin 
 which was torn from struggling with the thickets 
 of the forest. Her bare arms and ankles .were 
 terribly scratched and bleeding; her hair, though 
 she had evidently tried to braid it, hung in wild 
 disorder about her face. She stepped upon the 
 rock as lightly as a leopard and stooped down and 
 studied the faces of the sleepers. First she studied 
 59
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 the face of Sut, but turned with a shake of her 
 head to Om. She leaned over him so long and 
 looked so steadily that Oma might have feared for 
 her son if she could have seen. At last, apparently 
 satisfied with what she saw in the face of Om, she 
 kneeled down, and with her face close to his, blew 
 gently on his closed eyes. Om stirred and then 
 opened his eyes and lay perfectly still, looking 
 up into the face of the woman eyes blue as the 
 sky, hair yellow gold like the grass of the river 
 meadows before the snow comes. It was like the 
 face oi Oma, only younger and more beautiful ; 
 it was the face which he had seen in his dreams 
 and which had made the faces of all the women 
 of his tribe seem ugly. It must be a dream, but 
 no, she breathed, the drops of morning dew were 
 on her hair; her eyes questioned him, challenged 
 him; he had never been able to see the eyes of 
 the dream woman. The blood leaped in his veins 
 and he knew that lie was not dreaming. She 
 had come at last, the woman for whom he 
 waited. 
 
 As he rose to his feet, the woman drew back, 
 putting her fingers to her lips to signal silence. 
 She pointed with her bleeding hands to the east 
 and shook her clenched fists as if at some invisible 
 enemy. She pointed to the marks of thongs of 
 rawhide which had cut into her wrists and ankles 
 and to her bruised feet. Then she knelt by Om's 
 side and put his hand upon her head. At the touch 
 of her hand Om trembled as a leaf trembles in the 
 60
 
 OM, THE CHIEF 
 
 breeze, and then he stood straight as a young fir and 
 raised his free hand towards the rising sun. This 
 was his woman! The Great Spirit had sent her to 
 him. He shook himself like a young buffalo sig 
 is lair. He seized his stone axe and waved 
 
 it above his head; now his strength should be as 
 the strength of ten. 
 
 But the woman still knelt. Om looked down 
 on her, and the tide of love and pity rose till it 
 seemed as if it would choke him. He lifted her 
 gently to her feet and made her sit on a cushion 
 of moss. He brought her some of the hare's meat 
 which they had saved, and watched her eat it hun- 
 grily. Then he brought water from a spring in 
 his cupped hands and bathed her poor bruised feet, 
 (crooning over her like a mother over her first born^ 
 And the woman followed his every motion with 
 her eyes as a dog follows those of his master. Not 
 a word was spoken, but in the childhood of the 
 race lip language was 'less needed than now. 
 
 Om did not need to be told. This was the 
 woman whom the red men had carried as a cap- 
 tive. She had escaped. She was his. No man, 
 red or white, should take her from him. He stood 
 before her and pointing to himself said, " Om," 
 and the woman repeated it after him in a voice 
 which was as sweet as the love song of the wood 
 thrush, and pointing to herself said, " Ulma." 
 " Ulma," breathed Om in a voice so low that it 
 did not waken Su1j(but it had in it both a claim 
 and a challenge.^ For the moment Om forgot all 
 61
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 but Ulma. She was the first to remember. She 
 leaped to her feet and pointed to the mouth of the 
 pass. Men the red men were already filing 
 slowly out of the woods and approaching. In a 
 Hash Om was the fighting man ready to give his 
 life for his tribe and his mate. He roughly wakened 
 Sut, told him who Ulma was, and pointed to 
 the red men entering the pass. A single look at 
 them was sufficient to drive all other thoughts away. 
 Even in the dim light it was easy to see what 
 kind of men they were. They were wolf men, 
 cruel, relentless, hunting in packs and fearing 
 nothing. 
 
 So intent were they that they did not notice the 
 approach of Lack and the villagers till they were 
 almost upon them. Every man who could carry a 
 weapon and could make the journey was there. 
 Ang was there, and even Wang, though he puffed 
 and panted and had not breath left to speak. Noth- 
 ing was said, but Om was recognized as leader by 
 common consent. Under his direction the villagers 
 took their place at the narrowest part of the pass, 
 piled great rocks along the edge of the cliff, and 
 waited for the coming of the red men. 
 
 At last they came, all unconscious of the nearness 
 of an enemy. They came slowly, for they had to 
 carry burdens which before had been carried by 
 their horses, and they were evidently in a very 
 ugly mood. As they stumbled along, their leader 
 lashed them with his tongue and sometimes with 
 a rawhide whip which he carried. When they 
 62
 
 OM, THE CHIEF 
 
 arrived at a spot where the sides of the pass came 
 so near to each other that a man could almost 
 leap across, Om gave the signal, and the villagers, 
 with a terrible war-cry, hurled the rocks down 
 upon the red men. They ran forward, they ran 
 back, they huddled together, but there was no es- 
 caping the terrible hail of stones. No thought of 
 mercy entered the minds of the villagers. They 
 were fighting for their homes, their women, and 
 their children. 
 
 At last the shouting and groaning ceased. The 
 crash of the hurtling stones was followed by no 
 human cries. Nothing could be heard but the 
 complaining of the brook and the hoarse cries of 
 the vultures who were gathering from far and near 
 in answer to the call of blood. 
 
 The blood lust was hot in the veins of the vil- 
 lagers, and forgetting the exhaustion of their long 
 journey and the labors of the morning, they clam- 
 bered down the sides of the pass to exult over the 
 dead bodies of their enemies and to strip them 
 of their weapons; and Om and Ulma found them- 
 selves alone with Ang upon the top of the cliff. 
 In some mysterious way Ulma had found time and 
 the means to braid her hair and wash the blood 
 stains from her face and hands. Om thought with 
 pride that no woman whom he had ever known, ex- 
 cept his mother, would have done so. Taking 
 Ulma's hand in his, he led her to his father: " Tin- 
 Great One has sent her to me. I slept, and when 
 I awoke she had come with the light of the sun. 
 64
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 She was captive to the red men, but she escaped 
 when their horses ran into the deep woods. She 
 is my woman ; I will take her to my cave and she 
 shall be to me what Oma has been to thee." 
 
 As Ang saw the young man, now taller than 
 himself by half a head and more powerful than 
 any man of his tribe, his breast swelled with pride. 
 There was none like him among all the men of 
 his race. And the face showed something finer 
 than mere brute force. Thought had already be- 
 gun to shape the features to finer mold, and love had 
 softened and refined them. At last the Great 
 Giver had sent a chief whom men could obey and 
 love, and he was the son of Oma. His thought 
 went back to the bitter winter before the gift of 
 fire. This young giant was then a tiny child, 
 withering before the cold breath of the snow demon. 
 Surely the ways of Odin were wonderful. 
 
 Then he turned to Ulma with jealous questioning 
 in his eye. Who was she? Was she worthy to 
 be the mate of the son of Oma, the beloved of the 
 All-Father? With critical care he studied her face, 
 her form, her bearing, and his look softened. Of 
 slighter build than Om, she was larger than the 
 women of his race. Every line of her lithe body 
 suggested power as well as a certain grace rarely 
 seen among the women of the young world. She 
 was fit to be the mother of chiefs. But his eyes 
 lingered longest on her face. As she looked at Om 
 and then at him, her face shone with love and a 
 prophecy of things to come which stirred the heart 
 65
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 of the priest of the Fire Spirit. In her and in her 
 children should be fulfilled the visions which he 
 had seen so often in the secret cave at the heart 
 of the fire. 
 
 At that moment the sun, which had been slowly 
 climbing the eastern slope of the mountain, looked 
 down upon them. A beam of light touched the 
 heads of the young man and woman with gold and 
 that of the old man with silver. Pointing with his 
 right hand to the sun and raising his left in attitude 
 of benediction, Ang said: "Look, the Great One 
 smiles upon you ; you shall be the children of the 
 Sun. Walk together in the light." 
 
 For a moment they stood in silence under the 
 benediction of the light, the young man and woman 
 thinking of each other, the old man of things to be. 
 Then Ang spoke to Om in a tone which brought 
 him back at once to the realities of the present: 
 " Listen ! The men below us are without a leader 
 they are like wolves, like vultures. Go, lest 
 they forget that they are men and Odin forget 
 them. Leave Ulma with me. I will take her to 
 the cave of Oma and prepare the people for thy 
 coming." 
 
 It was just at nightfall that the victors came 
 into the village of Angwang. Ang had brought 
 the news, and all were ready to receive them. A 
 great fire had been lighted on the altar of the Fire 
 Spirit. At the first shout of the coming men, the 
 women and children filed out of the village to meet 
 them, and lined the path on either side. In front 
 66
 
 OM, THE CHIEF 
 
 of them marched Om and Sut. Om's eyes looked 
 straight before him, forgetful of all but one. Sut 
 beamed on all. 
 
 The men bore on their shoulders the plunder of 
 the red men. There were weapons of strange shape 
 and even stranger material. There were axes and 
 spears of something that was harder than stone and 
 had an edge finer than the sword grass. There 
 were tunics made, not of skins but of cunningly 
 woven fibers. And strangest of all, they led behind 
 them a horse, which followed them as a child 
 follows its mother. That night, as they sat about 
 the fire, the strange weapons and garments were 
 passed from hand to hand. Sut stood upon a rock 
 in the full light of the fire and told the story of 
 the discovery and destruction of the red men, and 
 the story lost nothing in the telling. Om sat 3 
 little in the background with Ulma at his right 
 and Oma at his left, while Ang stood behind them, 
 looking steadfastly at the fire with far-seeing, 
 prophetic eyes. 
 
 After the tale had been told and retold and the 
 curiosity of all satisfied, Wang pushed Sut from 
 his rock platform and made the speech of his life, 
 though he himself wished that he could have made 
 it longer. But that was impossible, for after the 
 first sentence no one listened to him and his voice 
 was drowned in the shouting. In fact, he was even 
 pushed off the platform by some girls who wanted 
 to see all that happened. He would have resented 
 it had he not been so fat. And this is what Wang 
 67
 
 OM, THE CHIEF 
 
 expected to DC the beginning but which turned out 
 to be the whole speech. " Let Om, the son of 
 Ang, be chief." Immediately men, women, and 
 children shouted, " Let Om be chief." Wang 
 started again, but only to be silenced by the shouts, 
 " Let Om be chief." ' 
 
 And so Om became the first Chief of the men 
 of the North, and Ulma But the words can wait. 
 
 68
 
 THE SMOKE WAY
 
 V. THE SMOKE WAY 
 
 AND Om took Ulma to the cave he had dug 
 in the side of the hill which furnished homes 
 for the village of Angwang. He made it bigger 
 and finer than any in the village. " He is Chief 
 and must have the best," thought the men who 
 helped him. " It is to be the home of Ulma," 
 thought Om, and nothing could be too good for 
 her. After the cave had been hollowed out, it was 
 lined with stones and then chinked with moss. 
 In the warmest and driest corner was a couch 
 made of spruce boughs, moss and leaves, and covered 
 with the skin of a great bear which Om had killed. 
 A round flat stone at one side served as a table. 
 By it was a rough stone shelf on which were 
 baskets woven by Oma and pots of curious de- 
 sign made by Suta. On still another shelf were 
 various woman's tools given by women of the tribe, 
 for the wife of their chief must lack nothing. 
 There were needles made of bone for sewing skins. 
 Some of the smaller and finer were made from the 
 bones of fish caught in the river. The larger were 
 cracked and the splinters worked into shape by 
 grinding them on rough stone. There were stone 
 made from the small bones of deer which had been
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 knives of many shapes. Some were used for cut- 
 ting flesh, others for scraping skins, or digging the 
 marrow from bones. The women had given their 
 best, and nothing was lacking, as they thought, 
 for comfort and luxury. 
 
 On one side of the cave home of Om and Ulma 
 were hung the best of the weapons and plunder 
 taken from the red men, axes, spears and knives of 
 hardened copper or bronze, and tunics of woven 
 cloth of various colors. At the doorway, where 
 they could be caught by one rushing out, were the 
 tried and trusted weapons of the new chief. There 
 was a wooden-handled stone axe or bludgeon, made 
 by lashing a split stick to a groove in the axe head, 
 with thongs of rawhide. There was a bow as tall as 
 a man which only a few men were strong enough to 
 bend. A quiver was filled with arrows tipped with 
 flint flakes fastened in place by a most wonderful 
 glue which would resist anything but fire. Then 
 there were flint knives of all shapes with handles 
 of various lengths. As the men and women of 
 Angwang came to look at the home of their chief, 
 they felt sure that he had all that heart could desire. 
 There had never been any one so rich as their chief. 
 
 But Om was not satisfied. It was not good 
 enough for Ulma. As the winter came on, the cave 
 was often damp and cold, and the heat from the 
 fire outside did not penetrate it. Ulma, whose 
 home had been in the south, often shivered, and it 
 made the heart of Om cold. So he sat before the 
 fire in silence and pondered. There were things 
 72
 
 THE SMOKE WAY 
 
 which the wisest men of his tribe, even his father 
 Ang, did not know. They did not know how to 
 make weapons of the dark brown metal ; they did 
 not know how to weave cloth. His father had 
 learned how to bring fire from the flint ; his mother 
 had learned how to bake the clay so that neither fire 
 nor water would harm it. Perhaps the All-Wise 
 had other secrets. He closed his eyes and talked 
 to the Holder of Mysteries: "Teach me to keep 
 the cold from the home of Ulma." When he looked 
 up again, his attention was drawn to the fire, which 
 burned in a kind of rough open fireplace. Three 
 flat rocks formed a kind of chimney. At the lower 
 opening the fire burned more brightly than any- 
 where else. From the top the smoke streamed out. 
 Why not build a fire in the cave and let the smoke 
 go out through a hole in the roof? 
 
 The next day he made a hole in the roof and 
 placed a flat stone in such a way as to keep the 
 rain from beating down into the cave. They built 
 a fire inside, directly under it, which burned brightly 
 so that the cave was warm and light, and Om's 
 heart was filled with pride but it was short-lived. 
 The wind changed and the smoke filled the cave 
 till he could hardly see Ulma. Finally they had 
 to go out and crouch about the fire outside till 
 the smoke had cleared away from the inside of 
 the cave. The villagers shook their heads and said 
 to each other : " Om is a great chief, but even he 
 cannot build a fire in a hole in the ground. The 
 Fire Spirit loves the open air." 
 73
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 But Om was not satisfied. He lay awake far 
 into the night, thinking, thinking, but to no pur- 
 pose. In the morning he went to hunt with a 
 heavy heart. Ulma's face was white and she 
 coughed. He heard the dry hard cough when he 
 stopped at some distance to listen. Each cough 
 seemed to strike him a dull blow above his heart. 
 He started to go back, but what was the use? 
 They must have food. 
 
 That day his hunting took him far from home 
 and it was night before he had made his kill, 
 so he prepared to spend the night in a cave at 
 the foot of the Black Mountain. He dragged the 
 carcase of the deer which he had killed into the cave 
 and then made a fire at the mouth of the cave, strik- 
 ing sparks from two flints into the dry moss 
 which he always carried. As he sat by the fire 
 warming himself and broiling some of the meat of 
 the deer for his supper, he noticed that the smoke, 
 instead of going up outside the cave, was sucked 
 into it and then came out from a cleft in the ledge 
 higher up. Forgetful of his hunger and weariness, 
 he leaped up and went into the cave. It was warm 
 and dry and free from smoke. He had built his 
 fire directly under a rift in the ledge, which acted 
 as a natural chimney. He piled more wood on the 
 fire, but still the smoke went up. He threw green 
 wood on the fire till it threw off clouds of smoke, 
 but it all went up through the crevice and left the 
 cave free. Here was the secret for which he had 
 sought. His heart was filled with thankfulness. 
 74
 
 THE SMOKE WAY 
 
 Om slept but little that night. He started up from 
 short dozes to pile fresh wood on the fire and 
 watch the smoke as it poured up its stone channel, 
 like a river between its banks. It seemed as if 
 morning would never come, but it did, and he sped 
 swiftly home. 
 
 When he appeared with the carcase of the deer 
 on his shoulder, he was greeted with shouts of wel- 
 come, but he saw only Ulma. As she broiled some 
 of the venison over the open fire, he told her of his 
 great discovery, and his eyes eagerly studied the 
 cave and the hillside. He would make a path for 
 the smoke like that in the cave on the Black 
 Mountain. 
 
 Without waiting to rest, he began his work. He 
 brought flat stones and piled them up at the door 
 of his cave. Then he made a new hole in the roof, 
 not like the old one in the center, but close to 
 one of the walls. Finally he made a rude chimney 
 with a place for the fire at the bottom. At first 
 he worked alone and the villagers looked on with 
 critical wonder, but at last they were compelled 
 by his faith and helped with good will. 
 
 When it was finished, the whole tribe gathered 
 to see what would happen when the fire was built. 
 Would the smoke climb the stone path as the 
 chief thought? For the first time Om began to 
 doubt and he hesitated to build the fire. He beck- 
 oned to Ang. Perhaps the Spirit of the Fire would 
 be better pleased if Ang should build it. So Ang 
 built the fire with great ceremony, and the people 
 75
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 looked on in awe and silence. The moss and dry 
 sticks were carefully arranged. Then Ang took 
 two flints in his hands and turning to the east, re- 
 peated the solemn fire chant: 
 
 Spirit Red, Spirit Red, 
 
 Is thy hunger fed? 
 Spirit White, Spirit White, 
 
 Give to us thy light. 
 
 Sparks leaped from the struck flints into the moss. 
 A tiny spot of light like a glow worm, a flame like 
 a red tongue, and then the hungry fire roaring 
 over its prey. 
 
 The tribesmen gave a great shout, but Om looked 
 anxiously at the new-made chimney. At first the 
 smoke went up and out, but with a sudden change 
 of wind the smoke began to creep through the chinks 
 and fill the cave. Om's heart sank within him. 
 Wang muttered, but so that all could hear: " I told 
 you so. You cannot drive the black breath of the 
 fire as you would a kid." 
 
 Thoroughly discouraged, Om sat upon a rock 
 with his head buried in his hands. With tears in 
 her eyes Ulma came and laid her hand upon his 
 shoulder, but he took no notice. One by one, the 
 villagers went away, saying to each other, " It 
 may be that the Spirit of Odin has left him." 
 
 For a while Ulma stood silently by Om, trying 
 
 in vain to comfort him ; then she turned to look 
 
 at his work. The smoke was not so bad as it had 
 
 been when there was only a hole in the roof, but 
 
 76
 
 THE SMOKE WAY 
 
 still it came out between the cracks very badly. 
 Womanlike, her thought was first of Om. If she 
 could only stop the smoke, it would bring joy to 
 the heart of Om. Odin had showed the secret of 
 the clay to Oma ; why should he not show the 
 secret of the smoke to her ? " O Thou who knowest 
 the things which are hidden from us, show me the 
 secret." 
 
 As she fell on her knees, she touched a mass of 
 clay which she had been molding, and the secret 
 was hers. She leaped to her feet and taking the 
 moist clay plastered the chinks in the stone chimney. 
 When the last one was filled, the fire burned bright 
 and not a breath of smoke came into the cave. With 
 a glad cry she called Om. He looked long and 
 earnestly at her work, but longer and more earnestly 
 on Ulma, with a look which had never been seen 
 on man's face before. In it there was both love 
 and reverence. " The Great One has shown thee 
 the secret that was hidden from me. Thy wisdom 
 is greater than mine, as my strength is greater than 
 thine. Thou shalt be called the Wise Woman." 
 
 And Ulma's face shone like the sun just risen 
 from the sea, but she only said : " Thy heart was 
 heavy ; the Revealer spoke to me that I might make 
 it light." 
 
 Then Om called the men and women and chil- 
 dren of the village and showed them what Ulma 
 had done how the fire burned and yet the air of 
 the cave was not darkened by its choking breath. 
 And when they had seen what she had done he took 
 77
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 Ulma by the hand and led her where all could see 
 her, and knelt down before her and placed her hand 
 on his head: "To Ulma, wife of Om, the All- 
 Seeing One has given wisdom ; when she speaks, 
 listen, for the secret of secrets is hers." 
 
 And from that day those who were troubled 
 and in the dark came to the wise woman in the cave 
 of Om, and they called her the Seer, for she saw 
 what was hidden from their eyes.
 
 THE FIRST MILKMAN
 
 VI. THE FIRST MILKMAN 
 
 AS time went on, the village of Angwang grew 
 larger. Not merely were the numbers swelled 
 by the children that came to the first comers, but 
 by new families that wanted the comradeship and 
 comparative safety of the village life. Yet there 
 was one difficulty which increased with the size of 
 the village. Game grew more and more scarce, 
 the hunters had to go farther and farther for it, 
 and the supply of edible fruits and nuts within 
 reach of the village was not equal to the demand. 
 It became clear to Om and the elders of the vil- 
 lage that something must be done. Either the vil- 
 lagers must scatter or they must move to a new 
 hunting ground. But they dreaded to do either. 
 They had grown attached to their pleasant homes 
 by the river and did not want to go back to the 
 old separation and solitude. So they lingered on, 
 and the food supply grew less, and hunger often 
 gripped them and the shadow of famine hung over 
 them. The men went on hunting trips that lasted 
 for days and the women saved every scrap of food, 
 but more and more went hungry. 
 
 Something must be done. Om and the hardier 
 men took long journeys looking for new hunting 
 81
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 grounds and village sites where nuts and fruits and 
 wild grains were more plentiful. On one of these 
 trips they followed the river many days' journey. 
 As they went on, the country became more and 
 more open. The river meadows spread out wider 
 and were covered with grasses bearing sweet grain 
 which satisfied hunger. Great flocks of wild fowl 
 fed upon them and grew fat. They were so taint 
 that Om and his companions killed large numbers of 
 them and feasted until it seemed as if they could 
 never be hungry again. Here was food enough and 
 to spare, but it was many days' travel frorr! the 
 village and there were no sheltering hills. So they 
 returned to the village carrying some of the wild 
 grain and as much of the wild fowl as they could. 
 The night after they returned all the villagers 
 gathered about the campfire and feasted upon roasted 
 ducks and geese and tasted the new grain. Some 
 were for moving at once to the plains below, where 
 food was so plenty, but the wise ones shook their 
 heads and reminded the others that the birds stayed 
 only for a short time to feed upon the ripe seeds 
 and then went on. Then the grain would be 
 scattered by the winter winds and there would 
 be neither food nor shelter. But Sut and some of 
 the younger men were not satisfied. The village 
 was good, but plenty of food was better, even 
 though it might not last for long. Then the spirit 
 of adventure stirred them. Since the slaughter of 
 the red men life had been rather tame at the vil- 
 lage. Finally nearly a third of the village de- 
 82
 
 THE MILKMAN 
 
 cided to go with Sut to the plains. Cm longed 
 to go too, but his duty was with those who stayed. 
 His father and mother were growing old and had 
 to depend largely upon his hunting, and Ulma nursed 
 twin boys in his cave. 
 
 It was a sad day when Sut and the pioneers left, 
 perhaps saddest for those who remained. Ang 
 watched them, as they filed past him, with a sink- 
 ing heart. It was the passing of the old order. 
 He knew how Om fretted at being one who stayed 
 while others went. Still he could do nothing, and 
 perhaps, after all, it might be the will of the Great 
 One. 
 
