[Illustration: The boys listened in wonder]
After a time Thorn said, "We have always had fire in the cave. All the cave folks have it. They did not bring it from stones. Where did they get it?"
"Once, in the old days," Strongarm said, and turned to the boy, "a man saw fire come out of the sky and begin to eat up the woods! He could feel the fire from where he stood. It made him warm, and he liked it. But he was afraid to take any, for he thought the fire man might be angry. But at last he did take some. He kept it, and grew to like it more and more. With it burning beside him, the night was not so dark, and he was not afraid; for the hungry wolf and tiger turned away—teeth and claws could not fight fire!
"The other men saw that it was good to have fire; so, in time, they took some of it. And ever since then every man has tried to keep his fire burning."
"It is better for us cave folks since fire came," Burr then said, nodding to the boys. "Why, before it came, there was no cooked meat, nor were there any sweet roasted seeds or roots. But the folks tore their meat from the animal where it was killed, and stood by and ate it raw.
"Nor was there a home before fire came. My grandmother told me that, long ago, in the old days, the men and women wandered from place to place with their little children. And the women hunted and fished and fought beside the men. And at night the people curled themselves round as the wild dogs do, and slept on the ground; and the rain wet them, and the cold winds made them shiver.
"But after fire came, all this was changed. For the fire would go out unless there was some one to keep it. So a man told his wife that she might stay and keep the fire, and said that he would hunt for both.
"The woman then took a place that she liked, near a stream, and built a shelter of branches and made her fire there and kept it. And the man brought meat to her, and she cooked it. And before very long all the people were living in that way. And so ever since that time, the man has been the hunter, and the woman has kept the fire and brought water from the stream and gathered seeds of the ripe grasses."
