ILLUSTRATIONS
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| PAGE | |
| A map of the Cave-men’s country | [Frontispiece] |
| “They wished they might have his cave for a home” | [14] |
| “Sabre-tooth was going away” | [19] |
| “She stood trembling so that she could hardly speak” | [22] |
| The Feast | [37] |
| The Flood | [76] |
| “The old man arose in the silence, and thus he spoke to his people” | [84] |
“Then the old man and Sharpeyes took leave of their kinfolk and started out on the long journey” | [91] |
| “They rushed upon him with their knives and spears” | [98] |
| “They carried him into the cave” | [102] |
| “They watched the fire dart up toward the sky” | [105] |
| “They shouted praises to the fire god” | [119] |
| “They broke off slender branches” | [124] |
| Making splints for baskets | [127] |
| “They rested the strap upon the forehead” | [141] |
| A mammoth hunt | [145] |
| “It was here that he showed Firekeeper how to make fire” | [151] |
| TEXT | |
| Firekeeper carrying wood | [25] |
| A flint point | [28] |
| A hunting knife | [28] |
| Fastening the shaft to a branch | [30] |
| Sabre-tooth pinned to the ground | [31] |
| The two large sabre teeth | [33] |
| A stone hammer and stone ax | [34] |
| A gourd | [36] |
| A marrow spoon | [38] |
| Children carrying moss and leaves | [42] |
| Strongarm | [45] |
| A weighted strap drill | [48] |
| A bow drill | [49] |
| Making bones into weapons | [51] |
| Chipping the stones | [52] |
| A hammer stone, with bone handle | [52] |
| Putting handles on the spearheads | [53] |
| A hammer made by Sharpeyes | [53] |
| A handle made of a forked branch | [54] |
| The women dressing skins | [55] |
| Two sides of a scraper | [56] |
| A bone awl | [59] |
| A buckle | [59] |
| A skin cradle | [62] |
| How they rocked the babies | [63] |
| A birch bark basket | [68] |
| A basket with rim | [70] |
| Cave-men watching the river | [73] |
| The cave | [78] |
| How the sandal was worn | [88] |
| A sandal and a tool bag | [89] |
| A gourd | [94] |
| A rhinoceros | [108] |
| Making fire with a strap drill | [112] |
| A drill | [114] |
| The hearth of a fire drill | [114] |
| Strongarm making fire | [115] |
| Cave-men dancing around the fire | [116] |
| Pounding the stems | [129] |
| Woven splints | [131] |
| Firm and strong weaving | [132] |
| A strong basket | [133] |
| Methods of weaving and coloring baskets | [135], [136], [137], [138] |
| How the Cave-men carried baskets | [139] |
| A basket with a handle | [140] |
| A pad for the forehead | [140] |
| A bone whistle | [143] |
| Returning from the feast | [148], [149] |
| A bow drill made into a fire drill | [153] |
| A fire drill | [154] |
| A spearhead | [157] |
| Mammoths | [158] |
| Making a fire drill | [183] |
“They wished they might have his cave for a home”
THE EARLY CAVE-MEN
THE AGE OF COMBAT
I
Why People Wanted to Live in Caves
Did you know that people once lived in caves?
Perhaps you would like to know how it happened.
Long before people lived in caves they lived in the largest trees they could find.
This was before they had learned to use fire.
But after a while they learned to use fire, and they no longer feared to make homes on the ground.
They built brush huts of the rudest kind.
They lived in these huts for many years.
For a long time it was warm on the wooded hills, but after a while it began to grow cold.
The ground was covered with snow and ice.
Cold winds swept over the wooded hills.
Snow beat into the rude brush huts, and cold winds whistled through the branches.
People shivered with the winter’s cold.
They needed a warmer shelter, but they did not know how to make one.
Many of them had been in caves, but they did not dare stay very long.
A cave-bear
Some caves were the homes of big cave-bears, others the dens of hyenas.
Sabre-tooth also lived in a cave.
People knew that these animals were dangerous creatures.
Many a time they had barely escaped from the claws of a cave-bear.
Many a time they had been chased by a pack of hyenas.
They did not want to enrage these creatures.
Sabre-tooth
Least of all did they want to enrage old Sabre-tooth.
He was the fiercest creature on the hills.
When he came out of his cave the forest was still.
Scarcely an animal dared stir.
Even the rhinoceros and mammoth feared to attack him.
He was as sly as a cat and as powerful as a rhinoceros.
He had two sabre teeth that were sharp and strong.
No such animal as Sabre-tooth lives now.
There were only a few animals like him then, but they were more feared than any other creature.
He was something like a lion and something like a tiger, but he was more powerful than either.
He did not like to live in the cold, so each winter he went to the south.
Each summer he came back again.
How glad every one was to see him go!
How they hoped he would never return!
How they wished they might have his cave for a home!