 Om had little time for brooding. It is true 
 there were less mouths to feed in the village, but 
 there were also fewer hunters. Day by day he 
 made wider circles in his hunt for game. The 
 mother must have more food, for even now the 
 boys often cried, hungry at her breasts. 
 
 One day he came upon a wild goat with two 
 kids pulling at her full udder. As he was in- 
 stinctively drawing the string of his great bow to 
 send the death dart to the goat mother's heart, 
 something stopped him, it may be a breath from 
 the Great One. Was not the goat mother's milk 
 better than the goat mother's dead body? Why not 
 take her alive and see if the twin boys would not 
 thrive on her milk as the kids were doing? 
 
 Om lowered his bow and drew from a skin 
 pouch at his side a curious sling made of two 
 smooth stones attached to the ends of a bit of 
 83
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 rawhide about six feet long. Grasping the con- 
 necting thong a few inches from the middle, he 
 whirled the stones swiftly about his head and hurled 
 them at the goat. One of the stones went between 
 her hind legs and her fore; the other went in front 
 and then swung back, swinging about the forelegs 
 till they were bound so tightly that she could not 
 move. In a moment Om had her fastened securely 
 and was striding along the home trail with the goat 
 on his shoulder and the two kids bleating behind 
 him. 
 
 Great was the surprise in the village when Om 
 appeared with a live goat on his shoulder. No one 
 had done anything of the kind before. Why not 
 kill and eat it at once, as men had always done? 
 Many were hungry and smacked their lips, thinking 
 how good goat's meat would taste. But Om said 
 nothing and strode to his cave. Ulma came out of 
 the cave with the twins at her breasts. The first 
 thing she noted was the two kids, who bleated piti- 
 fully at Om's heels. Perhaps the hungry cries of 
 her own children stirred a new sense of sympathy, 
 and she said to Om, " The poor kids, why not let 
 them live ? " But Om's mind was full of other 
 things. He pointed to the babies in her arms. 
 ' They are hungry." He pointed to the full udder 
 of the goat. " There is milk." But Ulma started 
 as if she had been struck. " The sons of Om shall 
 not touch the breasts of a goat." She stood with 
 flashing eyes straining the children to her dry 
 breasts. Om stood silent with eyes downcast. He 
 84
 
 THE MILKMAN 
 
 had hoped but no matter, if Ulma would not. 
 He drew his knife to kill the goat, but Ulma stayed 
 his hand. 
 
 Then the hungry twins wailed more pitifully 
 than the kids, and Ulma's mother love conquered 
 her pride. Laying the boys in Om's arms, she 
 hurried into the cave and brought a small pottery 
 bowl and pushed it under the dripping teats of the 
 goat. Then she pressed them with compelling fin- 
 gers till the white streams filled the bowl. Taking 
 one of the boys from Om, she put the warm milk to 
 his lips. It gave a surprised sputter and then drank 
 faster and faster with great gasps of satisfaction 
 till it could drink no more and fell asleep in her 
 arms. When the brother had been fed and both lay 
 sleeping in deep content, Ulma turned to Om and 
 said reverently, " Forgive me, it was the gift of the 
 All-Father." 
 
 And Om made a long tether for the goat and 
 tied her where the grass was greenest, and the kids 
 gamboled about her to the delight of the children 
 of Angwang. And Ul and Ulu grew fat and rosy, 
 and the heart of Ulma was light again. 
 
 By and by the goat grew used to her tether and 
 the kindly hands which tended her and stood quietly 
 when she was milked. And one day when her 
 tether broke, instead of running away into the 
 forest, she fed about the village, as if she had made 
 it her home, and liked men for companions better 
 than the wild animals of the woods and hills. 
 
 How the kids grew and ate, climbed, skipped, 
 85
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 and ate again! They raced with the children, and 
 as the buck grew older it butted the smaller ones 
 so that they found it safer to run into the shelter 
 of a hut until he went by. 
 
 That was the beginning of new things in the 
 village of Angwang. As time went on, each family 
 had its small herd of goats. The goats fed them- 
 selves and then gave food to their owners. And 
 so men learned that sometimes a live animal was 
 worth a dozen dead ones. 
 
 86
 
 RANG, THE RED MAN
 
 VII. RANG, THE RED MAN 
 
 ON many of his hunting trips, especially along 
 the banks of the river, Om had found many 
 strange trails, unlike that of any animal he had 
 ever seen. The trail always started by the river 
 bank and never went very far from it. There was 
 a single furrow, such as would be made by dragging 
 a slab on the ground or such as might be made by 
 some huge lizard's tail, but there were no footprints 
 of any kind, only a series of holes on either side 
 which looked as if they had been made with a 
 pointed stick. Sometimes when Om set a trap 
 near the river the strange trail would lead up to it, 
 and he would find that the game had been taken. 
 At first he saw it only rarely, but as time went 
 on he found it often. He set traps to catch the 
 strange animal, but though they were often tripped 
 there was nothing in them. He watched as patiently 
 as a wildcat at a rabbit's hole, at places where he 
 had often found the mysterious trail, but all to no 
 purpose. His anger and curiosity gradually became 
 tinged with that most ancient of fears, the fear of 
 the unknown. In his efforts to solve the mystery 
 he neglected his other hunting and often came home 
 empty-handed, so that Ulma soon suspected that 
 89
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 something was wrong, and he had to tell her what 
 was troubling him, as men have done from the 
 beginning. 
 
 Together they puzzled over the riddle of the 
 strange animal, till finally Ulma made the sug- 
 gestion which led to its solution. Whatever it was 
 it always came from the river and went back to it. 
 Its home must be on the river or in it. So Om 
 decided to go far up the river and drift down with 
 the current on the trunk of a fatten tree. 
 
 A little above the spot where he had often seen 
 the puzzling trail he found two dry tree trunks 
 which he rolled to the water's edge and lashed to- 
 gether with vines. Then he cut a pole and pushed 
 his rude raft slowly down the stream, keeping very 
 close to the rushes and making as little noise as 
 possible. Often he lay flat on the raft, drifting 
 slowly with the current and steering with his hands. 
 Flocks of birds rose from their feeding places with 
 a deafening boom of wings. Turtles splashed 
 clumsily into the water. Water snakes writhed 
 swiftly away. Great fish darted away with a flick 
 and flash of silver. Now and then a big lizard 
 would yawn lazily at him and seem to estimate his 
 possible food value. But he saw no trace of the 
 creature which he sought. 
 
 The hours slipped by, and night slowly spread its 
 mantle over the sky. The cool mist of evening 
 began to rise from the river, and Om shivered, 
 partly from cold but more from fear. He decided 
 to go ashore and wait for morning, when the heart 
 90
 
 THE RED MAN 
 
 of man was warmer. He rose carefully to his feet, 
 balancing himself with his push pole, but he could 
 find no place to land. At this point the river wan- 
 dered through a great marsh, and a good half-mile 
 of treacherous bog and reed thickets was between 
 him and dry land. Om knew better than to try 
 forcing his way through. If he could avoid the 
 quagmires, he could not escape the dangerous snakes 
 that swarmed in the rushes. There was nothing to 
 be done but to pass the night as well as he could 
 on the raft, for it was already getting too dark 
 to see. 
 
 So Om drove his pole between the trunks of 
 his raft as an anchor and lay down with his leather 
 pouch as a pillow and the rough bark for a mat- 
 tress. But it was not the hardness of his bed which 
 kept him awake. Strange noises were all about 
 him. The reeds rustled as if some great body were 
 moving stealthily through them, and he sat up and 
 grasped his great stone axe with every muscle tense 
 and every nerve alert. Then all was silence, and he 
 lay down again, only to be roused by a shrill cry 
 from the air above him which seemed to go through 
 his heart like an arrow. Overcome with fatigue, 
 he dozed for a moment, only to be stabbed awake 
 by a new horror, as something sinuous and slimy 
 and cold slipped over his bare legs and slushed into 
 the water. 
 
 When the night was at its darkest, Om was 
 startled by a new noise. Some large body was 
 pushing its way through the reeds not far from 
 91
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 him with a strange gurgling noise. Fresh chills 
 crept up his back and pricked the back of his neck. 
 His hair seemed to stiffen. He tried to lash him- 
 self to courage. He, a chief, son of Ang, slayer of 
 buffalo and cave bear, destroyer of the red men, 
 shivering like a child, afraid of the dark! But it 
 was useless. Even a chief cannot stand before the 
 black spirits of the marsh, unafraid. 
 
 Gradually the noise drew nearer, and Om de- 
 tected a faint glow like a bog torch. It grew 
 brighter, and finally a long black object slid out of 
 the rushes a few feet ahead of him. His eyes 
 struggling with the darkness, he studied the strange 
 object until he caught its outline. A resinous pine 
 torch, like a great red eye, glowed at the head of a 
 long hollow log. Near the stern crouched a man 
 pushing the dug-out through the water, not with a 
 pole but with a paddle. With a deft turn of the 
 wrist he brought his craft into the current and passed 
 within a few feet of where Om crouched on his 
 raft. The torch threw a weird light on the face 
 of the paddler. It was the face of a red man, a 
 face which glowed in the light of the torch like 
 an ember in the fire. The bare arms which wielded 
 the paddle looked like the bronze of the red man's 
 weapons which Om had in his cave. With fasci- 
 nated gaze Om watched the sweep of the arm 
 and the play of the great muscles. He had never 
 seen anything like them. One who came within 
 their reach would have no more chance than in the 
 hug of the great cave bear. 
 92
 
 THE RED MAN 
 
 After all, he was only a man and he had 
 mastered the red man before. The blood rushed 
 through his veins again, and courage came .back 
 to his heart. He leaped to his feet and drew his 
 bow, but the night dews had taken the life from 
 the bow strings and it was useless. He reached for 
 his axe to hurl it at the red man, but he was already 
 beyond reach, and a sudden bend in the river soon 
 hid him from view. 
 
 Cold and hungry, Qm waited for the morning. 
 At last it came with lagging steps, and he began 
 to study the marsh about him. A few yards ahead 
 of him was an opening in the rushes, and he pushed 
 his raft where he could see better. There was a 
 narrow break so narrow that the rushes met above 
 it, and just water enough to float the red man's 
 dug-out. Om tried to push his raft into it, but it 
 was too broad. Then he stood up and looked over 
 the marsh. In the waxing light he finally saw what 
 seemed to be a mound of rushes rising a little above 
 the level of the marsh. He fancied too that he 
 could see the shadow of an opening. 
 
 It was clearly useless to try to get there by 
 foot, and there was no telling what he might find 
 if he managed to force his way there. He re- 
 membered the huge arms of the red man. Such 
 men must be respected even by Om. It was a 
 problem for brains and not for brute force. He 
 looked about for landmarks and saw on the shore 
 above the marsh a great fir tree nearly a hundred 
 feet in height. That should be his lookout, and 
 93
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 he would study the den of the red man from 
 the top. 
 
 As rapidly as he could Om poled down the stream 
 till he came to a place where he could land. He 
 took care to bring his raft to some stones on the 
 bank so that there should be no mark of his land- 
 ing, and then he took off the vines that bound 
 the logs together and pushed them into the streajn. 
 Leaping from stone to stone, he made his way to 
 the high bank, leaving no trace of his coming. 
 
 After having visited some of his traps and fed 
 himself for another fast of uncertain length, Om 
 made his way to the tall fir tree and climbed to its 
 top. From his lofty outlook he could see far up 
 and down the river and across the marsh, but he was 
 disappointed that he could see little more of the 
 red man's hut than he had seen from the river itself. 
 There was the mound of rushes, standing only a 
 little higher than the rushes about it, a small en- 
 circling pool of water, and that was all. There 
 was no sign of any living thing to be seen. 
 
 With the patience of primitive man, Om waited 
 and watched through the long hours of the day. 
 A great fishhawk lit on a branch above his head 
 and flapped away with shrill cries of fear and anger. 
 Squirrels chutted viciously at him and went their 
 ways. A doe and her two fawns rested beneath 
 him during the heat of the day. But there was no 
 sight or sound of the red man. 
 
 Again the shadows began to lengthen, and Om's 
 eyes grew heavy with long watching and lack of 
 94
 
 THE RED MAN 
 
 sleep. He propped himself in an easy-chair of 
 boughs, intending to doze for a moment, but fell 
 asleep and slept far into the night. He woke with 
 a start, hearing sounds beneath him, as if some one 
 were dragging a log stealthily over the ground. 
 His eyes tried in vain to penetrate the darkness; 
 he could only follow the strange noise with his 
 ears. Several times he started to climb down the 
 tree, but the fear of the unknown checked him. 
 
 Finally the moon, which had been hidden by 
 black clouds along the horizon, looked out with 
 wide-open eye and flooded the marsh and river banks 
 with silvery light. With the eye of an owl hunt- 
 ing for its prey he searched every open spot. At 
 last he found what he sought. At the very spot 
 where he had landed the morning before was the 
 dug-out of the red man, and a little higher on the 
 bank the red man himself. He was not standing 
 erect or even creeping, and yet he was moving with 
 considerable rapidity. He lay upon his belly on a 
 flat slab some eight feet in length. His legs, or 
 what was left of them, were lashed to it, and the 
 man dragged himself along on this crude sledge by 
 driving a sharpened stick which he held in each 
 hand into the soil ahead of him and pulling himself 
 to it. The mystery of the strange trail and of the 
 robbing of his traps was explained. This must 
 be one of the red men who had escaped the 
 slaughter in the pass. The useless legs which trailed 
 behind him had been crushed by the falling rocks, 
 but he had lived, 
 
 95
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 Om's mind was filled with wonder. The red 
 man must be indeed a man to keep alive in the 
 wild without food, without friends, with only his 
 hands and his head to help him. For days and 
 weeks he must have suffered untold agony from his 
 crushed limbs. Om passed his hands questioningly 
 over his own powerful legs. Could he have done 
 it? He shuddered at the thought. Only tl^e Great 
 One knew. Involuntarily he paid tribute in his 
 heart to the manhood of the man who now crawled 
 like a snail beneath him. He took his great bow 
 and the straightest and sharpest arrow from his 
 quiver, but he hesitated. Surely a man who could 
 only drag himself along on his belly was not to be 
 feared. To shoot such a man from a safe ambush 
 was not worthy of Om, chief of the Angwangs. 
 While he hesitated, the red man disappeared in the 
 bush, the clouds again covered the face of the moon, 
 and all was dark. 
 
 Om remained in his fir retreat till the morning 
 light came, and slowly climbed down the tree, look- 
 ing carefully for signs of the red man. Neither 
 eye nor ear gave any hint of him. He prepared to 
 swing himself from the lowest boughs to the ground. 
 There was a rustle in a near-by thicket, a hum like 
 that of a giant bee, and an arrow flew past him 
 and buried itself in the tree trunk with a sinister 
 " chut," pinning a flap of his fur coat to the bark. 
 Nimbly as a monkey, Om put the tree trunk be- 
 tween himself and the dangerous thicket and swiftly 
 climbed higher. He heard, or perhaps it was his 
 96
 
 THE RED MAN 
 
 imagination, a hoarse laugh of derision from be- 
 neath him. It was a strange position for Om, war- 
 chief of Angwang, slayer of buffalo, cave man, and 
 of the red men themselves. He was treed like a 
 squirrel by the snail man. His powerful limbs 
 were useless. If he had been ten times as powerful, 
 he would have been just as helpless. 
 
 Om cursed himself for his folly. He had thought 
 himself wise and a great hunter, but here he was, 
 trapped by the man he had hunted. The foolish 
 hare had as much wisdom as he! And what was 
 strength without wisdom! The arrow of the red 
 man was more than a match for his strength. Sev- 
 eral times he slid down the tree a short way only 
 to be sent back by an arrow. It was useless. If 
 he had been bound hand and foot, he could not 
 have been more helpless. The hours dragged by, and 
 hunger began to grip him and thirst to parch his 
 throat. How long would Ulma, Ul, and Ulu wait 
 at the cave for the chief who never would come 
 back? Who would keep the wolf of hunger from 
 the mother and the babes? In his bitter meditation 
 he forgot to watch his enemy and his ear was dull. 
 
 He was roused by the angry hum of an arrow 
 which brushed his face. Another cut the thong of 
 his quiver, and it fell to the ground. Om's heart 
 sank within him. He was now a prisoner and 
 without weapons. He heard the red man crawling 
 about the trunk of the tree and picking up the 
 arrows which he had dropped. He was helpless. 
 Why did not the red man make an end of him as 
 97
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 he himself had made of a wild boar caught in a 
 pitfall? After a time his attention was drawn by 
 a sharp hand-clap to an opening near the tree. 
 There was the red man, where for the first time 
 he could see him in the full light of day. He 
 crouched forward on his slab bed, his maimed legs 
 crumpled beneath him. A great bow, lay beside 
 him and two quivers of arrows, one of which had 
 been Om's, but his hands were empty. With ges- 
 tures which could not be misunderstood he beckoned 
 to Om to come down. When Om hesitated, he 
 picked up his bow and drew an arrow from his 
 quiver, so Om slowly climbed down the tree. 
 
 When Om reached the ground, he found that the 
 red man had covered every way of escape. He had 
 proof enough of his skill to know that a dash for 
 liberty would mean sure death, so he stood unarmed 
 and humiliated before the red man, thankful only 
 that no one of his tribe would see him in his shame. 
 In silence the two men studied each other. The 
 white man stood erect, unbound, but he was a slave ; 
 his life belonged to the red man who crouched on 
 crippled limbs before him. It was brain against 
 brain and not brawn against brawn, and the red 
 man had won. Death was bad, but shame was 
 worse. Why did not the red man end it all and 
 shoot him to the heart? 
 
 But the face of the red man showed neither 
 
 triumph nor hate, only watchful intelligence. Its 
 
 expression was as hard to read as that of the faces 
 
 in the fire. Then the red man fastened a thong 
 
 98
 
 THE RED MAN 
 
 of rawhide to the front of his sledge and signaled 
 Om to pick it up and drag him. Om did so, 
 wondering. Was he to play horse for the crippled 
 giant? He wondered still more when the red man 
 directed him, not to the bank of the river but to 
 the trail which led to the village of Angwang. 
 What did his strange captor mean to do? Did 
 he mean to humble him before the men of the 
 tribe ? 
 
 Just before they came in sight of the village, the 
 red man signed to Om to stop. Then he drew 
 from in front of him the quiver which Om had let 
 fall and tossed it to him. Om grasped it with 
 feverish haste. Once more he had the weapons 
 of a man and a chief, and he straightened him- 
 self ; but no, he had not won them back, they 
 had been given him as a father gives a plaything 
 to a child. The balance of power was again his, 
 but he could not abuse it. He looked question- 
 ingly at the red man. What should he do next? 
 The face of the red man seemed as inscrutable as 
 ever. He simply pointed again to the thong trace 
 and the village, and Om again went on, drawing his 
 strange load behind him, his wonder increasing at 
 every step. 
 
 As the strange sledge drew near to the village, 
 a great shout arose and the villagers came trooping 
 out to meet them. When they saw the red man, 
 some of them grasped their weapons angrily, but 
 drew back at a command from Om. They were 
 speechless with wonder. What did it mean ? Was 
 99
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 he the captive of Om? Why then did he carry his 
 weapons before him like a chief? Straight through 
 the village marched Om till he came to his own 
 cave, and Ulma came out with a glad cry to meet 
 him. When she saw his strange load, she shrank 
 back, pushing the twins behind her, and then she 
 gave a cry of surprise and went forward to meet 
 them crying, " It is Rang, the Red." 
 
 As she stood above him, the red man bowed so 
 low that his face almost touched the ground and 
 laid his weapons at her feet. The eyes of men had 
 never looked on a stranger spectacle. The villagers 
 stood about in a wondering circle. Om stood with 
 the trace still over his shoulder. Rang bowed his 
 great body over his helpless limbs. Ulma looked 
 down at the prostrate man and the weapons at her 
 feet with the look of a queen. Then she turned 
 to Om and said in tones that could be heard by 
 all : " This is Rang, once follower of the chief of 
 the red men; when I was a captive, he cut the 
 thongs that bound me and I escaped. His face is 
 red, but his heart is like that of a white man. 
 The Great One has spared his life." Then she 
 stooped down and took his weapons and laid them 
 in the hands of Om. Om hesitated a moment and 
 then gave them back to Rang, saying, " Take them, 
 they are the gift of Ulma." 
 
 That night they built a great fire upon the altar, 
 
 and the chiefs sat long in council and listened to 
 
 the story of Om, and at last Ang expressed the 
 
 will of the tribe: " It is the will of the Great One. 
 
 100
 
 THE RED MAN 
 
 The skin of Rang is red and his hair like the shadows 
 of a night without stars, but he has the heart of a 
 man and the courage of the great bear, with the 
 cunning of the fox. He gave freedom to Ulma, 
 wife of Om. He spared the life of Om when he 
 had snared him like a bird. The Great One has 
 held the mouths of the hungry ones of the woods 
 so that they touched him not. He is loved of the 
 Spirits. Let him be made a brother of the tribe ! " 
 And all the men shouted, " Let him be made a 
 brother of the tribe." 
 
 And Ang took the sacred knife from the altar 
 and cut his arm till the blood flowed. Then he 
 lightly cut the arm of Rang and mingled the blood 
 on his open palm, saying, " Rang, thou art by this 
 token a brother of the tribe." 
 
 And so Rang became a brother of the tribe of 
 Angwang and sat with the elders about the fire, 
 but he was also the slave of Ul and Ulu. 
 
 101
 
 RANG OF THE THINKING HAND
 
 VIII. RANG OF THE THINKING 
 HAND 
 
 THE coming of Rang made a great change in 
 the village of Angwang. He was one of a 
 race which had made many discoveries as yet un- 
 known to the white race. He knew how to smelt 
 and shape the bronze used in their weapons. He 
 fashioned a loom on which Ulma and other women 
 of the tribe wove cloth from the fibers of flax. He 
 taught the men of the tribe to make dug-out canoes. 
 But in addition to the knowledge which he inherited 
 from his race he had a special inventive gift of his 
 own. He came to be known as " Rang of the think- 
 ing hand." The crippling of his legs seemed to 
 have diverted all the power of his nature to his 
 arms and hands. It seemed to the villagers as if 
 there were nothing beyond his powers. 
 
 From the very beginning the twins Ul and Ulu 
 claimed him as their own, and he acknowledged the 
 claim. At first he made cunning toys for them, and 
 as they grew, weapons of finest quality suited to 
 every stage of growth. He was both their friend 
 and teacher. His big cave, with its smelting forge 
 and many ingenious contrivances for making needed 
 things, became a gathering place for the boys. 
 105
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 Under the teaching of Rang, Ul and Ulu became 
 more skillful than any men of their race had ever 
 been. Om and Ulma looked on with mingled 
 amazement and pride at the wonderful things which 
 the boys made. Whilp the boys were small, Rang 
 had shown no desire to leave the village, but as 
 they grew old enough to hunt and the passion for 
 wandering came upon them, Rang also grew rest- 
 less. He would drag himself out where he could 
 watch for the coming and going of the boys and 
 turned a deaf ear to the villagers who wanted to 
 have odd jobs done for them. 
 
 When the boys came home from their hunting 
 and trapping, Rang listened eagerly to it all, but 
 it was plain he fretted at not being able to go with 
 them. And the boys, too, found that things were 
 never quite the same without Rang. It was Ul, 
 the bigger of the twins, who suggested a partial 
 solution of the problem: " We are strong like young 
 bullocks. We will draw you out as our father Om 
 drew you to the village." At first Rang shook 
 his head and said that he was too big and they were 
 too small, but at last he yielded with ill-concealed 
 delight. The wander instinct was on him as well 
 as on the boys. 
 
