[Illustration: Tiger's tooth]
CHAPTER VIII
THE MAKING OF STONE WEAPONS
Thorn and his grandfather walked for a long time, but at last Flint pointed to a cave in the side of the hill and said, "We rest there."
As they came up, Thorn saw his grandmother sitting in the sun at her door. Flint said to her, "Here is Thorn, your grandson."
"The little man!" she said, and laid her rough hand on his shoulder gently.
Then she quickly cut off big pieces of the rhinoceros meat and ran a long stick through them, and placed the stick over the burning fire. While the meat was cooking, Flint was telling about Burr and her little family; and of Strongarm's surprise at the making of fire; and of the lion hunt; and of the sleeping tiger they had seen on the way home.
After the hungry man and boy had eaten great pieces of the roasted meat, they went to the stone yard. There Thorn heard the sound of stone hammers and saw a big rocky place in the hillside. Three men sat on the ground at work. Other men sat about talking. Pointing to these, Flint said, "They are waiting to buy axes."
There were piles of bowlders on the ground, and little piles of stone chips around each ax maker.
Flint went up to one of them and said, "Redtop, my boy wants to make axes. Show him how."
Redtop grinned at Thorn, and threw him a smooth oval bowlder.
"That is your hammer stone," he said. "Now take a stone about the size you want your ax, and chip it this way."
Redtop sat on the ground. He held a flint bowlder and began chipping it with his hammer stone. Every time he struck the bowlder, a chip flew off. He kept on striking, first on one side and then on the other. Thorn watched with shining eyes. Redtop worked fast and easily, and after some time held up a beautiful ax. It was broad at the sharp end and narrow at the head. Thorn saw the little places all over it where the chips had come off.
He looked at it and laughed, and then sat down and tried to do what Redtop had done. He struck with his hammer stone, but the bowlder did not chip. He worked on and on, for a very, very long time. Still the bowlder would not chip, and his arm was ready to drop off.