 Rang fashioned a new sledge with double run- 
 ners and a trace for each boy, with a flat broad 
 shoulder strap. His usually impassive face shone 
 like a face in the fire as the boys drew him swiftly 
 down the village street and out into the woods. 
 And Ulma smiled contentedly, for she felt that 
 1 06
 
 THE THINKING HAND 
 
 the boys would be safe if Rang was with them and 
 they could not go far if they dragged him, but 
 that was a mother's mistake, as we shall see later. 
 
 At first the boys were satisfied to take Rang to 
 their near-by traps, but they soon longed to go 
 farther. One day Rang told them to take him 
 up the banks of the river to the spot where his 
 old home had been. Then he unfolded a plan 
 which had been growing in his mind for a long 
 time. They would cut down a great tree and make 
 a dug-out large enough to take the three, and then 
 they would go down the river as far as they could 
 and see the Beyond. 
 
 Rang chose a great fir tree which he had girdled 
 long before and which was now dry as a bone. 
 First they built a fire about the trunk, keeping the 
 fire from going too high by throwing water on it. 
 When the trunk was thoroughly charred, they hacked 
 it away with their bronze axes until the wood be- 
 came too hard for the soft temper of the bronze. 
 It took two days to fell the tree, another to cut off 
 a twenty-foot length suitable for their boat. The 
 next task was the most difficult and lengthy of them 
 all, to hollow it out. First the top of the log was 
 flattened, except at the ends, to where the gun- 
 wale was to be. Then red-hot coals from the fire, 
 which they kept constantly burning, were piled upon 
 it until enough of the trunk was charred to be 
 dug out. 
 
 It was a long and strenuous task. Rang would 
 not let the boys place the coals, but he kept them 
 107
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 busy bringing them, keeping the fire, and soaking 
 the outside of the log with water to prevent the fire 
 burning too deeply. After the log was hollowed 
 out, Rang shaped the ends and gave a finishing 
 touch by carving on the bow the head of a wolf. 
 When it was at last finished and equipped with 
 light ash paddles, the builders were very proud, and 
 they had reason to be. 
 
 When the " Wolf " was ready to launch, Rang 
 said to the boys, " I cannot help you will have to 
 drag it to the river." Ul and Ulu looked a little 
 doubtful, but said nothing as Rang fastened the 
 trace straps of his sledge to the boat. " Now," said 
 he, " pull ! " and they pulled with might and main, 
 together, singly, and by jerks; but the big log only 
 stirred a little. The boys looked at each other 
 and Rang with disappointed looks. Would they 
 have to get the men of the village to help them? 
 Half the fun was doing it themselves and keeping 
 it a secret. Rang's face was a blank. He looked 
 as though he had never thought of the problem 
 of getting the boat into the water. When he 
 thought the boys had mastered the difficulty of the 
 task, he called them to him. " Strength," he said, 
 " is good, but thought," pointing to his head, " is 
 better. Strength with thought is best." Then he 
 cut a stout pole and showed the boys how to place 
 a stone so that one could lift ten times his own 
 weight. When it was put in place, Ulu, the smaller 
 of the boys, could raise the bow of the boat with 
 ease. Next they cut some rollers, under the direc- 
 108
 
 THE THINKING HAND 
 
 tion of Rang, and placed them under the log. When 
 that was done, one could drag it while the other 
 steadied it and placed the rollers. 
 
 The next day the boys got the permission of Om 
 and Ulma to go on a long hunting trip with Rang. 
 They did not tell even their parents that they were 
 going by the river and not by land. For food they 
 took cheese made from goats' milk and flour made 
 from nuts ground between two stones, and dried 
 venison. Rang spent most of the day in testing the 
 dug-out and teaching the boys how to paddle and 
 how to guide it through the rapids, which were 
 numerous, though not very dangerous. At night, 
 when the villagers were sound asleep, they drifted 
 quietly by and camped below the village for the 
 night. They slept in the boat and early in the 
 morning started for the Great Beyond. It was well 
 that Ulma could not follow them with her anxious 
 eye. 
 
 As they paddled down the stream, Rang sat in the 
 stern and steered, while Ul, as the strongest, knelt 
 in the bow ready to push the boat from any rock in 
 the rapids through which they passed. Pulled by 
 the current and pushed by the paddles, the boat 
 went very swiftly down the river, and perhaps not 
 even Rang realized how long it would take to work 
 their way back. Wood and marsh and rugged bank 
 slipped by them as in a dream. By night they had 
 gone far. The river grew wider and wider as 
 new streams joined with it and the country grew 
 more and more flat. Sometimes the marshes 
 109
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 stretched away as far as the eye could reach. The 
 boys thought only of getting on, but Rang looked 
 anxiously at each stream as they passed. How 
 should they know which to take when they came 
 back, and they must come back, for these were 
 Ulma's boys. But still they did not stop. A subtle 
 fire in the blood drove them on from the safety 
 and security of the old settlement out into the 
 great unknown and would not let them stop. Each 
 day's journey brought them into a stranger country. 
 Different trees lined the banks, different birds flew 
 above them, strange animals peered at them from 
 the banks. While the country was low about them, 
 great mountains, with cloud tips, loomed in the 
 distance. And still the Great Beyond beckoned 
 them. The faces of the boys grew thinner and their 
 muscles harder. They talked less and looked more, 
 looking straight before them as if they were sure 
 to find what they sought just beyond the next curve 
 in the river. 
 
 Each day they paddled longer and spent less time 
 in preparing food and in sleeping. The tenth clay 
 they pressed on till the dark shut them in. That 
 night a distant roaring disturbed their sleep. Some- 
 times they thought it was the noise of distant thun- 
 der; at others the noise of some great beast. In 
 the morning they started early. Scarcely a word 
 was spoken. The eyes of Rang were like coals of 
 fire. Ul and Ulu seemed like men walking in their 
 sleep. The river grew wider ami separated into 
 many streams, so that it was hard to tell which 
 no
 
 THE THINKING HAND 
 
 to follow. The marshes were bigger and bigger 
 and the grasses and reeds of a different kind. When 
 they tasted of the water, it was too bitter to drink. 
 And all the time the strange roaring was in their 
 ears, growing louder and louder as they went on. 
 Sweat streamed from the faces of the feverish 
 paddlers, and yet sometimes they shivered. What 
 was the Great Unknown which they approached? 
 Were they approaching the caves of the Wind 
 Spirits? Would the Spirits be angry? And still 
 they kept on. 
 
 At last the canoe swept about a point covered 
 with low brush and reeds, and their swinging pad- 
 dles stopped in the middle of the stroke and hung 
 dripping in air. The river suddenly widened, and 
 its white banks reached to right and left as far 
 as the eye could see. Before them it melted into 
 the horizon. Water, water everywhere, as big and 
 as blue as the sky. The boat beneath them began 
 to pitch and toss and to rush swiftly out into the 
 waste of waters though their paddles were still. 
 As they drifted on, they were met by white-capped 
 waves which tossed their small craft and splashed 
 their faces with cold salt spray. Rang was the first 
 to awake from the trance of wonder into which the 
 sea had thrown them. The waves were growing 
 rougher and rougher and the shore was slipping 
 away from them. He gave a sharp command to the 
 boys, and they turned the boat with difficulty and 
 paddled with might and main for the shore. At last 
 they reached it, dripping and exhausted, and dragged 
 ii I
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 their unsteady boat out on the white beach, out of 
 the way of the hungry waves. 
 
 All day they wandered up and down the beach, 
 watching the ceaseless beat of the waves, wondering 
 at the many-hued and many-shaped shells and sea- 
 weeds. The boys swam in the salt water until Rang 
 saw the splash of a great shark in their wake. Then 
 they stretched themselves on the sand and studied 
 the far-off horizon. " Some day," said Ulu, " we 
 will make a great boat, twice as big as this, and 
 paddle across the Great Water and see what is 
 beyond." Rang shook his head. " Beyond is the 
 home of the Spirits of the Wind. It is not good for 
 men to go there." Ulu looked doubtful and said 
 nothing. 
 
 As their supply of food was nearly gone, they be- 
 gan to look for game. The boys shot a few marsh 
 fowl, but Rang made the great discovery that the 
 clams and oysters which could be gotten at low tide 
 were good when roasted over a fire. For days 
 they wandered on the shores of the Great Mystery, 
 drinking in its new delights, and yielding more and 
 more to the charm which would some day draw 
 them back to it from the ends of the earth. But 
 at last the sense of duty awoke in Rang. What 
 would Ulma and Om think when the days went 
 by and the boys who were dearer to them than 
 their own eyes did not come back? It was time to 
 take the long homeward journey. 
 
 The first day's journey was not so bad as Rang 
 had feared. For six hours the current was with 
 112
 
 THE THINKING HAND 
 
 them, and they began to hope that Odin had 
 changed the flow of the river to help them on their 
 journey. But they were sadly disappointed when 
 the tide turned and with painful effort they had 
 to wrest each foot from the water as it rushed to 
 the sea. The next day the current was against 
 them all the time, and each day the current grew 
 stronger and the rapids more numerous and swift. 
 By landmarks which they remembered they knew that 
 it took three or four days to cover the same distance 
 that they had covered in a day coming down. It 
 was a journey to tax the powers of the strongest. 
 The great body of Rang lost every ounce of fat 
 and seemed nothing but muscle and sinew and bone. 
 Though the boys did not suspect it, he did the work 
 of two as he paddled grimly behind them with big 
 swinging strokes into which he threw the whole 
 strength of his powerful body. And Ul and Ulu 
 grew hard and fit. They were stripped to the waist 
 as they paddled, and the summer sun painted their 
 skin till it was almost as red as that of Rang. 
 
 When they had made about half the journey 
 back, their first real trouble overtook them.
 
 THE FIRST SAILOR
 
 IX. THE FIRST SAILOR 
 
 EVEN Rang's iron frame could not stand any 
 longer the tremendous strain which he had put 
 upon it in his anxious care to save the boys. He 
 woke one morning with sharp pain in his over- 
 worked muscles. No effort of his will could bring 
 them to their accustomed task, and he lay groaning 
 in the bottom of the boat, cursing the evil spirit 
 which had tempted him to take the boys so far from 
 their home. For the first time the boys were thrown 
 on their own resources. Rang tried to persuade 
 them to leave him on the shore and press on alone, 
 but the boys would not hear of that. So they laid 
 Rang on a bed of leaves in the middle of the dug- 
 out, and Ul took the stern paddle and Ulu the 
 bow. 
 
 After a few hours' fighting against the current, 
 sometimes losing more than they gained, they began 
 to realize what the crippled Rang had done for 
 them. It would take them weeks to make the rest 
 of the journey, and it might be that they could not 
 get up some of the rapids with his weight, without 
 his skill and strength. As their food supply was 
 nearly exhausted, they had to spend more and more 
 time each day in hunting and they made but little 
 117
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 progress. The boys became men as they fought 
 the stream. 
 
 Ulu was not so strong as Ul, and it fretted him 
 that he could not pull his full share. One night, 
 after a hard day's pull with little gain, they lay 
 exhausted on the bank, and Ulu pondered. Rang 
 had told them once that " Strength was good, but 
 thought better, and thought with strength best." If 
 he was not so strong as Ul, he must think more. 
 As he thought, his eye happened to fall upon a tuft 
 of floating grass which slowly drifted up stream. 
 He sat up and watched more intently. Nothing 
 was pulling it; it had no paddles, and yet it went 
 against the current. The breath of the night wind 
 was strong on his face as it blew up the stream. 
 He leaped to his feet in excitement. It was the 
 push of the wind that did it. Why should not the 
 wind push their boat as well as the tuft of grass? 
 He looked at Ul and Rang. They lay fast asleep. 
 With light footsteps he crept down to the boat tied 
 to the bank. Then he tore up a thick young cedar 
 from its loose hold on the bank and propped it in 
 the bow of the boat. Then he pushed out into the 
 stream, taking Ul's place at the stern. When he 
 got out into the sweep of the wind, he stopped 
 paddling and waited. At first the boat almost 
 stopped, and it seemed as if the drag of the current 
 was pulling it back. Then the wind strengthened, 
 and the cedar in the bow bent before it, and the 
 boat began to go slowly forward. Ulu's heart 
 throbbed with the joy of a greaf discovery. The 
 118
 
 THE FIRST SAILOR 
 
 Revealer had showed the secret of the fire to Ang, 
 of the clay to Oma, of the smoke way to Om, and 
 now the secret of the wind to him. Again and 
 again he drifted down the stream and was pushed 
 up by the hand of the wind upon the cedar sail. 
 
 Ulu slept but little that night. As he heard 
 the rush of the wind in the tree tops, he said to 
 himself, " With the wind at his back the paddle of 
 Ulu shall be stronger than that of Ul or even of 
 Rang." In the morning he told his discovery to 
 Ul and Rang. Ul shook his head and unconsciously 
 stroked the swelling muscles of his arm. It was 
 because Ulu was not so strong that he dreamed 
 such things. Rang said nothing, but was soon lost 
 in thought. He lifted his hand so that it caught 
 the full force of the wind which had risen during 
 the night. There might be something in it. If so, 
 why had he not thought of it he, Rang the cunning 
 one, maker of many inventions? He looked at Ulu 
 and shook his head. He was a mere boy ; it could 
 not be. 
 
 But as they were both fond of Ulu they let him 
 put his cedar bough in front when they started. 
 At first all went well, and both Rang and Ul be- 
 gan to think that the boat did go faster, but then 
 a gust of wind swept down from a gully in the 
 river bank and struck the rude sail on the side. In 
 a moment the boat was capsized and the three were 
 struggling in the water. Rang clung to the boat, 
 and the boys towed it to the shore. Ul and Rang 
 said nothing, but they looked much. When they 
 119
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 started again, Ul threw out the soaked cedar bough 
 with a gesture more telling than words. 
 
 For a time Ulu was very downcast and Ul had 
 to tell *him rather sharply to stop dreaming and 
 paddle. But as time went on Ulu's spirits rose. 
 After all, the wind would push ; only you must take 
 care that he pushed in the right place. That day 
 the current was so strong and they made so little 
 progress that even Ul gave up and said that they 
 must go ashore and rest. After they had eaten, Ul 
 and Rang sat with their heads bowed in their hands. 
 The water was too strong for them. They must 
 try to make their way overland through the trackless 
 forest. How could it be done, with the crippled 
 Rang? They could not drag a sledge through such 
 thickets as surrounded them. 
 
 While the others brooded moodily, Ulu slipped 
 down to the shore, put another and bigger cedar 
 in the front of the boat, and pushed out into the 
 stream. This time the wind blew strong and 
 steadily up the stream. When the boat felt its 
 full force, it began to go against the current with 
 a ripple of water at the bow. Ul sat up and 
 rubbed his eyes. Rang slapped his hand upon his 
 withered leg. ' Thought is better than strength. 
 It would have been better if we had thought more 
 and worked less." 
 
 When Ulu returned from his short voyage, the 
 
 attitude of the others was entirely changed. Their 
 
 affection was now mingled with respect. Rang 
 
 abused himself loudly. Why had he lain like a 
 
 1 20
 
 THE FIRST SAILOR 
 
 log in the bottom of the boat? Why had he not 
 used his head the more when he could not use his 
 arms? He would begin now. If the Wind Spirit 
 could push a dug-out against the current with such 
 a small cedar, he would push it faster if there was 
 something larger. He unrolled the woven blanket 
 upon which he lay and which was the one luxury 
 he allowed himself. Under his direction the boys 
 fastened it with two sticks, one acting as a mast 
 and the other as a sprit. 
 
 Their next start was more fortunate. The wind 
 was strong and steady. The sail bellied out and 
 pulled like a live thing, and they traveled farther 
 that day than they had done in any three days be- 
 fore. After two months' absence they sailed into 
 the little cove in front of the village of Angwang, 
 and there was great shouting and rejoicing. Om 
 and Ulma hovered about the boys as if they had 
 been brought back from the land of dreams where 
 live the men of old, and they forgot to punish Rang 
 for taking the boys away. 
 
 And so Ulu became the first sailor and always 
 heard the voices of the Great Water calling him. 
 One day he answered. 
 
 121
 
 THE GARDEN OF ULMA
 
 X. THE GARDEN OF ULMA 
 
 AND Om and Ulma had a daughter Saxa, who 
 grew to be more and more a comfort to her 
 mother as the boys spent more and more of their 
 time out in the forest. Rang, too, who did not 
 wholly recover from his rheumatism and had to 
 stay at Angwang after his one voyage of discovery, 
 was her devoted slave. It was beautiful to watch 
 the tender deftness with which the crippled giant 
 tended her while she was a baby and played with 
 her and made toys for her as she grew older. Rang 
 again became teacher and devoted himself to it with 
 the singleness of purpose characteristic of the man 
 and perhaps of his race. And Saxa was an apt 
 pupil. She had not the strength of the boys, but 
 she had a deftness and skill which they lacked. 
 And she heeded the words of her old teacher, re- 
 peated again and again, when she faced some prob- 
 lem a little too much for her powers : " Think, 
 think, think." 
 
 While Om and the boys were away on long 
 hunting trips, Ulma and Saxa and Rang were often 
 left alone for weeks at a time. There were the 
 goats to tend and a few simple domestic duties to 
 perform, but time sometimes hung heavy on their 
 125
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 hands, and Ulma, now that her children were no 
 longer babies requiring her constant care, would 
 sometirqes grow restive. She would say to Saxa, 
 " I wish I were a man and could hunt and trap 
 and rove where I wished." But Saxa was so young 
 and had so much serious play on her mind that she 
 did not understand. 
 
 And still Ulma fretted. She felt as strong as 
 when she had escaped from the red men. She tired 
 of weaving cloth on the loom which Rang had made 
 for her. She did not like to crouch on the ground 
 molding pottery, as many of the women did. When 
 her men were away, she began to wander farther 
 and farther from the village. She replied to the 
 anxious protests of Om that she wanted to find 
 herbs which were so bitter to the fever demon that 
 he would fly away. In reality, though she scarcely 
 knew it herself, she was searching for something 
 which seemed worth doing. As she wandered, she 
 collected nuts and fruits and wild grain, for no one 
 in the village knew so well where things good to 
 eat grew. 
 
 One day she found in a meadow some distance 
 from the village a new grass with seeds larger and 
 sweeter to the taste than any she had seen before. 
 She selected some and took them home and grinding 
 them into a coarse flour made cakes for Om and the 
 boys when they came home. They ate all of them 
 and wanted more. They had never tasted any- 
 thing as good, and Ulma with true housewife in- 
 stinct longed to give them more. On the next day 
 126
 
 THE GARDEN OF ULMA 
 
 she went and gathered all that she could find and 
 was preparing to grind it when a thought came 
 to her, perhaps from the mind of the Great Re- 
 vealer. If she ground all the grain, there would 
 be one meal and that would be the end of it. Why 
 not save the seed and plant it near the village? 
 There would be more and she would not have to 
 go so far for it. 
 
 So, instead of making flour from the wheat seed 
 for the new grain was wild wheat she put it 
 in a dry place, intending to put it in the ground in 
 the spring; but then she remembered that the seed 
 sowed itself in the fall. So she chose a level spot 
 not far from her cave, and after burning the tall 
 grass upon it, she scratched the surface with sharp 
 sticks and sowed her seed. 
 
 Now there was no need to tell Ulma not to 
 wander too far from the village. The birds were 
 as fond of the wheat as her men, and she had to 
 watch her field with unremitting care. Late in 
 the fall the ground became green with the new 
 wheat, and the face of Ulma shone. Her mother 
 instinct had a new outlet in the soil. 
 
 But as soon as the wheat was up a new enemy 
 appeared. Goats are not apt to pass by anything 
 good to eat at any time of year, and new wheat 
 seemed especially good at this time of year. Day and 
 night Ulma had to watch her tiny wheat field with 
 such help as Rang and Saxa could give. It was 
 engrossing business, and Om sometimes grumbled 
 a little if Ulma was chasing the goats when he 
 127
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 wanted something to eat. The villagers too were 
 inclined to resent it when Ulma stoned their goats. 
 All in all,, she had rather a hard time, but she did 
 not lack for occupation. 
 
 During the winter she had a rest, but in the 
 spring her troubles began afresh. She grew thin 
 and anxious trying to defend her precious wheat 
 field from its numerous enemies, but her zeal never 
 flagged. Saxa, however, often grew tired of watch- 
 ing the wheat field. Her mind was full of fancies, 
 and she loved to sit by herself and let them lead 
 her where they would. Often while she dreamed 
 the goats got into the wheat, and Ulma would come 
 flying out to drive them away and reproach her for 
 her neglect. 
 
 After one of these excursions from the post of 
 duty to the land of fancy, when the goats had been 
 especially hungry and she very far away, Ulma was 
 so angry that Saxa was frightened. She remem- 
 bered the oft-repeated words of Rang: "When the 
 thing is too big for you, think." And she thought. 
 The goats loved wheat and they did not very much 
 mind the few stones and sticks that were aimed well 
 enough to hit them. But she remembered some 
 thorn bushes that grew on the hill above the village, 
 which were the only things the goat would not eat. 
 The leaves were bitter as wormwood, and the 
 crooked spines were too much even for the tough 
 hide of a goat. If the thorns would only grow 
 about the wheat field, she would not need to sit 
 by the stupid grass and watch. But she could not 
 128
 
 THE GARDEN OF ULMA 
 
 do it herself; the thorns were too sharp and it was 
 too hard work. It was time for cunning thought, 
 a kind of thought as old as Eve. 
 
 Now Saxa was almost a woman, and the young 
 men of the village thought there was none like her. 
 They looked at her out of the corners of their eyes 
 as she passed. They brought the finest nuts and left 
 them at the door of the cave of Om, and Ul and 
 Ulu, who rose early in nut time, were full fed. 
 Saxa seemed to see none of them and care for 
 none, but old Suta, who saw other things besides 
 the pots she fashioned, would nod her head and 
 mutter: " Ah, these girls! They see most when they 
 seem blind." At any rate, there were a dozen young 
 hunters in the village who, as Saxa well knew, 
 would do anything they thought she wanted. But 
 there were things to be considered, and the next 
 night Saxa was wide awake while the others slept. 
 
 Now there was a certain young man, not be- 
 longing to the village, whom she had seen some- 
 times, who seemed to her more like a real chief than 
 any of the others. He was Let, the son of Sut, 
 chief of the plainsmen, and he came sometimes to 
 see his grandfather Wang and his grandmother 
 Suta. As time went on, he came more and more 
 often, and Suta and it may be Saxa noticed 
 that he always came by the cave of Wang. As 
 she lay awake and thought, an inspiration came to 
 her. Those who cared most for Saxa would build 
 the longest piece of thorn hedge for her mother's 
 field, and Let was coming to the village to-morrow. 
 129
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 Early the next morning Saxa went to the house 
 of Wang and watched Suta as she fashioned a new 
 and wonderful bowl with the figures of a flock 
 of goats molded about its edge. " Suta," said she 
 at last, " I am tired of watching the field of Ulma 
 and sometimes I forget. If I could put a hedge 
 of thorn about it, the thorn would not forget. 
 If Ul and Ulu were not away so much, I would 
 ask them to do it." Suta said nothing, but Saxa 
 saw her shoulders shake as if something pricked 
 them, and she went away knowing that the young 
 men of the village would know soon enough what 
 the daughter of Om wanted. 
 
 It was a busy day at the village. One by one 
 the young men slipped off to the hill with their 
 sharpest knives and their oldest and toughest coats. 
 That day the goats did not have even a chance. 
 There was a procession of torn and tattered heroes 
 bearing thorn bushes. The villagers came out and 
 jeered or cheered as the mood was, and Rang super- 
 intended the work of placing the bushes. Saxa did 
 not come out, but watched from the door of the 
 cave, and Ulma saw that she looked more often at 
 the road which led into the village than at the 
 scratched and weary workers. At last Let came 
 and stared with astonishment at the strange sight. 
 Without stopping, however, he went off to the 
 house of Wang, and Saxa watched to see him come 
 and work on the thorn fence. But the hours went 
 by and no Let appeared. One by one the others 
 gave it up and slipped away scratched and weary 
 130
 
 THE GARDEN OF ULMA 
 
 and feeling rather foolish. By nightfall only a little 
 more than half of the field was inclosed, and both 
 Saxa and Rang were disappointed. 
 
 The villagers slept soundly that night, and no 
 one was watching when the full moon rose and 
 Let slipped out of the cave of Wang and made 
 his way to the hill-side. He carried something 
 that looked like a heavy sickle, made of bronze. 
 He was dressed in the toughest kind of skins, skins 
 prepared to act as a kind of armor in attacking 
 savage beasts. Even his hands and feet were cov- 
 ered. Silently but swiftly he cut great piles of 
 thorn bush. The^n he took a rope of rawhide and 
 bound them together and dragged them to the field. 
 By morning the field was all inclosed with a hedge 
 of thorns, and Let was back in the house of Wang, 
 but not before he had left at the hut of Om a wild 
 rose tied to a thorn bush with a slender piece of 
 rawhide. 
 
 When Saxa looked out, she rubbed her eyes and 
 looked again. The field was hedged on all sides 
 with prickly thorns. Some goats were already 
 sniffing disgustedly at the bristling fence. She 
 looked at her feet and saw the rose and the thorn 
 bush tied together. No one would do that but Let, 
 and he had not come out yesterday. While she was 
 puzzling over it, Let himself came by and waved 
 his hand to her. To have done more would have 
 been contrary to the custom of the tribe. She saw 
 no sign of thorn scratches on his hands or limbs. 
 It could not be he that had built the hedge during
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 the night, but some one had. Who was it? She 
 went out to the field and walked about the hedge. 
 At last she found the clue which she had been look- 
 ing for. Let had forgotten his big bronze hook, 
 and it lay just as he had dropped it after his last 
 load. With a flush like the dawn she picked it up 
 and put it under her loose tunic so that no one 
 should see it, and carried it to the hut. She hid 
 it behind her bed of boughs and moss, but the sharp 
 eyes of Ulma soon discovered it, and said to Om, 
 " Saxa shall be wife to Let, the son of Sut." 
 " Why," answered Om, " she is but a child, and 
 besides But Ulma turned away with a look 
 of superior wisdom which made him feel much as 
 he had done when Rang had treed him, and he said 
 nothing. 
 
 So Ulma's wheat field grew, and many kinds of 
 growing things were added to it. Others did likewise 
 and food became more plentiful. In this manner 
 Ulma became the first farmer and Saxa the first 
 diplomatist But no, diplomacy began with Eve. 
 
 132
 
 LET, THE FIRST ARTIST
 
 XL LET, THE FIRST ARTIST 
 
 IN the good old days which were not so good, 
 after all, though they had their good points 
 young people were not allowed to see much of each 
 other./At first the young men carried off the young 
 women, if they were strong enough and the young 
 women not too unwilling. j But as time went on it 
 became the custom for the mothers, and perhaps a 
 little later for the fathers, to arrange such matters, 
 There would be plenty of time, they said, for the 
 boy and girl to get acquainted when they lived to- 
 gether every clay. So Let could look upon Saxa 
 only as he passed her home, and sometimes it seemed 
 to him as if she did not see him at all. As a matter 
 of fact, Let never put foot in the village of Angwang 
 without Saxa's knowing it, though no one suspected 
 it but Ulma. 
 
 Now Let was young and had not yet showed 
 skill as a hunter. Om shook his head when the 
 young man passed, and said, " Let him prove him- 
 self." And yet his heart was warm to the young 
 man because he was the son of Sut. Ulma, too, was 
 anxious. Let's face was always like the morning, 
 and as he went through the woods he often sang 
 to himself, and his voice made those who heard 
 135
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 turn to listen. It made Saxa's heart burn; but 
 the song^ scared away the game. 
 
 And Let was interested in so many things be- 
 sides the getting of food. One day a hunter found 
 him seated within easy shot of a deer. His bow 
 lay on the ground beside him. On his lap was 
 a flat white stone, and he was marking on it with 
 a piece of charcoal. As the deer fled at the approach 
 of the hunter, Let looked up and shouted, " I have 
 him." " You mean you have lost him," grumbled 
 the hunter. But Let cared not. He had drawn 
 the shape of the deer on the stone with his charcoal. 
 Later, he would follow the tracing with a flint pick. 
 So Let went home with an empty stomach but joy 
 in his heart. Both the people of his own village and 
 those of Angwang shook their heads, and when the 
 men went to hunt they left Let behind. No one 
 understood him but Suta, and so it came about 
 that he spent most of his time at the hut of Wang. 
 And sometimes Wang grumbled and said that the 
 young man ate much and brought little. Then Suta 
 turned on him as she rarely did and said, " Whose 
 work brings food to the home of Wang?" And 
 Wang could think of nothing to say at the time, 
 though he thought of many things afterwards. 
 
 Suta taught Let all that she knew of the art of 
 molding clay into wonderful shapes. But Let was 
 not satisfied. With his charcoal crayons he made 
 pictures on stones, clay, and skins, and Suta looked 
 on with shining eyes. The Great Seer had given 
 the boy the seeing eye and a hand that could speak 
 136
 
 THE FIRST ARTIST 
 
 a new language. But Let longed to have some one 
 else see and like the things which he made. 
 
 One day he discovered a beautiful spot in the 
 woods where Saxa went to dream, for girls have 
 always had their dreams from the beginning. And 
 he took a wonderful picture of a deer which he had 
 scratched upon a piece of slate and left it where 
 Saxa's eye would be sure to fall upon it. The next 
 day when he looked for it, it was gone, and he put 
 still another picture in its place. This time it was 
 done in soft clay with a sharp stick and then baked. 
 It was the picture of a girl. Saxa wondered if she 
 really looked like the picture, and studied her face, 
 mirrored in a still pool, to make sure. 
 
 At last Saxa grew tired of having Let do all 
 the picture talking, and Let found one day a piece 
 of the bark of the white birch, and on it was the 
 picture of a young man holding in his hand not 
 a spear but a piece of charcoal, and he was drawing 
 a deer, not killing it. So day by day they learned 
 to talk the picture language and share each other's 
 dreams and became very dear to each other. But, 
 alas, the hut of Let was still unbuilt, and the men 
 of the tribe turned their back on him at the council. 
 If it had not been for Suta, he would often have 
 gone hungry. 
 
 Sometimes Saxa herself grew impatient and 
 wished he was more like other men like her 
 father Om, or even her brothers but when she 
 went to the little cave on the hill-side, which no 
 one knew of, and looked at the wonderful things 
 137
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 which Let had pictured, she was glad that he was 
 different.* Suta was right. There were other things 
 besides food and huts and clothes, and she waited 
 patiently. 
 
 But Let was soon to enter into his man-right and 
 take his place in the circle about the fire, and this 
 is the story. 
 
 For many years the village of Angwang had 
 grown and prospered. There was food for all, and 
 warmth and shelter, and no enemies had attacked 
 them. To many of the young people the slaughter 
 of the red men was simply an old man's tale. But 
 at last the peace of the village was rudely broken. 
 A small band of hunters, of whom Let happened 
 to be one, went up the river a little farther than 
 usual. They expected to be back in two days at the 
 outside. Three days went by, and nothing was 
 heard from them. But since the men often remained 
 away longer than they expected, little anxiety was 
 felt for them, save in one heart Saxa was anxious. 
 She was sure Let would not have stayed away if 
 something had not happened. She went many times 
 during the third day to the spot where he left his 
 picture messages, but found nothing. As the day 
 went on, the grip of fear was stronger upon her, and 
 her mother could not keep her at home. She wan- 
 dered up and down the approaches of the village, 
 trying at first to conceal her anxiety, but growing 
 less and less careful as night approached. 
 
 Just as the night was shutting in, she stood on 
 the bank of the river watching the path that fol- 
 138
 
 THE FIRST ARTIST 
 
 lowed it for a considerable distance. Suddenly her 
 attention was attracted to a piece of the bark of 
 the silver birch drifting down the stream. Her 
 heart leaped as she saw it. Sometimes Let had 
 playfully sent picture messages in little boats fash- 
 ioned from bark. She waded out into the stream, 
 caught the bark as it drifted by, and hurried to the 
 shore. Even in the dim light she could see that 
 there were rough pictures upon it, so much rougher 
 than any Let had ever sent before that she realized 
 that this was something more than a love letter 
 drawn at leisure. 
 
 With quick footsteps she hurried to the fire 
 where her mother was cooking and studied the pic- 
 tures on the bark. It needed the intuition of 
 woman's love to interpret them. They had been 
 scratched with something sharp, perhaps an arrow 
 point, and not drawn with charcoal as usual. That 
 showed that the one who had made them had 
 expected to send it by water. The rough work 
 showed that it had been done in haste and perhaps 
 in danger. 
 
 As Saxa sat crouching before the fire trying to 
 interpret the pictures, both Om and Ulma came 
 and looked over her shoulder, but she was so intent 
 that she did not notice them. Ulma was quite sure 
 that the scratches meant nothing, but Om's eye was 
 attracted by something familiar. He leaned over 
 Saxa's shoulder and studied the bark drawing more 
 carefully. There was the outline of a ragged hill 
 which he had often seen in his hunting trips, and 
 139
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 he pointed his finger to it, saying, " Hill of the 
 Goats! ' l It gave to Saxa the key she needed. She 
 sprang to her feet and drew her father's head down 
 so that he could see more plainly. Then she pointed 
 with eager fingers. Here were six small figures like 
 men, huddled together in a hollow between two 
 cliffs. On the cliffs were as many figures as the 
 artist could find room for, but evidently drawn with 
 greatest haste and under great difficulties. In a 
 corner, beneath the larger picture, was a sketch of 
 a man creeping on all fours carrying something, 
 it might be a piece of bark, in his teeth. In the 
 opposite corner was Let's sign, a hand posed to 
 draw. 
 
 The meaning was clear. The hunters had been 
 trapped in a pass near the Hill of the Goats by 
 a numerous enemy. Let had crept to the river to 
 carry his bark message for help. Neither the river 
 nor his sweetheart had failed him. Almost before 
 Saxa had finished interpreting it Om had seized his 
 weapons and rushed into the street of the village, 
 giving the weird war-cry of the Angwangs which 
 had not been heard for many years. In less time 
 than it takes to tell, the fighting men of the tribe 
 gathered and started to the rescue of the besieged 
 hunters. Saxa, with throbbing heart and eyes that 
 burned like fire, sat through the long sleepless night, 
 watching as if her eyes could pierce the dark dis- 
 tance which separated her from her lover. And that 
 night Saxa floated out of the brook of girlhood, 
 far out into the stream of womanhood. 
 140
 
 THE FIRST ARTIST 
 
 In the quiet life of the village Om had some- 
 times grown weary of inaction. He had no fond- 
 ness for herding goats or digging in the soil. That 
 was woman's work, and the hunting was not what 
 it had been when he was young. The bullocks had 
 gone to safer pastures. Ever the great cave bear 
 found it safer to find a den farther and farther from 
 the village. There had been less and less to show 
 the real power of Om, and some of the younger men 
 had begun to wonder if he really was so great a 
 war-chief as the old men believed. But that night 
 they felt the power of a born leader of men. 
 Though his eyes burned with the light of battle 
 and his great body seemed tense like that of a 
 lion about to spring upon its prey, he was still 
 so clearly ruler of himself that they all knew in 
 him their master. He was the head; they the 
 hands and feet. 
 
 All night they trailed in single file, as swiftly as 
 wolves and as noiselessly as foxes. Before the gray 
 of morning they were near the pass. Om halted his 
 men long enough for them to rest and eat, for he 
 knew that hungry men are always less courageous 
 than those well fed, and he knew also that it is 
 in the chill of morning that man's strength is 
 at the ebb. So he gave his commands. The men 
 were to form a great circle about the besiegers 
 and at a signal, the weird hoot of the great white 
 owl, rush in on the enemy, who would be too dazed 
 to know whether a hundred men or a thousand were 
 attacking them. For nearly half an hour not a 
 141
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 sound was to be heard but the occasional sleepy call 
 of a sentuiel on the cliff. Then came the long soul- 
 searching cry of the owl, echoing through the woods, 
 and then such blood-curdling yells and cries as 
 torture the memory of the man who has heard 
 them. 
 
 The red men who had ventured once more from 
 their eastern haunts on a foraging expedition were 
 caught napping. They had slept little for several 
 nights. The handful of hunters were not numerous 
 enough to cause them much anxiety, so they had set 
 a few men to watch and given themselves up to the 
 Sleep Spirit. When the white men rushed upon 
 them, many of them were far off in the land of 
 dreams and the journey back was too long for them. 
 A few made a feeble attempt to defend themselves, 
 but the terror of the darkness was upon them, and the 
 chill of the morning robbed them of courage. Only 
 a few of them escaped, and most of them were 
 hunted down in the woods in the days that followed. 
 
 With the morning light, Om and his men stood 
 upon the edge of the cliff and looked down upon 
 the besieged. At a glance they could see why the 
 red men had not rushed in and made an end of 
 them. In the middle of the small valley, in a little 
 open meadow, was a heap of stones, large enough 
 to shield the hunters from the arrows of their ene- 
 mies, with no cover on any side for an attacking 
 party. A number of dead bodies in the open showed 
 how the red men had learned their lesson. The 
 body of one lay quite near the stone shelter and 
 142
 
 THE FIRST ARTIST 
 
 was so pierced with arrows that it looked like a 
 porcupine. 
 
 At a shout from the cliffs, the besieged hunters 
 cautiously raised their heads and saw their fellow 
 tribesmen lining the cliff which had been crowded 
 with cruel red faces the night before. With a 
 great shout they rushed, not towards their rescuers 
 but to the river, where they plunged in and drank 
 like thirsty animals, for they had been for more 
 than two days and nights without water. 
 
 When the rescuers and rescued at last met and 
 the story was told, Let was its hero. If it had not 
 been for him, there would have been no one left 
 to tell the story. They had been resting after an 
 unsuccessful hunt, not far from the rock fort in 
 which they had taken refuge later, when the red 
 men attacked them. As it happened, Let was try- 
 ing to draw the outline of the Hill of the Goats 
 on a piece of bark when he saw the red men 
 approaching and gave warning. Without the warn- 
 ing the hunters would have had no chance. It was 
 Let also who had crawled to the river with his 
 bark message, under shelter of darkness, and then 
 come back to his companions when he might have 
 tried to escape by the river. In fact, it was as 
 he was returning that he had been discovered and 
 wounded. 
 
 After the men had fed and rested, they made a 
 
 litter of fir boughs and tenderly placed the wounded 
 
 Let upon it and bore him back in triumph to the 
 
 village. Long before the main body arrived, mes- 
 
 H3
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 sengers had carried the news, and as they entered 
 the village the street was lined with eager women 
 and children and old people. When the litter ap- 
 peared, with Om walking a few feet in advance, 
 they raised a great shout : " Om ! Om ! Slayer of 
 the red men ! " There was a moment's silence and 
 then another shout: "Let of the talking hand and 
 the brave heart, maker of pictures ! " At the shout- 
 ing Let raised his head with difficulty and looked, 
 not at the shouting crowd, but at Saxa's face as she 
 came to meet him with a light more .beautiful than 
 that of morning in her eyes. 
 
 And Om took Let to his own cave, and Ulma 
 put healing herbs on his wound, and Saxa fed him, 
 as a bird mother feeds her young, till his strength 
 came back. 
 
 At the great fire Let of the thinking hand came 
 into his man-right and sat among the men of the 
 tribe. And so Let became the first artist, and men 
 loved him because he was loved of Odin. 
 
 144
 
 SAX, THE FIRST MUSICIAN
 
 XII. SAX, THE FIRST MUSICIAN 
 
 EVEN in the boyhood of Ang the oldest could 
 not say who was the first singer. When 
 Ang was old and wise and had seen many things 
 and pondered on them, he told the children, as they 
 came to him to hear of times long gone, that sing- 
 ing began with man and Ad sang to Eva as the 
 thrush sings to his mate. But music was born in 
 the village of Angwang, and Sax, son of Saxa 
 and Let, was the first musician, and this is the story 
 of how the Great One gave him the power to make 
 the reeds sing. 
 
 Now Let became the husband of Saxa, and the 
 men of the village of Angwang made a cave home 
 for them almost as large and fine as that of Om 
 the chief, for they all loved him for his smiling 
 face, joyous voice, and brave heart, and reverenced 
 him because, the Great One had given him the power 
 to make the charred wood and sharp flint speak. 
 Next to Ang, the aged priest, and Om, the great 
 war-chief, he was most honored. 
 
 And Let did more than make pictures on clay, 
 
 stone, bark, and the skin of animals. With great 
 
 care he made better pictures for words which even 
 
 the children could learn to read and write. So it 
 
 H7
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 came to be that men who went on long journeys 
 could send back messages to those at home on bits 
 of bark or wood. Children came to the cave of 
 Let, and he showed them how to use the charcoal 
 and pick, how to picture the things which they 
 saw and to make signs to stand for pictures. They 
 came so early and stayed so long that Saxa had 
 to drive them away sometimes, and the old people 
 grumbled because the young people liked to make 
 pictures so much better than to tend goats or bring 
 wood. 
 
 There came to the cave of Saxa and Le.t from 
 the land of the little folk, which is near the dwelling 
 of Odin and Freya, a son, and they called him Sax. 
 As he grew to be a man, there was no one like him 
 in all the village. He was big like his grand- 
 father Om ; he had the cunning hand of his father 
 Let and he was a dreamer of dreams like his mother 
 Saxa. The Great Spirit had given him all the gifts 
 but one. His voice was hoarse like the raven's, and 
 yet the spirit of song was in him and he tried again 
 and again to sing, but even the boys who loved 
 him and the girls who admired him could not hide 
 their laughter. 
 
 Sax could do everything except sing, and that 
 was the thing which he most longed to be able to 
 do. He went far away into the woods, where no 
 one would hear him, and tried to bring music to 
 his tongue, but it was useless. Sax's ear was good, 
 though his voice was poor, and he finally gave it 
 up; but still the spirit of song within him called. 
 148
 
 SAX, THE MUSICIAN 
 
 And the time came when the call became so loud 
 that he could not escape from it day or night. 
 
 In the village of Sutlack on the plains there was 
 a girl whose name was Lala, and she sang so that 
 the birds would stop to listen and men's hearts kept 
 time to the pulsing of her song. As Sax heard her, 
 it seemed as if his heart would burst with its long- 
 ing to pour out its own love in an answering song. 
 Once a hoarse note escaped him, but the look on 
 Lala's startled face stopped all its fellows in his 
 throat and he never tried to sing again. But the 
 love of Sax for Lala grew, and he could find no 
 language for it which would reach the heart of the 
 girl. With the intuition of a lover, he knew that 
 melody was the only path to the heart of Lala 
 and he was dumb. He brought the finest of game 
 and -the choicest of fruits and nuts and left them 
 at the cave of Lack, her grandfather, but she gave no 
 sign. While she looked on, he excelled all the young 
 men of the tribe in running and wrestling and 
 shooting, but she listened to the song of the birds 
 and cared nothing for his strength and skill. There 
 was not a girl in the village of Angwang or the 
 village of Sutlack who would not have been glad 
 to share the cave of Sax, except Lala, and Sax 
 cared only for her. 
 
 Now Ang had gone his way to the land of the 
 fathers, but Oma lingered. She was almost blind 
 and had to be carried to the council fire of her 
 people. But as the outer eye grew dim the inner 
 eye grew bright, and there was no one in the north 
 149
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 land who was so wise as Oma. She was wise with 
 the wisdom of the fathers. In the long years of her 
 journey in the land of Now she had seen and 
 heard many things and learned their meaning, 
 but more than these the Wise One had given 
 her the power to read the heart as Om had read 
 the woods and the streams. And Sax came to Oma 
 and told her his trouble. The old woman listened 
 in silence and made no answer for so long that 
 Sax thought she had not heard and began to tell 
 his story again. Then Oma roused herself as from 
 a dream: " No, I heard thee. My spirit has been 
 living again the days that are gone. I have been 
 hearing again the spring song of Ang, and my heart 
 has been again the heart of a girl. There is no 
 road to the heart of Lala but that of song, and 
 the Great One has not given thee the singing 
 tongue." 
 
 The heart of Sax sank within his breast, and he 
 sat long in silence with his head bowed. Then he 
 turned again to the old woman : " Is there no other 
 way?" 'There is none," answered Oma, and it 
 seemed the voice of fate. " Then," said Sax, " I 
 will find that way." As he knelt by the old woman's 
 knee, he straightened himself and threw back his 
 head as if challenging invisible enemies. And she 
 laid her hand upon his head and pushed his hair 
 back from his brow, murmuring to herself. .Ang 
 and Om and Saxa they all lived there, and her 
 own blood was his. Then a light came to her face: 
 " In time of need Odin has spoken to the people. 
 150
 
 SAX, THE MUSICIAN 
 
 In the cruel cold he spoke to Ang in the tongues of 
 fire. He gave to Oma the secret of the clay. He 
 taught Rang to make the wood and stone and 
 copper his servants. He showed to Om the smoke 
 trail. He made Ulu the master of the winds. He 
 gave to Let the speaking hand. Go follow the 
 stream as it sings its way to the Great Water and 
 listen for the voice of the Revealer. It may be 
 that he will show you how to follow the trail 
 which leads to the heart of Lala." 
 
 So Sax took a skiff which he had made for him- 
 self, one lighter and swifter than any that he had 
 made before, and followed the singing water. In 
 the morning he heard the song of the birds. At 
 noon he drowsed to the humming of insects. At 
 night he listened to the music of the stream, and his 
 soul was stored with harmony and melody, but it 
 could find no voice. 
 
 At last he came to the Father of Waters. All 
 day long he heard the thousand voices of the sea 
 and sky and land mingling about him. Song, song 
 everywhere but on the lips of Sax. Where was 
 the Keeper of Secrets? Had he gone on a long 
 journey? Had he forgotten? Had he no more 
 secrets? Was it too great a task even for the 
 Great One to give song to the one who had none? 
 He fell into a troubled sleep upon the sand, but was 
 awakened by a soft sweet sound at his ear, a sound 
 which seemed to bring together all the mystic melo- 
 dies of earth and air and water. He lay very still, 
 fearing that the music would vanish like a dream of
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 the night, but it did not. He slowly turned his head 
 and saw near him a great shell. Taking it in his 
 hands, he pressed it close to his ear and listened with 
 delight to the wonderful songs of the sea. His heart 
 beat heavily and his breath came quickly. Perhaps the 
 secret was hidden in the heart of the shell. 
 
 The next day he listened to the heart of many 
 shells. He found that different shells made dif- 
 ferent sounds in different keys. But still the secret 
 was not his. How could he make them sing his 
 song instead of their own? He found that he 
 could make a sound which was clear and sweet by 
 blowing on the lips of some of them, but it takes 
 more than one note to make music. 
 
 Day after day he wandered on the shore and 
 tried to pluck the secret of song from the heart of 
 the shell. He collected shells of all sizes and ar- 
 ranged them before him and by blowing one after 
 another finally made a series of sounds which were 
 something like a musical scale, but Sax knew that 
 the songs which pressed behind his dumb lips could 
 never find voice through such slow and uncertain 
 sounds as these. He must search again. He lay 
 down on the sand discouraged but not defeated. 
 He would not go back until he had found it. 
 
 As he lay full length on the white beach looking 
 out upon the waters and wondering if the secret 
 lay beyond it, his hand, as it played with the sand, 
 fell upon a dry reed which some high tide had cast 
 above the ordinary level of the waves. He toyed 
 with it unthinking and unseeing, little dreaming that 
 152
 
 SAX, THE MUSICIAN 
 
 he held the magic wand of music within his grasp. 
 With thoughts still trying to span the sea, he idly 
 held the reed in his hand. It was hard as a stick, 
 but so light that it finally drew his wandering 
 attention. He glanced at it. It was hollow. He 
 held it to his eye towards the light, and not being able 
 to see through it, tried to blow out the dried pith 
 which stuck in one end. As he did so carelessly, 
 he blew across the open end of the reed, and was 
 called back from the land of aimless dreams by a 
 low, soft whistle. He blew again, and louder. 
 Again the answering note, only clearer and stronger, 
 a note which stirred the heart like the woodsy 
 whistle of the thrush. He started to his feet with 
 a cry of joy. While he looked afar, the secret lay 
 at his feet. In his excitement he broke the fragile 
 reed in two. With sinking heart he looked at it. 
 Had he lost it so soon after finding it? He blew 
 again on one of the shorter pieces. Again an an- 
 swering whistle, but this time higher and more 
 shrill. 
 
 Joy filled his heart. At last the Revealer had 
 spoken. The reeds should give voice to the songs 
 of his soul. With anxious care he sought for reeds 
 of varied lengths and varied sizes in the marshes 
 which bordered the mouth of the river. He tested 
 each till he found what suited him ; then he bound 
 them together. It was a crude thing, and yet the 
 soul of Sax was so full of music that he made it 
 sing. Then he made better and better ones. At 
 last he made one out of a kind of pith alder, which 
 153
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 satisfied him. He arranged its pipes so that he 
 could sound a series of notes from low to high. 
 Then he began to imitate upon it the song of birds 
 and at last the songs of Lala and the songs which 
 he had made for her and could not sing before. 
 
 As the days went by, his skill grew greater and 
 the songs sweeter. He tired of playing to him- 
 self, the sea, and the woods. The reeds must sing 
 to Lala. Each night as he camped by the river's 
 bank on his home journey he taught his pipe new 
 and more beautiful love songs. 
 
 Sax drew near to the village of Sutlack just as 
 the sun was setting. Instead of going ashore he 
 fastened his skiff near the hut of Lack and waited. 
 Suddenly there came from the top of a tree just 
 above him a song more beautiful than any he had 
 ever heard before. It was Lala, who, like the birds, 
 loved to sing from the upper air of the tree tops. 
 Again and again she sang, and Sax listened in a 
 dream of love and wonder. At last she stopped 
 and for a moment there was silence ; then there 
 came up as if from the heart of the river such 
 music as Lala had never heard before and never 
 dreamed of. She listened breathlessly with heart 
 keeping time with the melody. 
 
 Sax's soul poured out music till the valley seemed 
 full to overflowing and spilled a stream of song 
 over the encircling hills. The villagers listened in 
 wonder and awe, thinking it the song of the River 
 Spirit. Lala, after the first delight and wonder, 
 peered down through the branches and saw Sax 
 154
 
 SAX, THE MUSICIAN 
 
 and his singing pipes. As she listened, she seemed 
 to hear the very soul of Sax finding voice, and the 
 soul of all things, and most of all her own soul. 
 
 By and by she came down to the river's bank, 
 and Sax found his way to the heart of Lala by 
 the path of song, for he gave a voice and a soul 
 to the reeds. 
 
 So Sax became the first musician and the father 
 of those who give to nature and to man a thou- 
 sand voices and enrich life with melody and 
 harmony. 
 
 155
 
 THE CALL OF THE GREAT WATER
 
 XIII. THE CALL OF THE GREAT 
 WATER 
 
 UL and Ulu grew to be men and mighty hunters. 
 They had caves of their own, sat among the 
 men of their tribe at the council fire, and had 
 enough to eat and to wear. Many of the young 
 men of the tribe envied them and said, " If we 
 had as much as Ul and Ulu, we should want no 
 more." But the young men themselves were rest- 
 less and cared less and less for the ordinary life 
 of their tribe. Day and night they heard the lap 
 of the waves on the distant shore of the Great 
 Water, and the unknown beyond beckoned them. 
 They said but little to each other, but each knew 
 that the same hidden fire of unrest burned in the 
 heart of the other. 
 
 Often they climbed to the highest peak of the 
 Black Hills and looked eagerly to the western sky. 
 They built larger and larger dug-outs, felling and 
 hollowing out the trunks of enormous trees. At last 
 they fashioned one large enough to carry a dozen 
 men and they fitted it with two sails, a great steer- 
 ing paddle, and a covered hatch in front. With 
 some other adventurous men of their own age they 
 followed the .stream to the sea and spent weeks 
 159
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 feasting on the sea food, taking short voyages to 
 test their boat, yielding more and more to the 
 magnetic pull of the West, and the Mystery be- 
 yond. A few experiments convinced Ulu, who was 
 by common consent master sailor, that their boat, 
 large as it seemed on the river, was not large 
 enough for the Great Water. It was long and 
 narrow, without a keel, and it rolled and tipped 
 dangerously, even in a moderate sea. When they 
 headed it into waves of any size, the water would 
 come over the low bow and swamp it. Again and 
 again they had to swim ashore, pushing their water- 
 logged craft before them. 
 
 Instead of going back to the village of Angwang 
 as they had done before, Ul and Ulu and their 
 companions found a sheltered cave not far from 
 the mouth of the river and built huts for themselves 
 and laid the foundations of a village. Food was 
 plenty, and they gave themselves to learning the 
 ways of the sea. Ulu undertook the problem of 
 making a bigger boat. No tree trunk was large 
 enough, so they fastened two great trunks together 
 with great wooden pins, laboriously boring holes 
 with a sand drill, an invention of Rang's. It took 
 them months to finish the big dug-out, and when it 
 was finished it was little, if any, better than those 
 made of a single tree trunk. 
 
 Ul shook his head, saying it could not be done, 
 
 and the others agreed, excepting Ulu. While the 
 
 others gave themselves up to fishing and hunting, 
 
 he went off by himself. If old Rang had been with 
 
 160
 
 THE GREAT WATER 
 
 them, he would have said, as he had said so often 
 when they were boys, " When the thing is too big, 
 think." So he thought and thought and thought 
 again. He made little models of boats of various 
 shapes, from soft wood, and floated them on the 
 bay to see how they would take the smaller 
 waves, but all, as it seemed, to no purpose. His 
 companions would often point their hands to 
 their heads with sober nods, when his back was 
 turned. 
 
 One day, when a stiff breeze was blowing, Ul 
 and two of his companions went out in the old 
 dug-out, but Ulu stayed on the shore, thinking, 
 and watching his toy boats. Soon he noticed that 
 the men in the boat were having bad weather. 
 Though the waves were not very high, they were 
 sharp and crested and each wave spilled over the 
 bow. In a few moments Ul gave it up and brought 
 the boat back to the beach nearly filled with water. 
 Ulu shook his head. That kind of a boat would 
 not do. Just then his attention was called to a 
 wild duck sitting easily on the tossing water. There 
 was the model for his sea boat. It must be broader, 
 and the bow must be high enough to throw back 
 the water, and it must be lighter, so that it could 
 rise quickly to meet the waves. But how could it 
 be done? Ulu longed for the cunning hands and 
 contriving brain of Rang, but Rang was far away 
 and Rang was old. If it was to be done, he was to 
 do it, so he gave himself again to his task. He made 
 models following the lines of the duck and found 
 161
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 that they were steadier and better. But the prob- 
 lem was to make one large enough and light 
 enough. It could not be made by hollowing logs. 
 There must be some other way. 
 
 One day, as he wandered upon the beach in deep 
 discouragement and all but ready to give it up 
 and go back to the village and live as his fathers 
 had done before him, he came upon the carcase of 
 a porpoise which had been tossed up by the waves. 
 Gulls and vultures had picked away all the flesh, 
 leaving only the tough skin and bones. The birds 
 had been able to get at the flesh only through the 
 softer skin of the upturned belly, so the skin on 
 the sides and back was unbroken. He pushed it 
 into the water with his foot, where it floated as 
 lightly as a hollow tree. A gust of wind caught it 
 and it sailed swiftly from him. With a cry Ulu 
 dashed after it into the water and caught it with 
 great difficulty. Perhaps here was the secret. He 
 dragged it above the reach of the waves and studied 
 it. The bones made a light framework; the dried 
 skin a perfect covering. 
 
 For weeks Ulu and Ul and their companions 
 labored at a new type of boat. First they made a 
 framework of ash, like the skeleton of the fish 
 model. Then they covered it with skins collected 
 with great care and sewed together with sinews. 
 Finally they covered it with pitch to keep out the 
 water and protect the skins. When it was finished, 
 it did not look very well, but it was, after all, a 
 better sea boat than the narrow rolling dug-out. 
 162
 
 THE GREAT WATER 
 
 It was light and elastic, but with considerable 
 strength and carrying power. 
 
 After a few trial trips to test its sea-going quali- 
 ties, Ulu and his companions fitted it for a longer 
 voyage than they had ever attempted before. They 
 filled goatskins with water and stored dried venison 
 and wheat flour under a rude hatch in front. The 
 other men expected to take a trip up the shore, but 
 not out of sight of land, but Ulu and Ul had hearts 
 set on the Great Beyond and eyes searching the 
 far horizon. 
 
 They set sail on a beautiful spring morning. The 
 blue of the sea answered the blue of the sky. A soft 
 land breeze pushed them gently seaward. The sun 
 was rising from great white pillows of cloud. Never 
 had there been a fairer morning than this on which 
 these pioneer voyagers set sail. The spirits of the 
 men were in tune with the brightness of the day. A 
 new world beckoned to them with smiles, as a mother 
 beckons to her child. So they sailed and sailed with 
 their faces towards the west and with a following 
 wind. Not even the most timid thought to look back. 
 Ulu and Ul would not. Finally the eastern shore 
 sank back lower and lower, and to east and west 
 and north and south there was nothing but water 
 as far as the eye could see. 
 
 As midday approached, it grew hotter and the 
 breeze died away. When the weary men dropped 
 their paddles and reached for water, one looked 
 about him and gave a startled cry. Where the 
 friendly and familiar shore had been, was only the 
 163
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 * 
 
 bluish smoke line of the horizon. For a few 
 moments not a word was spoken. The breeze had 
 gone. There was not a sound but the sluggish 
 lapping of the waves on the boat's side and the 
 occasional call of a gull as he swooped in wide 
 circles about this strange new fish which only swam 
 on the surface of the water. They were all brave 
 men in an age when only the brave could live, but 
 as they looked stealthily into each other's faces they 
 saw the lurking shadows of fear. They had been 
 lonely before, but never with a loneliness like this. 
 There was not the comfort of a single familiar 
 landmark. In the blue haze of the midday there 
 was a strange look in each face. When one spoke, 
 he seemed startled at the sound of his own voice and 
 did not speak again. 
 
 Ulu alone did not seem moved by the strange 
 new isolation of mid-sea. Ul looked at him ques- 
 tioningly, but his gaze did not waver from the 
 western horizon. It was as if he saw something 
 beyond their vision which held him by its magic 
 spell as the serpent holds the charmed bird. The 
 men whispered to each other and started guiltily at 
 their rough breathing. The heat was great and .the 
 men were wet with sweat, but they shivered now and 
 then. When Ulu, as if waking from a trance, gave 
 the signal to go on, they paddled feverishly, glad of 
 the diversion of occupation. They wished that he 
 would turn the bow of the boat to the east, but there 
 was something in the faces of the brothers which 
 kept them silent as the boat headed always west. 
 164
 
 THE GREAT WATER 
 
 As for Ulu, he thought of nothing but the some- 
 thing just beyond the horizon, and Ul studied noth- 
 ing but the face of his brother. Only the brain of 
 Ulu and the favor of Odin could save them from 
 he knew not what. Still Ulu gave no sign. If 
 he had been wiser in the ways of the sea, he would 
 have known that deadly danger lurked in the sky 
 above them and in the water about them. The 
 wind ceased entirely. A fog slowly rose and en- 
 veloped them, but so gradually they could not tell 
 when it came. The water about them changed from 
 purple to an oily black, and at last the gray blanket 
 hid even that. Ulu, as he sat at the stern, grew 
 dimmer and dimmer till the man who sat next him 
 reached out his hand and touched him to be sure 
 he was there. The men stopped paddling and lis- 
 tened, breathless. In the great silence even the 
 dripping of their paddles startled them. What 
 next? 
 
 Now that the western horizon had been hidden 
 from him, Ulu seemed to waken as from a dream. 
 For the first time he felt the grip of fear on his 
 own heart. Perhaps the spirits of the Beyond did 
 not love men and had sent this great mist to blind 
 prying eyes. But what could he do ? He could not 
 tell the sun rising from the sun setting when he 
 could hardly see his hand before his face. For the 
 first time he realized what it would mean if he 
 had been wrong and had gone against the will of 
 the Great Ones. These men, his companions, would 
 pay the penalty of his folly. 
 165
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 + 
 
 As he sat with head bowed on his breast, a breath 
 of cool air touched his face. There was a rustling 
 in the air above them. The mantle of mist lifted ; 
 the black water appeared again, and at last the 
 wide expanse of the sea, but a very different sea. 
 It looked like the face of a swarthy giant just 
 breaking into uncontrollable rage. It did not need 
 the skilled eye of a seaman to see that worse was 
 coming, and it came with terrible rapidity. About 
 them the sea was black. To the southeast there 
 appeared a gray blue streak of rumpled water that 
 rushed towards them with an ominous whistling 
 sound, like that of wind in the tree tops; a gust 
 smote them on the quarter, and their frail bark 
 rocked dangerously ; then the storm closed in upon 
 them. Gray wolf waves rushed at them, and the 
 salt foam from their hungry jaws flicked the faces 
 of the frightened men. Above them the huntsmen 
 of the air swept by with awful roar, hurling their 
 bolts of fire. The wind lashed them and slashed 
 them and tossed them. Following a blind instinct 
 rather than reason, Ulu kept his men paddling 
 steadily against the wind. Sometimes green water 
 came over the gunwale and two men had to bail for 
 life. A hundred times it seemed as if the end had 
 come, and the men would have dropped their paddles 
 if it had not been for Ulu. With the danger his 
 courage grew. The storm was not so terrifying as 
 the gray stillness which had come before it. 
 
 And at last they outrode the storm, and when 
 the clouds parted and the wind had gone roaring 
 1 66
 
 THE GREAT WATER 
 
 back to its northern dens and the sea grew more 
 quiet, the sun looked down on one of the strangest 
 crews that ever sailed the sea. The boat had been 
 badly strained in the storm and leaked so fast that 
 half of the men had to bail in order to keep it afloat. 
 Water still trickled from their matted hair, down 
 their streaming backs. In the eyes of the men was 
 the wild look often seen in the faces of those who 
 have been almost drowned. But in Ulu's face shone 
 the light of conquest. The black ones had fled and 
 they were still alive. " Look," cried he, pointing 
 to the northwest, " they have gone. We are here. 
 The land of the sun-setting calls us." 
 
 The western horizon, cleared by the storm, was 
 now clearly marked by a land line which grew 
 thicker and thicker as they paddled towards it. 
 Just at sunset they came to a low-lying coast wooded 
 to the very shores and dragged their boat on the 
 beach. It was fortunate that they had reached 
 land when they did, for the boat would have floated 
 only a few hundred yards more. 
 
 Weary and exhausted, they made no other prep- 
 arations for the night than to eat some of the 
 water-soaked provisions and dig a hole for a bed 
 in the warm sand. Through the first part of the 
 night they all slept the sleep of utter exhaustion, 
 but as the chill mist of morning settled on shore 
 and sea Ulu awoke. He tried again and again to 
 go to sleep, but failed. When the light began to 
 break, he arose and decided to spy out this new 
 land before his companions awoke. 
 167
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 * 
 
 As he climbed a low bluff above the beach where 
 his companions slept, the day was breaking. All 
 about him was apparently trackless forest. It was 
 useless to try exploring it alone. He turned and 
 looked down on his companions, who looked like 
 driftwood on the shore, and out upon the sea which 
 they had crossed with such danger. His heart sank 
 within him as he thought of the distance which 
 separated them from the old familiar scenes. Was 
 this the land which had so long lured him in his 
 dreams? Trees, trees everywhere. They did not 
 need to cross the great water and risk their lives 
 to find trees. 
 
 He was startled from his melancholy musing by 
 a sound like the call of a wood pigeon, and turned 
 to see a woman standing within a few yards of 
 him. Her hands were extended toward him with 
 open palms, a sign of peace as old as the human race, 
 and yet there was something in her appearance more 
 terrifying than an armed man. Her long hair, 
 which hung in heavy masses on her shoulders, was 
 red /the red that glows like an ember in the fire 
 and glistens like burnished bronze in the sun./ Her 
 face showed, even in the dim morning light, the 
 plentiful kisses of the sun. Her body was more 
 powerful than that of any woman whom Ulu had 
 ever seen, but still had grace and beauty. She was 
 young, younger than Ulu, and, as he thought, the 
 most wonderful and beautiful woman he had ever 
 seen, and yet there was something about her to bring 
 fear to the heart of even a brave man. The some- 
 168
 
 THE GREAT WATER 
 
 thing was in her eyes, which were the gray blue 
 of the veldt, and in the expression of her face. 
 Her eyes seemed to look through Ulu and beyond ; 
 they pierced him like arrows ; they cut him like 
 knives, and yet it seemed as if she saw not him 
 but something in him or behind him. Her face had 
 the texture of a child's, but the look of one who 
 has seen nothing but bloodshed and cruelty for twice 
 a lifetime, a face terrifying because of its mingling 
 of age with youth and grimness with beauty. 
 
 Though she said not a word and only looked 
 fixedly at him, Ulu knew that she was one of those 
 whose spirits had wandered from their bodies, driven 
 out perhaps by some horror of fear or suffering. 
 Under the woman's look, Ulu's dread and uncer- 
 tainty grew, and he tried to slip away to his com- 
 panions. He had taken only a step or two, how- 
 ever, when he was stopped by the pressure of a 
 hand on his shoulder. The touch was light as that 
 of Ulma, but the hand of the giant Om could not 
 have stopped him more quickly. He was more terri- 
 fied than he had ever been in his life before, but 
 he was as helpless to resist as a child in the hands 
 of^its mother. 
 
 Without speaking or looking at him, she gazed 
 at his companions on the shore for a time. Then 
 she turned and, taking his hand in hers, led him 
 by a narrow path into the woods. Fearful and 
 reluctant as he was, he followed her r unques- 
 tioninglyfes one in a hypnotic trance. For the time 
 he had no will but that of the mysterious woman. 
 169
 
 AROUND T-HE FIRE 
 
 Silently but swiftly she led him by a tortuous 
 trail into the heart of the forest where the shadows 
 of night still lingered. At last they drew near a 
 clearing, as Ulu could tell by the growing light, 
 and the woman left the beaten path, leading him 
 stealthily to a screen of bushes from which they 
 'could see across an open space. 
 
 It was a weird spectacle on which Ulu looked 
 out. In the center of the open spot, which was 
 shaped like a small amphitheater, was a stone altar, 
 made by placing a large flat rock on four sup- 
 porting stones. On the top of it lay the naked 
 body of a child, whose beauty could be seen even 
 in the dim light. His hands and feet were bound 
 fast, and his head rested on a kind of stone pillow, 
 and his hair was the color of the sun, like that of 
 the woman who stood by his side. 
 
 In a circle about the altar were crouched twenty 
 or thirty men, black-haired and swarthy, evidently 
 waiting with grim patience for some appointed time. 
 At the head of the altar, and facing the east, stood 
 an old man of striking and terrifying appearance. 
 He was taller than any man Ulu had ever seen, 
 and a great white beard fell below his waist. In his 
 uplifted right hand he held a great stone knife, 
 which he waved above the child's head, while he 
 chanted a weird song with a refrain in which the 
 watchers joined. When the knife came near the 
 child's throat, the grip of the woman on Ulu's 
 arm seemed to cut into his flesh. 
 
 The scene needed no interpreter. The old man 
 170
 
 THE GREAT WATER 
 
 was a priest of the sun ; the child with the flaming 
 red hair was to be sacrificed to him as he rose above 
 the circle of trees. At the sight the trance into 
 which Ulu had been thrown by the strange woman 
 lifted, as the mist had risen from the sea the day 
 before. The red blood surged from heart to brain. 
 A man's courage came back to him. These were 
 men, not spirits, but men more cruel than the red 
 men whom Om and his people had slaughtered. 
 The fighting spirit of his fathers rose in his breast, 
 but it was to be guided by the brain of Ulu the 
 cunning. 
 
 The woman had sunk at his feet as one dead, 
 all her strange power gone. He looked toward the 
 east. There was an hour before sunrise. The child 
 should not be sacrificed to the sun. Leaving the 
 woman huddled on the ground, he turned and 
 swiftly followed the path back to the shore. His 
 companions were just rousing when he reached them. 
 He told his story as they were devouring the remains 
 of their provisions. They needed no urging. The 
 giant Ul shook his great head and shoulders like a 
 bull about to charge. This was his element, and 
 he took command as naturally on land as Ulu did 
 onjthe sea. 
 
 After hiding their boat they swiftly followed 
 Ulu. Each carried a bronze axe, short sword, and 
 spear. 
 
 They went so swiftly that they reached the clear- 
 ing in the wood before the sun had risen above 
 the tree tops. They came so quietly that the 
 171
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 watchers about the altar did not suspect their 
 presence. The woman was still huddled upon the 
 ground, with her face buried in her hands. The 
 aged priest still stood at the head of the altar, 
 knife in hand, waiting for the first rays of the 
 rising sun to touch the head of the victim. The 
 look of the priest and of the men who crouched 
 about him was enough to bring terror even to a 
 brave heart. The Angwangs were outnumbered 
 two to one, but there was no fear in the breast 
 of Ul or his companions. 
 
 As stealthily as the great cats of their native 
 woods, they crept to the shelter of a clump of 
 bushes just behind the priest. The Kelts faced 
 the east and were watching intently the slow rising 
 of the sun over the tree tops. A yellow shaft shot 
 through the trees above their head, still another and 
 another, till the trunks above their heads were 
 gilded. The priest raised his knife with a frenzied 
 gesture and began to chant the death song, in which 
 the others joined with savage zest. 
 
 Just as the cruel knife was descending on the 
 throat of the doomed child, the spear of Ul, hurled 
 with terrific force, pierced the back of the priest, 
 its sharp point protruding from his breast. For a 
 moment he stood upright, his knife still raised. A 
 stream of red blood stained his white beard. The 
 cruel blood lust in his face changed to one of anguish 
 and amazement, and he fell face down upon the 
 altar, bathing the child with his blood. 
 
 The Kelts were brave, but they were ovcr- 
 172
 
 THE GREAT WATER 
 
 whelmed by the suddenness of the attack. In prep- 
 aration for the sacrifice they had fasted two days, 
 expecting to gorge themselves at the sacrificial feast. 
 Their rude stone weapons were no match for the 
 bronze weapons of the Saxons. And these yellow- 
 haired furies filled them with a superstitious dread. 
 Perhaps these were the people of the sun, who was 
 angry with them. A few escaped, but most of them 
 shared the fate of their priest. 
 
 When the slaughter was over, they turned to the 
 altar. The woman had already reached it and 
 unbound her child. As she knelt upon the blood- 
 soaked stone with her child hugged to her breast, 
 the full light of the summer sun streamed down upon 
 them, crowning the head of the mother and child with 
 gold, and giving a ruddier tint to the blood stains. 
 
 With a tenderness surprising in such a man, Ul 
 led the woman with her child to the shelter of 
 the trees. Then they piled the bodies of the slain 
 upon the altar. With a grim humor they placed 
 the body of the Druid on top with his bloodless 
 face towards the sun. Then they piled dry wood 
 about the bodies and burned them as a sacrifice to 
 the sun. 
 
 Near by they found the bodies of two stags 
 and preparations for a feast, and they ate with 
 the appetites of wolves, but Ul gave meat to the 
 woman and the child before he touched it himself. 
 
 As the woman fed the child in her arms and a 
 smile broke on its face, the mist of madness lifted 
 from her, and her tears rained down upon it. Ulu 
 173
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 looked at her curiously. She was more beautiful 
 than he had thought, and he wondered why he had 
 been afraid of her. He was a little disappointed 
 that when she looked at him she showed no sign of 
 remembering him ; and he was a little disappointed 
 that she followed Ul as if she had always belonged 
 to him, when they returned to the shore. But when 
 he saw Ul take up the child and carry it, he con- 
 soled himself with the thought that it was better 
 not to have a woman and child if one always heard 
 the call of the sea and had to spend much time in 
 thinking. Then the woman's hair was very red, 
 though it might be beautiful in a way, and if she 
 should ever get angry why, it was just as well 
 iJiaL big Ul should have her, yes, very much better. 
 r ^\ Gradually they explored the country about them. 
 They found a place suitable for a settlement on 
 the bank of a river. Occasionally they came upon 
 small villages of Kelts with black hair and blue 
 eyes, but only rarely did the villagers show any 
 desire to fight. The fear of the yellow-haired men 
 was upon them. As time went on, they became 
 friends, and the Saxons took wives from among 
 the Kelts. On the banks of the Tham grew up 
 a village where Ul became a great chief, and sons 
 and daughters with gold red hair grew up about 
 him and a new race was born in the new land. 
 
 But Ulu heard always the voice of the sea. He 
 made bigger and bigger boats, covering them at last 
 with strips of wood in place of skins, and he took 
 longer and longer voyages, with those who, like 
 
 174
 
 THE GREAT WATER 
 
 himself, loved the toss of the waves beneath them 
 and were never happy except when steering where 
 men had never been before. 
 
 So Ulu became a seaman, and Ul a pioneer and 
 founder of a race in a new land, and it was so 
 because the Great One willed it. 
 
 175
 
 THE STORY OF LUP
 
 XIV. THE STORY OF LUP 
 
 THERE grew up in the village of Angwang 
 a boy whose name was Jut. His parents had 
 never done anything to make their names remem- 
 bered, so they were soon forgotten. They died 
 when Jut was a small boy, and no one knew just 
 how he had been able to keep alive. Some of the 
 women gave him scraps to eat when there was 
 anything left from their own meals. The men paid 
 little attention to him, and bigger and better-fed 
 boys treated him with the unthinking cruelty of 
 young animals. They jeered at him because he was 
 small and mocked his lameness, for one of his legs 
 was shorter than the other. They would not let 
 him join with them in games which he could play. 
 He could not keep up with them on their hunting 
 trips, even if they had been willing to have him go. 
 Some of the village bullies would throw stones at 
 him to see him hobble away. 
 
 So it was that Jut lived a very hard life and 
 came more and more to creep off by himself. He 
 was that saddest of all creatures, a boy without a 
 friend, if we except Saxa, who had often given him 
 food and shelter. Very early he learned to set 
 179
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 traps such as the hunters of the village made, and 
 he became so deft in making them and so cunning 
 in setting them that he went hungry less and less 
 often, and sometimes had a wood hen or a young 
 fawn to leave at the hut of Saxa. With more and 
 better food he became stronger, and finally, when 
 a big boy who had tormented him for years came 
 nearer than usual, he was surprised to be caught 
 in a grip like that qf a young cave bear, and when 
 he finally got free and could run out of Jut's reach, 
 he had such a pulpy and battered look that his own 
 mother did not know him. After that Jut was 
 treated with more respect, but not with more affec- 
 tion. He grew more and more bitter, more and 
 more lonely. If it had not been for the kind 
 Saxa, no tie would have held him to the village. 
 As it was, he left the village for long periods, 
 but no one noticed his going or his coming. When 
 the villagers thought of him, which was not often, 
 they said, " He is an ugly boy and likes to be by 
 himself." But all the time Jut was starving for 
 comradeship, and he still haunted the village in 
 the hope that he might pick up some crumbs of 
 friendship. 
 
 At last, when he was almost a man, he went off, 
 planning never to return. He took all his posses- 
 sions, and they made a very small load. There were 
 his weapons, a skin which served as a pouch by 
 day and a blanket at night, and a rude clay dish 
 given him by little Senna, the granddaughter of 
 Suta, which he cherished more than his best bow, 
 1 80
 
 because it was the only thing which had ever been 
 given to him. It was merely a child's plaything; 
 he could have made a much better one for himself, 
 but he guarded it with jealous care and would use 
 nothing else. He told himself bitterly that if Senna 
 had been as old as the girls who laughed at him 
 because he was lame and avoided him, she would 
 not have given it to him ; and still he cared for it. 
 
 For days he traveled northward, following the 
 winding river till it became a brook. He went 
 slowly, for he was lame and his leg pained him 
 much. Often he halted, half minded to go back, 
 but what was the use? The thing he sought was 
 not there. 
 
 One night, as he lay brooding in lonely misery 
 by the fire, which he had to keep constantly alight 
 to drive away dangerous prowlers, he heard a low, 
 whining bark, so low that he thought for a while 
 it was far, far away. Then he became curious and 
 sat up to listen more carefully. No, it was close 
 by. He got up and carefully followed the sound, 
 firmly grasping his stone axe in his hands. In a few 
 paces he came upon a little wolf cub which had 
 been terribly mauled by some animal, perhaps a wild- 
 cat. One of its hind legs was helpless and trailed 
 after him, and it was too weak to get away, even 
 from the lame boy. If Jut had not been so lonely, 
 he would have killed the wolf cub without a 
 thought. Or it may be that the helpless leg of 
 the little beast appealed to some hidden spring of 
 sympathy. At any rate, he picked up the cub, care- 
 181
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 fully avoiding its sharp teeth, and took him back 
 to the fire. 
 
 At first the little wolf struggled feebly to get 
 away from the terrifying glow, but Jut held him 
 where the warmth reached him and he became more 
 quiet. Then, seeing that the creature was almost 
 starved, he gave him something to eat. Even in his 
 frenzy of hunger the wolf watched the man cub 
 with curious eyes, expecting to have the food 
 snatched from him as his brother had done in the 
 den, when his mother had brought them food. But 
 Jut did not do it. When he had eaten his fill, 
 the cub grew very sleepy and the fire was very 
 warm, and Jut's side was a very cosy place to 
 nestle against. So the lonely wolf cub and the 
 lonely man cub curled up by the fire, and each was 
 less lonely because of the other. 
 
 The next morning Jut fed the wolf again and 
 carefully bound up the crippled leg, talking to him 
 all the time as if he could understand. Little by 
 little the wolf found that the boy's hand was always 
 kind and that it gave food. Even though his leg 
 ached and his wounds were painful, his stomach was 
 full and he was warm, and perhaps he was more 
 comfortable than he had ever been in his short life 
 before. 
 
 For several days Jut did not change his camp, 
 and the pup grew strong with astonishing rapidity. 
 One night he chewed off the strips of hide which 
 bound his leg and the next morning he walked on 
 all fours. Jut lay watching him, expecting him to 
 182
 
 THE STORY OF LUP 
 
 
 
 run off into the woods any moment. Sometimes he 
 would run away to the stream for a drink or to 
 investigate some new noise, but each time he came 
 back and crouched on his haunches, watching his 
 new friend. Evidently he preferred him to the 
 pack with which he had had to fight for every 
 morsel of food. That day Jut went on, and Lup 
 followed, at first limping like his new master, but 
 soon circling about him, going five miles to his one. 
 But he rarely wandered beyond the call of Jut; 
 when he did, his sharp nose had no difficulty in 
 picking up the pungent man-trail. 
 
 And Lup became Jut's first friend. They hunted 
 together. Lup's nose told him where the game was, 
 Jut's arrow brought it down, and they both shared 
 in the kill. It was better than hunting with the 
 pack. As they sat about the fire, Jut would talk 
 to him as if he had been a man, and Lup liked 
 to hear the sound of his voice and would listen with 
 winking eye and wagging tail. And Lup learned 
 many things by living with the man hunter. He 
 learned to wait when he had tracked the game till 
 his lame master could come up and shoot it. He 
 learned to drive it where his master was waiting, to 
 come at his master's whistle. And Jut taught him 
 some things which he would much rather not have 
 learned. 
 
 The partnership was good for both. They rarely 
 
 went hungry. Lup was legs to Jut, and Jut was 
 
 hands and brain to Lup. They both thrived. Jut 
 
 found a cave overlooking a lake in a place where 
 
 183
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 the game was plentiful and made it his first home. 
 Lup shared it with him and grew and grew until 
 his master thought he would never stop growing. 
 His shoulders were nearly as high as Jut's hips, 
 and he weighed nearly as much as his master. He 
 was larger than any wolf Jut had ever seen. Some- 
 times he met straggling wolves and he fought them 
 impartially. At first he held his own ; then he 
 fought to a finish any who dared to challenge 
 him. 
 
 One day they had been hunting a deer according 
 to their usual fashion. Jut took his place by a 
 runway through a gorge, and Lup chased the deer 
 ,toward it. But they were not the only hunters in 
 the field. While Jut was intently watching for 
 the deer, a cave bear, who had his den in the 
 gorge, waked up hungry and came out to forage. 
 To his surprise he found game almost in front of 
 his den. With marvelous quietness for so big a 
 creature, he crept up behind Jut, and was within 
 a few feet of him before he was heard. All the 
 advantage was with the bear. He had almost 
 cornered Jut, who was not much of a runner, and 
 a bear, clumsy as he appears, can be wonderfully 
 swift in his movements. Jut was already too ex- 
 perienced a hunter not to know that his chances 
 of escape were few; still, with the blind instinct of 
 self-preservation, he shot his arrow at the approach- 
 ing bear and climbed the nearest tree. The arrow 
 scarcely pricked the tough hide of the bear, who 
 was so close to Jut that his great claw tore one 
 184
 
 THE STORY OF LUP 
 
 of the man's legs as he dragged himself out of reach 
 for a moment. 
 
 The bear was prepared to climb the tree, if neces- 
 sary, but he was in no hurry. He tore the trunk 
 of the tree with his teeth, and then stretched up 
 to his full length and scratched off great strips of 
 bark with his cruel claws. Next he hugged the 
 tree, which seemed smaller every moment to Jut, 
 and shook it with terrifying fury. Finally the bear, 
 tired of the joys of anticipation, started to climb 
 the tree, and Jut knew that there was no hope. 
 Just at that moment the wild hunting cry of a 
 wolf echoed through the gorge, and a deer rushed 
 by. It attracted the attention of the bear, who 
 slipped down the trunk of the tree to see what was 
 going on. For a moment the wolf and the bear 
 confronted each other with curiosity. For ages 
 there had been a kind of truce between the two. 
 Neither found the other satisfactory game. 
 
 When Ke saw Lup, Jut gave a shrill whistle by 
 which he was accustomed to call him, and the wolf 
 looked up and saw his master in the tree above 
 him. The old instinct to let the bear alone held 
 him back; the new habit of obedience to the call 
 of Jut pulled him forward, strengthened by the 
 love for the man who had been his friend. The 
 new habit and the new affection won. With a 
 savage snarl he dashed at the bear's haunches, dart- 
 ing aside to avoid the terrible swing of the paw. 
 Round and round they spun, the surprised bear 
 growing angrier every moment. By degrees Lup 
 185
 
 drew the bear away from the foot of the tree. As 
 nimble as a monkey, Jut slipped down the tree and 
 recovered his weapons which he had dropped. He 
 could easily have escaped, leaving Lup to take his 
 chances, but no thought of it entered his mind when 
 he saw that the bear had driven Lup into a crevasse 
 from which he could not escape without coming 
 within reach of the deadly paws. Lup had stood 
 by the man ; he would stand by Lup. 
 
 Stealing up behind the bear, whose sole atten- 
 tion was now given to the wolf, Jut thrust his 
 long bronze knife into his side, just behind the ribs, 
 leaping back to avoid the swing of the maddened 
 beast. With a roar of pain, the bear rushed at Jut. 
 Lup slashed his quarters with his knife-like teeth. 
 As the bear turned on the wolf, Jut struck him a 
 terrible blow with his bronze axe, cutting a great 
 gash in his shoulder and partly crippling him. Back 
 and forth, round and round the strange battle waged. 
 Sometimes the bear seemed to be getting the best of 
 it ; once Lup ventured too near, and one of the 
 flying paws ripped his flank from shoulder to thigh. 
 Jut also had his leg terribly torn. But it was two 
 to one. The bear grew weak from loss of blood. 
 More and more often the sharp axe slashed him. 
 At last, as he reared high to plunge at Lup, Jut 
 severed one of the great tendons in his hind leg. 
 The bear toppled over on his side, no longer able 
 to make his terrible rushes. Then Jut waited for 
 his opportunity and drove his spear to the bear's 
 heart, and the great fight was over. 
 1 86
 
 THE STORY OF LUP 
 
 After the frenzy of battle, the victors became 
 conscious of their own wounds. Jut felt faint 
 from loss of blood, and Lup crept up to him, 
 whining dismally and licking his dripping flank. 
 With the skill which men learned quickly in the 
 time when wounds were every-day affairs, Jut 
 dressed the wounds, taking as much care with Lup's 
 as he did with his own, and the wolf licked the 
 man's hand with low whines of gratitude. From 
 that day they were blood brothers. 
 
 At the season of the year when the wolves run 
 in pairs, Lup grew restless. Sometimes in the 
 dead of night the strange mating call of the wolf 
 bitch could be heard in the distance, and Lup would 
 lift his nose high in the air and give an answering 
 call which made the surrounding hills echo. One 
 night he slipped away, disobeying the call of his 
 master, and was gone for two days. Jut thought 
 he had gone for good, and began to realize what 
 Lup had meant to him. He was able to kill very 
 little game alone, and he was more lonely than 
 he had ever been in his life before. 
 
 But on the morning of the third day he heard 
 with delight Lup's shrill bark, and the big gray 
 wolf trotted up the path to the cave, waving his 
 brush proudly and turning every few yards to look 
 behind him. Jut saw nothing and eagerly called 
 him, but Lup paid no heed and finally turned and 
 went out of sight. Again he appeared, barking 
 sharply, but clearly with friendly intent. This time 
 there trotted, a few yards behind him, a wolf bitch 
 187
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 only a little smaller than himself. She was very 
 suspicious and turned tail again and again and 
 returned to the bush. But each time Lup coaxed 
 her back until at last she came near enough for 
 Jut to toss her an inviting bone. 
 
 By degrees she grew wonted to the man friend 
 of Lup, and ate with them and hunted with them, 
 but she never would sleep in the cave with the 
 man. By and by she found a small den not far 
 from the cave, in a spot which Jut could not 
 reach. Then she stopped hunting, and Lup hunted 
 for her and would even take the bones which Jut 
 gave him to the den of his mate. After several 
 weeks Lup and his mate came to the cave, followed 
 by two round rolling pups. The pups were sus- 
 picious at first, but soon found the man friend very 
 good company. He gave them even better morsels 
 to eat than their mother, and he knew how to scratch 
 their heads and sides in a way that felt uncom- 
 monly good. 
 
 So Lup became the friend of Jut and the father 
 of those who in every land and age came to share 
 man's work, his pleasure, and his pain. 
 
 1 88
 
 THE WOOING OF SENNA 

 
 XV. THE WOOING OF SENNA 
 
 FOR a number of years Jut lived by himself, 
 seeking no other company than that of his 
 family of wolf dogs, and he grew to be a powerful 
 man, even though he was lame. He had plenty to 
 eat, and in his caves were the finest skins. No one 
 had finer weapons than he or knew how to use them 
 more skillfully. He was rich, according to the 
 standards of his time, and yet he was not satisfied. 
 Even the comradeship of Lup and his descendants 
 did not satisfy his craving for friends. By and by 
 the desire to see those of his own kind became so 
 strong that he began to extend his hunting trips 
 more and more in the direction of Angwang. Some- 
 times he caught a glimpse of the villagers from some 
 hilltop. The villagers soon found traces of the 
 hunting of Jut and his four-footed followers. They 
 found the trail of a pack of wolves mingled with 
 that of a man. When that had happened before, 
 the trail of the man ended, but here they found the 
 trails mingled day after day. So they told tales 
 of the wolf man, which grew with the telling and 
 made the children afraid to go far from the village. 
 One hunter went so far as to say that he had seen 
 the wolf rnao hunting with the pack and that he 
 191
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 went on all fours and had hair all over him like 
 a wolf. 
 
 One day, as Jut was hunting nearer the village 
 than usual, the pack treed something. As he ap- 
 proached the tree which they surrounded, he noticed 
 that their cry had a curious note of uncertainty such 
 as he had never heard except when they had hap- 
 pened to meet with some of their own wild cousins. 
 But a wolf could not climb a tree. What could it 
 be ? When he was near enough, he saw Lup stand- 
 ing at the trunk, looking up into the branches and 
 barking sharply, but wagging his tail at the same 
 time and looking back over his shoulder now and 
 then, as if to assure the pack that this was something 
 different from ordinary game. 
 
 When Jut reached him, the big wolf dog stopped 
 barking and looked up at his master inquiringly. 
 And this was what Jut saw. Crouching among the 
 branches and looking down on him with frightened 
 eyes, was a young woman. For a moment he stared 
 at her with open eyes and open-mouthed astonish- 
 ment. Then he knew who she was. This was 
 Senna, a granddaughter of Suta. He remembered 
 how kind she had been to him as a boy, but he had 
 not expected that she would be so beautiful, and 
 he had almost forgotten how to talk to his own 
 kind, so he simply stared and stared. 
 
 But Senna's face changed its expression very 
 rapidly from fright and wonder to friendly self- 
 possession, and she was the first to speak. " Why, 
 you are Jut! Why doesn't the big wolf bite you? 
 192
 
 THE WOOING OF SENNA 
 
 Where have you been? How big you have grown! 
 I should not have known you if it had not been 
 for your lame leg and your eyes ! " Jut answered 
 never a word, only stared and stared, but Senna 
 did not seem to be at all offended and talked on. 
 " Oh, I know, ) T OU are the wolf man : tell me, did 
 the Great One teach you how to make the wolf 
 hunt for you and obey you ? " Still not speaking, 
 Jut whistled for Lup, who came up to him and 
 wagged his tail, while his master stroked his head. 
 A new light came into the girl's face as she looked 
 at the two: " Oh, it must be wonderful to have the 
 Great One tell you a secret. He has spoken to no 
 one of our tribe for a long time, and my grand- 
 mother Suta said that it might be because the 
 villagers had not been kind to you when you were 
 a boy." 
 
 At last Jut broke his long silence, and what he 
 said might have seemed to an outsider not quite 
 to the point, though Senna did not seem to notice 
 it. " I have the little clay dish you made me and 
 drink out of it every day." And Senna did not 
 seem to be displeased, for she said, " If your big 
 gray wolves will not eat me, I will come down 
 so that we can talk better." From which it will 
 be seen that Senna had the kind heart of her 
 grandmother Suta and the busy tongue of her 
 grandfather Wang. And Jut, the silent, thought 
 the music of the girl's voice sweeter than that of 
 the woodland songsters. All he asked was a long, 
 long time to listen. And Senna seemed to be de- 
 J93
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 lighted to have so appreciative an audience, for, if 
 the truth must be told, even her grandmother some- 
 times tired of her chatter, and Wang found that 
 she interfered with, his own extended monologues. 
 
 So Senna slipped down the tree, and the great 
 dogs sniffed at her curiously but with approval and 
 lay down about the two in a circle, as if to assure 
 them that all was well. And Senna sat on a moss 
 cushion with Jut at her feet and talked and talked 
 to her heart's content, while Jut listened with a 
 growing light in his eyes and a glow at his heart. 
 The girl told him all the news of the village and 
 drew from him his own story bit by bit. 
 
 Jut was lame, but to Senna he was the most 
 wonderful man she had ever seen. There was no 
 young man in the village who had a face like 
 Jut's. It had the look of one who has heard the 
 voice of the Revealer and could never be like other 
 men's. And there was no man in the village with 
 a body so powerful and symmetrical as his. What 
 mattered a lame leg? It simply made him different. 
 And to Jut the girl seemed to give tangible shape 
 to all the vague beauty of the world which he had 
 only dimly sensed before. He looked up into the 
 blue sky with its glory of sun-kissed clouds and out 
 upon the shimmering waters of the river and on to 
 the blue hills beyond. How beautiful they were! 
 Senna was more beautiful than any or all. But 
 Jut could not say these things with his tongue. For- 
 tunately for him, his face was eloquent, and Senna, 
 looking into it, could read his thoughts. 
 194
 
 As the evening shadow began to fall, the girl 
 leaped to her feet. " Now I must go to the vil- 
 lage and you must come with me." As Jut hesi- 
 tated, she said, " Don't you know that one to whom 
 the Great One has spoken is afraid of no one ? " 
 " But I am afraid of you," answered Jut. " Oh, 
 that is different. Come with me." So Jut followed 
 her, and her words put a new spirit in him, and as 
 they entered the village he bore himself like a 
 chief, and Senna looked at him with eyes shining 
 with pride. 
 
 As they entered Angwang, the villagers were too 
 astonished to speak. Senna walked proudly by the 
 side of a strange chief, though he seemed of their 
 own race. He was lame, but his weapons and every 
 line of his powerful body showed him to be a mighty 
 hunter. But at the sight of the great gray wolves 
 trotting quietly behind him and obeying not merely 
 his voice but the wave of his hand, awe and fear were 
 added to their wonder. As Jut looked about him, 
 he recognized some of his boyhood tormentors. He 
 raised his head more proudly. Lame though he was, 
 there was not one who would dare withstand him. 
 And Senna led him to the home of Om, the chief. 
 
 " This," said she, " is Jut, to whom the Revealer 
 has shown the heart of the wolf. See, they obey 
 him as the tribesmen obey their chief." 
 
 At a sign from Jut the wolf dogs crouched at 
 
 his feet, waiting his commands with blinking eyes 
 
 and wagging tails. Om looked at him in silent 
 
 amazement for a moment and then led him into the 
 
 195
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 hut to the side of Oma, the aged wise-woman. 
 She was blind, but could still hear. " Mother, the 
 Keeper of Secrets has spoken again. He has spoken 
 to Jut, the boy whom no one cared for and who 
 fled the village. Behind him come six wolves who 
 do his bidding as I have done yours. He has taken 
 the wolf heart out of them and put in its place 
 the heart of a man." 
 
 With the help of Om, Oma rose to her feet and 
 stretched out her hand toward the young man. 
 When he came within her reach, she placed her 
 hand on his head and then, with the seeing touch 
 of the blind, moved her hand over his face and 
 over his great muscles. Then she spoke: 
 
 " My heart has been heavy within me because 
 the Great One was so long silent. I said in my 
 heart, ' He is angry with the men of Angwang 
 and has gone to the country beyond the sunsetting.' 
 But now I know that when men listen he speaks. 
 Let Jut be second only to Om, for now the Re- 
 vealer has come back to Angwang." 
 
 That night Om brought Jut to the council fire, and 
 he sat among the great ones, while Om told his story. 
 And if there had been any ready to doubt it, there 
 were the great dogs by the fire ready to prove it. 
 
 And Jut took Senna to his own cave, and she 
 never lacked a willing listener. For when Jut was 
 away, the old gray wolf who stayed to guard her 
 would listen with comprehending eye. And what 
 more does any eager talker want? 
 
 196
 
 HUN, HUNTER OF WHITE MEN
 
 XVI. HUN, HUNTER OF WHITE 
 
 MEN 
 
 AND Senna, wife of Jut, tamer of the wolf, 
 bore many sons and daughters. The first-born 
 was named Senn, and he had many strange adven- 
 tures, for he was one of those not content to do as 
 the fathers had done. Even as a boy he loved to 
 wander farther than the other boys dared to go. 
 His mother was very anxious about him, and well 
 she might be, for the woods were not a very safe 
 playground. But his father said : " He has the eye 
 of the seeker for new things. The Revealer will 
 watch over him." So Senn roamed farther and 
 farther, and wherever he went he was followed by 
 a big wolf dog, Can, grandson of Lup, and the 
 boy with the passion for wandering was saved, even 
 more than he knew, by the quick ear, keen scent, 
 and courage of his dog friend. 
 
 Senn sometimes took other boys with him, but 
 more often he went alone, because they were afraid 
 to go where he wanted to go. And there seemed to 
 be no end to his hunger to explore the unknown. 
 Just as Ulu and Ul had always heard the call of 
 the sea and the West, he heard the call of the 
 woods and the East. He never was so happy as 
 199
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 when pushing his way through trackless forests 
 or following trails made by wild beasts. When he 
 was in the village, he was always restless, and his 
 eyes seemed to look for something he could not 
 find. 
 
 Now in the village of Angwang there was an 
 old man who was honored by all, but especially 
 beloved by the children. His name was Sagg, and he 
 was a cripple, so that he could not hunt with the 
 men of the tribe, but he had a wonderful memory 
 and a cunning tongue. He had stored up in his mind 
 the stories of the adventures 'of Ang and Sut and 
 the other great men of the tribe. He had listened 
 to the tales which Ulma had told of the land to the 
 east and south from which she had been stolen by 
 the red men, a land where men built huts on the 
 waters of lakes, like beavers, and lived in constant 
 fear of the red men. 
 
 In the long winter evenings, when the Angwangs 
 hugged the fire, Sagg told the stories over and over 
 again, but no one tired of them. Sometimes he 
 would sing them in a monotonous chant, with a 
 chorus in which they all joined. On feast days 
 some of the young men would act the adventures 
 which he described. No one listened like Senn, and 
 Sagg, who, like Senna, loved a good listener, told 
 him more stories and stirred his imagination and 
 love of wandering. 
 
 To the surprise of all the wise ones of the village 
 Senn grew to man's size and strength. He had 
 had many hair-breadth escapes and had many scars 
 200
 
 THE HUNTER OF WHITE MEN 
 
 to remind him of them, but he was sound and fit 
 for anything, which was fortunate, as we shall 
 see. 
 
 Finally he tired of trips which always ended in 
 a return to the village, and he decided to take his 
 two wolf dogs, sons of Can, and his finest weapons, 
 and visit the people of Ulma, the Lake Dwellers. 
 All that Ulma had known or that Sagg could tell 
 him was that they lived far to the south and east, 
 on lakes which had great mountains about them, 
 mountains whose tops were lost in the clouds. That 
 they lived in constant dread of the red men and 
 savage beasts he also knew, but cared not, for Senn 
 was one of those whom danger draws, as food the 
 hungry man. 
 
 When he left the village, equipped for his long 
 and perilous journey with his two great dogs be- 
 hind him, it was so early that no one was stirring 
 but the old story-teller, Sagg. Though he had 
 fanned the boy's smoldering ambition to flame, he 
 now dreaded to have him go and tried to persuade 
 him to stay, reminding him of all the dangers which 
 he knew and inventing more for the occasion, but 
 all to no purpose. 
 
 For five days Senn journeyed over ground which 
 he had been over before. It was wild and dan- 
 gerous enough, but more or less familiar. On the 
 sixth day he came to a river broader than any he 
 had ever seen before. On the southern horizon 
 he saw for the first time the outline of the great 
 mountains whose tops were lost in the clouds. 
 
 201
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 Under them must be the dwellings of the people 
 of Ulma. 
 
 Though the river was broad and deep, Senn did 
 not hesitate. He found a dry log on the shore 
 and lashed his weapons to it, and then pushed it 
 out into the stream, swimming behind it. For a 
 moment the dogs, Chen and Chut, whined and 
 shivered on the bank, but, seeing their master push- 
 ing steadily out into the stream, they leaped in and 
 followed him. 
 
 Though man and dogs were powerful swimmers, 
 the strong current swept them more rapidly down 
 the stream than they were able to swim across it. 
 Before they had much more than reached mid- 
 stream they had been carried around a bend in the 
 river. Here the river suddenly narrowed between 
 high and rugged banks and became a roaring, foam- 
 ing rapid. Senn felt the pull of the rushing water 
 almost as soon as he saw its white foam. For a 
 few moments he tried to struggle against it, but soon 
 saw that it was useless. The only thing for him to 
 do was to drift through the rapids in the wake of 
 the log on which his weapons were lashed, hoping 
 that it would protect him from the rocks. 
 
 Just as he was entering the rapids he turned to 
 call his dogs, and saw just behind him another 
 swimmer with such a look of terror on his face 
 as he had never seen before, and it needed but a 
 glance to see why. Just behind him the two great 
 wolf dogs were converging on him and in a few 
 strokes would be on top of him. Before him were 
 202
 
 THE HUNTER OF WHITE MEN 
 
 the rapids. In the man's mouth was a long knife. 
 With that wonderful power of noting details so 
 often possessed by those in great peril, he saw that 
 the man's mouth was cut from gripping the knife 
 too tightly in his fright. Evidently the man had 
 followed him, not noticing the dogs, expecting to 
 take him by surprise. 
 
 At that instant the rapids swallowed him up. 
 Mouth and nose and eyes were filled with water 
 and flying spume. He was enveloped in noises 
 more thunderous than a hundred storms. He was 
 tossed about like a dry twig, out of the water, be- 
 neath it, gasping, struggling, but holding to his log 
 with the blind instinct of self-preservation. Soon he 
 lost all consciousness of where he was and what 
 was happening to him, but his mind rushed back 
 over the details of his past life, finding no detail 
 too small. Then came blackness, a sense of falling 
 out of the world into space, and then a blessed still- 
 ness, like the sleep of childhood. 
 
 When he slowly came back to consciousness, he 
 was not sure but that he had passed to the spirit 
 world, all was so still. Slowly and painfully he 
 opened his eyes. There was the blue sky above him 
 with its flocks of white-winged clouds. Perhaps 
 But he was too tired to look and see. Then the 
 sound of a low whine penetrated his ear, and he 
 dimly felt the scraping of a hot tongue on his face. 
 With great effort he opened his hand and closed it 
 on wet sand. Little by little he came back to his 
 world and himself. He turned over and propped 
 203
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 his head on his arm and looked about him. He lay 
 on a sand beach, with his feet in the water. On 
 either side of him crouched Chen and Chut, bat- 
 tered and bleeding, but very much alive and anxiously 
 licking his face and hands. 
 
 With the unsteadiness of a drunken man rousing 
 from a stupor he sat up and looked about him. 
 Though all was quiet near him, he could still hear 
 the roar of the rapids in the distance. Then he 
 remembered. He had come through the mad water 
 alive. Odin must love him, for he had saved him 
 from the cruel spirits of the river. And the other 
 man? At the thought he staggered to his feet; 
 A little below him he saw the log which had been 
 his lifeboat slowly drifting by the shore. Painfully 
 he crawled after it, and when he reached it, found 
 to his delight that his weapons were still lashed to 
 it. Their possession seemed to make him a man 
 again instead of a snail. The blood began to flow 
 and warmed his chilled body. Courage came back 
 to him and with it a consuming hunger. Higher up 
 on the bank some wild berries attracted him, and 
 he climbed up and ate greedily, growing hungrier 
 with every mouthful. 
 
 As he was trying in vain to satisfy his hunger, 
 his attention was drawn to a small island of rocks 
 some twenty feet from the shore and lying partly 
 in the water and partly on a shelving rock what 
 was it a log or a man ? He rubbed his eyes and 
 looked more carefully. It was the body of a man, 
 probably the man who had followed him into the 
 204
 
 THE HUNTER OF WHITE MEN 
 
 rapids. He must be dead ; let him lie until the 
 vultures or fishes picked his bones. But if he should 
 come back to life as he had done? Was it safe to 
 have such an enemy following him? 
 
 Taking his bronze axe, he went down to the 
 shore and waded out to the rocks. The body lay 
 with the head just raised above the level of the 
 water. The face was like bronze in color, the hair 
 straight and black, and the mouth was bloody. Yes, 
 it was the man who had planned to stab him in 
 the back as he swam. He must be dead, but he 
 would take no chances. As he raised his axe to 
 strike, something seemed to hold his hand. To kill 
 a man in fair fight was one thing. If Odin had 
 spared his life, why should Senn take it? 
 
 At that moment the man groaned and opened his 
 eyes. Something in their look or it may be some- 
 thing in his own heart changed Senn's purpose. Won- 
 dering why he did it, he drew the battered and half- 
 drowned man out on the rocks. He was bleeding 
 to death from a terrible wound in the leg, and Senn 
 stopped the flow of blood by binding tightly about 
 it a strip of hide. After a while the man revived and 
 looked with wonder and fear at the man who bent 
 over him. Then, seeing what had been done for 
 him, the fear gave way to a larger wonder. That 
 the man whom he had tried to kill should be tend- 
 ing him and saving his life seemed at first too 
 strange to be believed, but as Senn continued to 
 bind up his wounds, there could be no mistake, and 
 a new look came into his eyes a look like that 
 205
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 which the great dogs gave their master when he 
 caressed them, a look strangely out of place on his 
 rugged face. Seeing it, Senn 'knew that he had 
 made a friend out of a murderous enemy. 
 
 When Senn had finished dressing the red man's 
 wounds, his own empty stomach began to cry for 
 food. The problem was, what to do with the 
 one who plainly could not do for himself. He must 
 get him to the shore and then hunt for food. With 
 great difficulty Senn dragged the man, who was very 
 large, into the water, and half carried, half towed 
 him to the shore. Finding a sheltered place, he made 
 him as comfortable as possible under the circum- 
 stances, took up his weapons, and called the dogs. 
 
 Just as he was going, the man beckoned to him 
 and asked for a knife, by easily understood signs. 
 For a moment Senn hesitated. Why give a knife 
 to a man who had attempted his life, and yet he 
 knew what it meant to be left alone in the woods 
 of that age without a weapon for defence. So he 
 gave it to him. The man seized it with a look of 
 gratitude which was like the breaking of sunlight 
 through a black cloud, and Senn was glad that he 
 had not hesitated to give it. When he came to reason 
 about it later, he knew that his instinct was right. 
 If the red man was to be with him even for a short 
 time, he must be a friend, not an enemy, and if a 
 .friend he must be armed, so that he could play a 
 man's part. 
 
 Senn himself was faint from hunger, and Chen 
 and Chut were wasp-stomached. The woods were 
 206
 
 THE HUNTER OF WHITE MEN 
 
 full of small game, which he could have shot if 
 his bow string had been dry. He might starve be- 
 fore he could catch anything in traps. His only 
 hope was to find a deer runway, and spear one 
 as his dogs drove it past. He had not gone very far 
 before he found a path leading down to the river 
 bank showing the fresh tracks of deer and other 
 animals. Taking his place in a thicket hard by the 
 path and so located that his scent would not be 
 carried to any animals that came that way, he sig- 
 naled to the dogs to beat up the game, beginning 
 with the river. 
 
 It was not long before he heard the cry of the 
 dogs and then a chorus of squealing and grunting 
 which came nearer every moment. He did not need 
 to be told that it was a herd of wild hogs. For 
 a moment he hesitated. The wild boar was one 
 of the most dangerous and most dreaded animals of 
 the wild. Hunters rarely ventured to attack them 
 alone, and even when they hunted them in groups, 
 with every possible advantage on their side, some 
 unlucky hunter was very likely to pay the death 
 penalty. But hunger made Senn desperate, and he 
 held his ground. 
 
 In a moment the herd was on him. The first one 
 to come abreast of his ambush was a young sow, 
 and he thrust his javelin into its side with all his 
 might. Then he dashed away, hoping to avoid the 
 rush of those which followed, but he was not quick 
 enough. A savage old tusker caught sight of him 
 and charged wjth incredible speed and fury. The 
 207
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 dogs were at some distance and had troubles of 
 their own, so his only hope was to reach the river 
 and dash in, as the boar has an unaccountable aver- 
 sion to water. 
 
 He tore through the brush at top speed, but the 
 boar gained on him at every leap. Still he would 
 have reached the water safely if he had not tripped 
 on a vine just at the river bank. As he fell, the 
 boar rushed over him and he felt his hot breath 
 as he passed. With a squeal of fury the boar 
 wheeled to rip up his fallen enemy with his tusks, 
 which were as long and sharp as knives. Scnn had 
 no hope, but tried to roll to one side. He was 
 so near the edge of the bank that he slid over and 
 fell several feet, the boar falling almost on top of 
 him. For a moment he was stunned by the fall. 
 When he came to himself, the boar lay beside him 
 in his death agony, the blood spouting from a great 
 gash just over his heart. The red man knelt be- 
 side him with the dripping knife in his hand and 
 with a look of savage satisfaction on his face. He 
 had paid his debt to the white man. 
 
 When Senn looked about him, he saw that they 
 had fallen almost on top of the red man's resting 
 place. With the instinct of his people, he saw 
 something more in it than chance, and lifting his 
 face to the sky, he said : " O Great One, Thou hast 
 twice held the hand of the spinner who would have 
 cut the thread of my life. If it is that I may do 
 some great thing, show it to me!" 
 
 And the red man, seeing that he prayed, bowed 
 208
 
 THE HUNTER OF WHITE MEN 
 
 his head also, and said something in a language 
 which Senn could not understand. Then they lit 
 a fire, Senn gathering dry moss and sticks and the 
 red men in lighting it, rubbed two willow sticks in 
 ;i way that Senn had never seen before. The men 
 and dogs feasted. They ate as if they never ex- 
 pected to be able to eat again. 
 
 That night they lay in a sheltered place under 
 the bank, watched over by the two dogs. It did not 
 take long to recover from his wounds and exhaustion 
 in the days when man was young, and Senn woke 
 to hud himself nearly as strong as ever. But it 
 would be a few days before the red man could walk 
 far. As Senn pondered what he should do, the red 
 man, who seemed to read his thoughts, made eager 
 signs to him. He pointed to his leg, and then held 
 up tw r o fingers to the sun and made the sign of 
 walking. In two days he could go on. Then he 
 pointed to the dogs and to himself, then he took 
 Senn's hand and laid it first on his bowed head and 
 then on his heart. He would follow Senn like the 
 dogs and be as obedient and faithful. Though Senn 
 had something of the instinctive aversion of his race 
 to the red man, he still wanted a companion in his 
 venture. Then he remembered the story of Rang. 
 Perhaps this man was like Rang. He would make 
 him a blood brother, according to the custom of his 
 people. 
 
 So Senn took a small flint knife from his belt 
 and scraped the flesh of his arm till it bled a little. 
 Then he took the arm of the red man and did the 
 209
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 same. Next he mingled the blood of the red man 
 with his own in the palm of his left hand. " Now," 
 said he, raising his right hand to the sky, " we are 
 brothers. One blood, one life. Let Odin bear 
 witness." 
 
 Though the red man did not understand the 
 words, he did understand the meaning of the blood 
 rite and raised his right hand to the sky in assent. 
 Then he pointed to himself and said, " Hun," and 
 Senn knew that it was the name of his new brother. 
 
 210
 
 THE LAKE DWELLERS
 
 XVII. THE LAKE DWELLERS 
 
 AFTER two days Hun was well enough to take 
 the trail again, and Senn tried to tell him 
 by signs what it was he sought. He took him to 
 the river's edge and made a rough hut on sticks 
 driven in the shallow water; then he pointed ques- 
 tioningly to the south and east. For some time Hun 
 studied it without looking at Senn, who wondered 
 whether he understood, but finally he turned and 
 nodded his head in assent ; then he made Senn 
 understand by signs that he had seen the lake 
 dwellings and that he could lead him to them. 
 It was not till later that Senn knew that Hun had 
 understood him from the first and why he had hesi- 
 tated to make it known. 
 
 On the morning of the third day they started 
 southward, Hun taking the lead. They went by 
 ways so different from those which Senn would 
 have chosen that he sometimes hesitated to follow, 
 but when Hun pointed to the scar of brotherhood 
 on his arm he felt ashamed of his suspicions. 
 
 On the evening of the eighth day they drew near 
 
 the great mountains, and Senn was filled with awe. 
 
 Their snow-capped peaks reached up into the clouds. 
 
 This must be the home of Odin and his wild hunts- 
 
 213
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 men. A distant roar told of a thunder-storm rn 
 the mountains. Thor must be there with his terrible 
 hammer. He felt a new sense of fear. Perhaps 
 it was not best for men to come too near to the 
 hunting grounds of the Great Ones. As he looked 
 at Hun, he saw that he too seemed afraid, but it 
 evidently was not of the powers, of the mountains. 
 He seemed to fear some hidden enemy at every 
 bend of the trail, which, as Senn noticed for the 
 first time, had been made with human feet. 
 
 After they had reached the top of a hill, which 
 they had climbed with more than usual caution, 
 they looked down upon a valley in whose center 
 was the most beautiful lake Senn had ever seen, 
 while to the south the giant mountains towered 
 heavenward. The mountains were still gilded and 
 silvered by the light of the setting sun, but the 
 shadows had already fallen on the valley. In the 
 dim light it was yet possible to see the outline of a 
 village perched on piles at the western end of the lake. 
 
 But Senn soon noticed that Hun was not looking 
 at the village he was evidently quite familiar with 
 it but was looking intently up the valley toward 
 the east. At last he found what he sought, and, 
 laying hold of Senn's arm, pointed to an open 
 meadow across which shadowy figures were moving. 
 Senn remembered the story of Rang and the Red 
 Men and knew that they must be men on horse- 
 back, and many of them. 
 
 After Senn had watched them for some moments 
 in wonder, Hun began to talk excitedly in his own 
 214
 
 THE LAKE DWELLERS 
 
 tongue, a thing which he had not done before, ges- 
 ticulating as he spoke. He pointed to the horse- 
 men and then to himself. Then he imitated the 
 motions of a man on horseback, and Senn knew 
 that these must be Hun's people. When Hun 
 pointed to the lake village and then went through 
 the motions of stabbing and slashing with his knife, 
 he understood the situation as well as if Hun's 
 language had been his. Hun's people were about to 
 make a raid on the village on the lake. Unless 
 the villagers were warned in time, the old story 
 of plunder and murder would be repeated, and the 
 red men would carry off many maidens as Ulma had 
 been carried away in the days of Rang. 
 
 These villagers, thought Senn, are the people of 
 Ulma and so my people. I have been sent by the 
 All Seer to warn them, but what of Hun? Would 
 he stand with him or his own people ? By signs 
 he questioned Hun. He was going to the village. 
 Would Hun go with him or to his tribe? But 
 Hun had evidently made his decision before. He 
 pointed to the scar of blood brotherhood on his 
 arm and of the scarcely healed wound on his leg, 
 and without a word started down the hill-side 
 toward the village. 
 
 It was nearly dark by this time, and as Senn 
 stumbled along, he realized that he never could have 
 found his way to the village alone in the dark. 
 After what seemed hours of aimless wandering in 
 trackless woods, they came out upon the shore of 
 the lake near the village. Clearly the lake dwellers 
 215
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 had no suspicion of danger. All was quiet. They 
 had not even taken the precaution to pull in the 
 draw which connected a slender bridge with the 
 land. A solitary watchman dozed over the railing. 
 Evidently he considered his duty a mere matter 
 of form. 
 
 Senn hesitated for a moment how to make his 
 presence and friendly intention known ; then he 
 turned to Hun for a suggestion as he had got in the 
 habit of doing, but the red man had gone without 
 a sound, leaving him alone. Cautiously approaching 
 the bridge, he whistled softly and then louder, but 
 the sentinel still dozed. Some one had heard, how- 
 ever, for he heard footsteps on the bridge. Soon 
 there appeared from the shadows the figure of a 
 girl, who came rapidly on, paying no attention to 
 the sleeping watchman. Evidently she thought the 
 whistle a signal from some one she knew. When 
 she came to the draw and saw no one, she hesi- 
 tated, and Senn softly whistled again and slowly 
 approached. When he was near enough so that 
 the girl could see that he was a stranger, she gave 
 a suppressed cry and started to run back, but not 
 before she had seen that Senn had thrown his spear 
 on the ground and was making the sign of peace. 
 Perhaps she noted also that Senn was young and like 
 her own people, though bigger and more powerful. 
 
 Having run a few steps with the apparent inten- 
 tion of waking the sentinel, she seemed to think 
 better of it and turned and looked again at Senn, 
 who had come still nearer. She did not seem to 
 216
 
 THE LAKE DWELLERS 
 
 be as much frightened as before, and this time only 
 took a step in retreat before turning again and 
 challenging him with questioning eyes. As for Senn, 
 he forgot for the moment his errand. So Ulma must 
 have looked in the time of his grandfathers, only 
 not so beautiful. Then he remembered, and spoke 
 to her in his own language, using only the shortest 
 words and speaking very slowly. The look of grow- 
 ing terror in her face showed that she knew what 
 danger threatened them. 
 
 Beckoning to Senn to follow her, she fled from 
 the bridge, waking the watchman as she passed with 
 two words which sounded to Senn like the name of 
 the red men in his own language, and which startled 
 him into instant action as if he had been struck 
 with a whip. As Senn followed the girl, he heard 
 the creaking of the slender draw as it was being 
 hastily pulled in, and the whining of Chen and 
 Chut, who had been left behind. More than once 
 he nearly fell in his attempt to keep up with the 
 young girl in her rapid retreat. After several turns 
 she brought him to the entrance of the largest hut 
 in the village, and, giving a shrill call, pulled him 
 through a door so low and narrow that the young 
 giant had great difficulty 'in crowding in. 
 
 If he had had time to think, he would have hesi- 
 tated to call on a strange chief in such uncere- 
 monious manner, for in those days the man who 
 came suddenly was counted an enemy, but the girl 
 gave him no time, and she had the way of one who 
 has always been obeyed. After his eyes had become 
 217
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 wonted to the dim light of the interior, which was 
 furnished by a single flickering torch, he saw an 
 old man seated on a rush mat. His legs were 
 crumpled under him and evidently useless, and his 
 back terribly hunched, so that it seemed almost as 
 if the man had been crushed into the position he 
 was in by some great weight falling upon him. 
 He was a cripple and such a cripple as rarely sur- 
 vived in the grim conditions of the long ago. But 
 the head was massive and finely formed and the 
 face that of a ruler of men. Here was a man who 
 had ruled by the power of his brain and not by the 
 power of his hand. Though he was a crippled 
 dwarf, Senn did not need to be told that he was 
 a chief and the girl his daughter. He was old 
 and she young. He was a cripple, she splendid in 
 her supple strength, but there were the same lines 
 of strength in the faces of both. 
 
 Hurriedly the girl told her story, the old chief 
 looking first at her and then at the young man 
 behind her. Senn noted that his face, notwith- 
 standing his surprise and the terrible tidings which 
 his daughter was bringing him, never lost its com- 
 posure. When the girl had finished, he gave her 
 a few hurried commands and sent her out to arouse 
 the village, and then he turned to Senn and looked 
 at him with eyes that took note of everything from 
 the crown of his head to the soles of his feet and 
 seemed to read his most hidden thoughts. Then 
 he spoke in words which Senn did not understand, 
 but which had a familiar sound, and which, with 
 218
 
 THE LAKE DWELLERS 
 
 the gestures accompanying them, conveyed some 
 definite ideas. Senn knew that he was asked to re- 
 assert, on his honor as a man and with the fear of 
 the gods upon him, that his tidings were true; he 
 knew that the old chief wanted to know if he would 
 fight with them when the red men came. So Senn 
 put his left hand over his heart and raised his right 
 to the heavens and called Odin to bear witness that 
 he spoke the truth and that he would fight for the 
 villagers as if they were his own people. Even 
 before the chief ceased speaking to Senn, the village 
 about them began to hum like a hive of angry bees. 
 Seta was the voice of the girl's father, and all obeyed 
 her as if she had been their queen. When Senn 
 joined her at the direction of the chief, she was 
 giving orders to put the village in readiness for 
 a siege. Following the motion of her hand, Senn 
 joined a group of men who were to tear down the 
 bridge that connected the village with the shore. 
 He had never obeyed a woman's direction before, 
 at least since he was a child, but every one obeyed 
 her as if nothing else were possible. 
 
 At first the villagers looked at Senn with some 
 suspicion, but when they saw that his great strength 
 enabled him to do the work of two men and that 
 he did not spare himself, they accepted him as one 
 of themselves, and Seta, as she went to and fro, 
 carrying the commands of her father, watched the 
 labors of the young man with growing approval. 
 
 The men worked with feverish haste, and before 
 the first gray of morning the preparations for an 
 219
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 attack or a siege were complete. The bridge had 
 been destroyed, barricades of timber had been placed 
 on the shore side of the runways connecting the 
 houses, and the walls and roofs of the huts, which 
 were covered with rushes, had been soaked with 
 water, so that they could not be set on fire by 
 burning arrows. 
 
 All through the night there had been no sign of 
 the enemy and the villagers grew tired and sus- 
 picious. Who was this stranger? Who knew that 
 he was not making sport of them? Senn was con- 
 scious of many dark and angry looks, and he began 
 to wonder what his own fortune would be if the 
 red men did not come. Perhaps they were not 
 planning to attack the village at all. Then Seta 
 would think him a liar, and that troubled him more 
 than the angry looks of the men. 
 
 Some of the workers had slipped away to their 
 huts when the cry of a wolf, taken up at once by 
 his mate, broke the stillness of the shore. Senn 
 knew at once that it was the cry of Chen and Chut 
 whom he had left behind him on the shore. He 
 knew also what the cry meant. It was not the 
 hunting cry, but the cry of challenge and warning. 
 The red men were coming. He turned to find 
 Seta by his side, looking at him with anxious ques- 
 tioning. He pointed to the shore, and they listened. 
 The baying of the wolf dogs ceased for a moment, 
 and they could hear plainly the muffled footsteps 
 of many men and horses. Then shadowy figures 
 crept out of the woods and made their way to where 
 
 220
 
 the bridge had been. There they stopped, in evident 
 perplexity and surprise. No bridge was there, and 
 the fierce barking of the dogs disturbed them. They 
 hesitated for a few moments and then went back 
 into the woods as quietly as they had come. 
 
 But the villagers knew their old enemies too 
 well to fancy that this was the end of it. There 
 was no more sleep that night, and the morning 
 found every one alert. Just at daybreak a band of 
 horsemen filed out of the woods and lined up on 
 the shore. There were several hundreds of them, 
 and a more savage-looking group of men could not 
 be imagined. At a signal from their chief they 
 charged up and down the shore in front of the vil- 
 lage, waving their spears in the air and yelling like 
 demons. Sometimes the more daring ones would 
 swim their horses to within bow-shot of the village. 
 It needed no imagination to picture what would 
 have happened if the Huns had found the bridge 
 in place, the draw down, and the watchman asleep. 
 Even now terror was plainly to be. seen, not merely 
 in the faces of the women and children, but also 
 of the men as well. It was true that they did not 
 need to fear starvation, for a net let down from 
 a trap door in the middle of their huts would be 
 filled with fish. The thatch of their huts was 
 soaked so that they could not be set on fire, but one 
 never could tell what the savage Huns would do. 
 
 At last the mad warriors tired of their cruel 
 game, and a messenger swam his horse out to within 
 speaking distance of the village. At a sign from 
 
 221
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 Seta four men brought the chief from his hut to 
 where he could hear what the messenger had to 
 say. And this was the message of the red men: 
 " For longer than the oldest can remember the lake 
 dwellers have paid tribute to the red men, for the 
 fish eaters cannot stand against the eaters of meat, 
 but you have forgotten the ancient custom. We find 
 your village closed against us. But do not think 
 that you can escape us by tearing down your bridge. 
 Give us the ancient tribute, or we will destroy your 
 village, kill every man of you, and take your women 
 with us." All this was said, not in words, but in 
 signs which no one could mistake. 
 
 At once a group of men gathered about the old 
 chief, and Senn could tell by their eager gestures 
 that some of them were for yielding to the demands 
 of the red men, but he shook his head and pointed 
 to Seta with a look that could not be misunderstood. 
 She was to be part of the tribute. A sudden frenzy 
 seized Senn. Had these men no more courage than 
 the fish which they ate? He leaped up in a fury 
 of surprise and disgust. Some of the women had 
 already begun to pile up on the runways their 
 choicest belongings to bribe the red men. Senn 
 dashed in among them, sweeping their proposed trib- 
 ute aside with his feet and, waving his great axe 
 above his head, gave the war-cry of his tribe. In- 
 stantly the tide of feeling turned. The timid were 
 shamed and the courageous heartened. The face of 
 the old chief shone with a new hope. " The young 
 man will do what I would do if it were not for 
 
 222
 
 THE LAKE DWELLERS 
 
 this broken body. See, he has the strength of Thor, 
 and his axe is like the hammer of the thunderer." 
 And Seta saw all that Senn did, and he seemed to 
 her as wonderful as the god himself, but she was 
 glad that he was not a god, for then But there 
 was no time for thinking. The red men, seeing 
 their messenger scorned, were swimming their horses 
 toward the village. The women and children hid 
 in the huts, and the men crouched behind the logs 
 on the runways. 
 
 At the command of Sed, the old chief, they did 
 not shoot their arrows till the swimmers were well 
 within reach ; then they poured a deadly fire orr 
 them. The bow strings of many of the Huns were 
 wet, and they could not shoot to advantage from 
 the backs of swimming horses, so they were soon 
 compelled to retreat to the shore, leaving some 
 of their number to feed the fishes. The villagers 
 were wild with delight, thinking that they had 
 stood off the red men and that they would not dare 
 attack again, but Senn had been with Hun long 
 enough to know that the red men were not to 
 be stopped as easily as this. He showed Sed that 
 the men on the shore were not getting ready to 
 retreat but to make a new attack. A fire had swept 
 over the lake shore some time before and there 
 were many dry logs in the woods. Some men were 
 dragging them to the shore with astonishing rapidity, 
 while others constructed rude rafts with a shelter 
 of logs in front. This time the forces were to be 
 more evenly matched. 
 
 223
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 Before noon some twenty large rafts had been con- 
 structed. This time the villagers must stand off an 
 attack from boats manned by twice as many men 
 as there were in the village. The besiegers formed 
 a half-circle with their rafts and slowly closed in 
 'on their enemy. The villagers shot their arrows 
 as before, but few reached their mark, and the 
 rafts came steadily on. Soon the red men were 
 almost under the scaffolding which connected the 
 huts. Here the villagers had the advantage for 
 a moment, for they could shoot down on the be- 
 siegers, but in doing so they had to expose them- 
 selves. Then the terrible cries of the wounded 
 and dying mingled with the war-cries of both red 
 men and white. Senn fought with the courage of 
 his race, but Sed noted with approval that he did 
 not fight blindly. 
 
 With a terrible sweep of his bronze axe, Senn had 
 just cleared the railing of an unprotected runway 
 of red men, who were clambering over, when a shrill 
 call reached his ear above the din of battle. It was 
 a cry like that of a great fishhawk to his mate as 
 he is about to plunge after his victim. It was the 
 call of Hun and it came from high up on the bank. 
 He looked up, and there stood Hun on a projecting 
 rock, pointing excitedly to something behind Senn. 
 Senn turned instantly, but none too soon. The chief 
 of the red men with a few of his most daring fol- 
 lowers had paddled their raft behind the village, and 
 while the villagers were warding off the attack in 
 front, had made a safe landing and were dashing 
 224
 
 THE LAKE DWELLERS 
 
 down a narrow runway to attack them in the 
 rear. 
 
 A moment more, and the story of Senn would 
 have ended here, but the warning call of Hun had 
 given him a chance. With a great cry Senn hurled 
 himself at the new enemy, and Seta gave the alarm. 
 Fortunately the runway was narrow and only the 
 leader could reach him. For a moment the two men 
 hailed blows on each other with fury enough to 
 have killed a dozen men, but the red man was no 
 match for the young giant in an axe duel, and a 
 blow like that of Thor himself swept him from 
 the narrow bridge into the water. The man behind 
 him made a few half-hearted strokes and followed 
 his leader. The other men turned and fled, swim- 
 ming for their lives, but to no purpose as they were 
 easy marks for the village bowmen. 
 
 The death of the leader of the red men and the 
 failure of the attack in the rear turned the tide of 
 battle, and the besiegers tried to get away from the 
 hornet's nest as best they might. They tried to 
 paddle their clumsy rafts to the shore, keeping the 
 log bulwarks between them and the villagers' deadly 
 fire. But it was not easily done. A strong wind 
 had sprung up, blowing off shore, and many of 
 the rafts were blown back into the range of the 
 arrows, notwithstanding the frantic efforts of the 
 paddlers. Those that reached the shore mounted 
 their horses and fled as if they did not mean to 
 stop before reaching the sun-rising. And they had 
 need to hurry, for the villagers, intoxicated with 
 225
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 their success, manned their boats and pursued the 
 stragglers to the shore, while Senn and some of the 
 young men followed the trail of retreat into the 
 woods. 
 
 They found there a number of horses whose riders 
 had not come back, and they led them in triumph 
 to the shore and tied them where all could see. As 
 they stood there, Chen and Chut came rushing up 
 to their master with loud barks of welcome. For 
 a moment all was confusion. Some of the horses 
 bolted, and the men plunged into the water and 
 started to swim for the village. But when they 
 saw that the great wolves did not tear Senn, but 
 groveled at his feet, they were astonished beyond 
 measure. Perhaps this was one of the huntsmen 
 of Odin whom he had sent to be their deliverer. 
 Then they bowed themselves before him as if he 
 were a god, and though he shook his head, there 
 were many who believed that Odin had sent him 
 to save the village from the red men. 
 
 The story of the slaughter of the red men must 
 have been told far and wide in the east country, 
 for as long as Senn lived, and he lived to be a very 
 old man, no red man ever dared to ask tribute of 
 the lake dwellers. 
 
 And Senn stayed with the lake dwellers for many 
 days and was taught many wonderful things. He 
 learned how to make bone needles, how to make a 
 hut and thatch it so that the rain would not beat in. 
 He learned how to make hooks and nets and to 
 catch the most luscious fish. By and by he grew 
 226
 
 THE LAKE DWELLERS 
 
 tired of fish and longed for the old home. So he 
 took Seta, daughter of Sed, and brought her to the 
 village of Angwang, and they made a hut of tree 
 trunks driven in the ground, with a thatched roof. 
 And Hun, who could not go back to his own people, 
 came and lived in the village, and, like Rang, taught 
 the children of the village and especially those of 
 Senn and Seta all the wisdom of the red men, so 
 that the Angwangs knew more than any other 
 tribe, and they grew rich and numerous and became 
 a great people. 
 
 227
 
 HOW MEN FOUND THE GREAT SPIRIT
 
 XVIII. HOW MEN FOUND THE 
 GREAT SPIRIT 
 
 IN the olden time when woods covered all the earth 
 except the deserts and the river bottoms, and men 
 lived on the fruits and berries they found and the 
 wild animals which they could shoot or snare, when 
 they dressed in skins and lived in caves, there was 
 little time for thought. But as men grew stronger 
 and more cunning and learned how to live together, 
 they had more time to think and more mind to think 
 with. 
 
 Men had learned many things. They had learned 
 that cold weather followed hot, and spring, winter; 
 and that the sun got up in the morning and went 
 to bed at night. They saw that the great water was 
 kindly when the sun shone, but when the sun hid 
 its face and the wind blew upon it, it grew black 
 and angry and upset their canoes. They had found 
 that knocking flints together or rubbing dry sticks 
 would light the dry moss, and that the flames which 
 would bring back summer in the midst of winter 
 and day in the midst of night were hungry and 
 must be fed, and when they escaped devoured the 
 woods and only the water could stop them. 
 
 These and many other things men learned, but no 
 231
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 one knew why it all was or how it came to be. Men 
 began to wonder, and that was the beginning of the 
 path which led to the Great Spirit. 
 
 In the ages when men began to wonder there was 
 born a boy whose name was Wo. 1 As he lay in 
 his mother's arms, she loved him and wondered, 
 " His body is of my body, but whence comes the 
 life the spirit which is like mine and yet not 
 like it ? " And his father, seeing the wonder in the 
 mother's eyes, said, "Whence came he?" And 
 there was no one to answer, and so they called him 
 Wo to remind them that they knew not whence 
 he came. 
 
 As Wo grew up, he was stronger and swifter of 
 foot than an}' of his tribe. He became a mighty 
 hunter. He knew the ways of all the wild things 
 and could read the signs of the seasons. As he grew 
 older, they made him a chief and listened while 
 he spoke at the council board, but Wo was not 
 satisfied. His name was a question, and questioning 
 filled his mind. 
 
 Whence did he come? Whither was he going? 
 Why did the sun rise and set? Why did life 
 burst into leaf and flower with the coming of the 
 spring? Why did the child become a man and the 
 man grow old and die? 
 
 The mystery grew upon him as he pondered. In 
 the morning he stood on a mountain top and stretch- 
 ing out his hands cried, " Whence?"; at night he 
 cried to the moon, " Whither ? " He listened to the 
 
 1 Wo meant, in the language of the time, " whence." 
 232
 
 THE GREAT SPIRIT 
 
 soughing of the wind in the trees and to the song 
 of the brook and tried to learn their language. He 
 peered eagerly into the eyes of little children and 
 tried to read the mystery of life. He listened at the 
 still lips of the dead, waiting for them to tell him 
 whither they had gone. He went about among his 
 fellows silent and absorbed, always looking for the 
 unseen and listening for the unspoken. He sat so 
 long silent at the council board that the elders ques- 
 tioned him. To their questioning he replied like 
 one awakening from a dream: 
 
 " Our fathers since the beginning have trailed the 
 beasts of the wood. There is none so cunning as the 
 fox, but we can trail him to his lair. Though we 
 are weaker than the great bear and buffalo, yet by 
 our wisdom we overcome them. The deer is more 
 swift of foot, but by craft we overtake him. We 
 cannot fly like a bird, but we snare the winged one 
 with a hair. We have made ourselves many cun- 
 ning inventions by which the beasts, the trees, the 
 wind, the water and the fire become our servants. 
 
 ' Then we speak great swelling words : How 
 great and wise we are! There is none like us in 
 the air, in the wood, or in the water! But the 
 words are false. Our pride is like that of a partridge 
 drumming on his log in the wood before the fox 
 leaps upon him. Our sight is like that of the mole 
 burrowing under the ground. Our wisdom is like 
 a drop of dew upon the grass. Our ignorance is like 
 the great water which no eye can measure. 
 
 " Our life is like a bird coming out of the dark, 
 233
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 fluttering for a heart-beat in the hut and then going 
 forth into the dark again. No one can tell us 
 whence it comes or whither it goes. I have asked 
 the wise men, and they cannot answer ; I have lis- 
 tened to the voice of the trees and wind and water, 
 but I do not know their tongue ; I have questioned 
 the sun and the moon and the stars, but they are 
 silent. 
 
 " But to-day, in the silence before the darkness 
 gives place to light, I seemed to hear a still small 
 voice within my breast, saying to me, ' Wo, the 
 questioner, rise up like the stag from his lair ; away, 
 alone, to the mountain of the sun. There thou shalt 
 find that which thou seekest.' 
 
 " I go, but if I fall by the trail another will take 
 it up. If I find the answer, I will return." 
 
 Waiting for none, Wo left the council of his tribe 
 and went his way toward the mountain of the sun. 
 For six days he made his way through the track- 
 less woods, guided by the sun by day and the stars 
 by night. On the seventh he came to the great 
 mountain the mountain of the sun, on whose 
 top, according to the tradition of his tribe, the sun 
 rested each night. All day long he climbed, saying 
 to himself, " I will sleep to-night in the hut of the 
 sun, and he will tell me whence I come and whither 
 I go." 
 
 But as he climbed, the sun seemed to climb 
 
 higher and higher. As he neared the top, a cold 
 
 cloud settled like a night bird on the mountain. 
 
 Chilled and faint with hunger and fatigue, Wo 
 
 234
 
 THE GREAT SPIRIT 
 
 struggled on. Just at sunset he reached the top 
 of the mountain, but it was not the mountain of 
 the sun, for many days' journey to the west the sun 
 was sinking in the Great Water. 
 
 A bitter cry broke from Wo's parched lips. His 
 long trail was useless. There was no answer to his 
 questions. The sun journeyed farther and faster 
 than men dreamed, and of wood and waste and 
 water there was no end. Overcome with misery 
 and weakness, he fell upon a bed of moss with his 
 back toward the sunset and the unknown. 
 
 And Wo slept, although it was unlike any sleep 
 he had ever known before, and as he slept he 
 dreamed. He was alone upon the mountain waiting 
 for the answer. A cloud covered the mountain, but 
 all was silent. A mighty wind rent the cloud 
 and rushed roaring through the crags, but there 
 was no voice in the wind. Thunder pealed, light- 
 ning flashed, but he whom Wo sought was not 
 there. 
 
 In the hush that followed the storm, Wo heard 
 a voice low and quiet, but in it all the sounds of 
 earth and sky seemed to mingle the song of the 
 bird, the whispering of the trees, and the murmur- 
 ing of the brook : 
 
 " Wo, I am He whom thou seekest ; I am the 
 Great Spirit; I am the All-Father. Ever since I 
 made man of the dust of the earth and so child 
 of the earth and brother to all living, and breathed 
 into his nostrils the breath of life, thus making him 
 my son. I have waited for a seeker who should 
 235
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 find me. In the fullness of time thou hast come, 
 Wo, the questioner, to the Answerer. 
 
 " Thy body is of the earth and to earth returns ; 
 thy spirit is mine ; it is given thee for a space to 
 make according to thy will ; then it returns to me 
 better or worse for thy making. Thou hast found 
 me because thy heart was pure and thy search for 
 me tireless. Go back to thy tribe and be to them 
 the Voice of the Great Spirit. From henceforth 
 I will speak to thee and to the seekers that come 
 after thee in a thousand voices and appear in a thou- 
 sand shapes. I will speak in the voices of the wood 
 and streams and of those you love. I will appear to 
 you in the sun by day and in the stars by night. 
 When thy people and mine are in need and wish 
 for the will of the Great Spirit, then shall my spirit 
 brood over thine and the words that thou shalt 
 speak shall be my words." 
 
 And Wo awoke, facing the east and the rising 
 sun. His body was warmed by its rays. A great 
 gladness filled his soul. He had sought and found, 
 and prayer came to him like song to the bird: 
 
 " O Great Spirit, Father of my spirit, the sun 
 is Thy messenger, but Thou art, brighter than the 
 sun. Drive Thou the darkness before me. Be Thou 
 the light of my spirit." 
 
 As Wo went down the mountain and took the . 
 journey back to the home of his peoplefnisrace^^ 
 shone, and t the light never seemed to leave it, so 
 that men called him " He of the shining face." 
 
 When Wo came back to his tribe, all 
 236
 
 THE GREAT SPIRIT 
 
 his face knew that he had found the answer, and 
 they gathered again about the council fire to hear. As 
 Wo stood up and looked into the eager faces in the 
 circle of the fire, he remembered that the Great 
 Spirit had given him no message and for a moment 
 he was dumb. Then the words of the Great Spirit 
 came to him again : " When thy people and mine 
 shall need to know my will, my spirit shall brood 
 over thine and the words that thou shalt speak shall 
 be my words." Looking into the eager faces full 
 of longing and questioning, his spirit moved within 
 him and he spoke: 
 
 " I went, I sought, I found the Great Spirit, who 
 dwells in the earth as your spirits dwell in your 
 bodies. It is from Him the spirit comes. We are 
 His children. He cares for us more than a mother 
 for the child at her breast, or the father for the son 
 that is his pride. His love is like the air we breathe ; 
 it is about us ; it is within us. 
 
 ;< The sun is the sign of His brightness, the sky 
 of His greatness, and mother-love and father-love 
 and the love of man and woman are the signs of His 
 love. We are but children ; we cannot enter into 
 the council of the Great Chief until we have been 
 proved, but this is His will, that we love one an- 
 other as He loves us ; that we bury forever the 
 hatchet of hate; that no man shall take what is 
 not his own and the strong shall help the weak." 
 /^The chiefs did not wholly understand the words 
 / of Wo, but they took a hatchet and buried it by the 
 fire, saying, " Thus bury we hate between man and 
 
 ^ A \ > 237 
 
 J
 
 
 AROUND THE FIRE 
 
 his brother," and they took an acorn and put it in 
 the earth, saying, " Thus plant we the love of the 
 strong for the weak." And it became the custom 
 of the tribe that the great council in the spring 
 should bury an axe and plant an acorn. 
 
 Every morning the tribe gathered to greet the 
 rising sun, and with right hands raised and left 
 upon their hearts prayed, " Great Spirit, hear us ; 
 guide us to-day ; make our wills Thy will, our ways 
 Thy way." 
 
 And the tribe grew stronger and greater and wiser 
 than all the other tribes of men. 
 
 
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