[Illustration: Wolves]
As the sun rose next morning, Thorn and his grandfather and grandmother went over to the swamp. The cave people soon began to come in from all the caves round about in the hill country. They came in little crowds, laughing and talking very loud. They were happy, for there was plenty to eat and somebody to eat with. As they came up, they stood for a long time looking at the mammoth and talking about how big he was. And some told of other mammoths that had got stuck in swamps and of how they had found them.
Thorn sat down on the side of a hill and watched the people coming. The arms and faces of the men and women were painted in stripes of red or yellow. All the cave men that Thorn knew were there, and many that he did not know. Before long his own family came.
Soon after that the men began to cut great pieces of meat from the mammoth. They gave them to the women to roast. The women made fires and put stones in them to get hot. They dug holes in the ground and rolled into them some of the hot stones. Next they threw meat upon the hot stones and rolled more hot stones upon it. Then they covered the holes with dirt and built fires upon them. While the meat was roasting, the women went over to watch the men playing.
The men were talking together in a crowd. A man named Crowfoot stood out and shouted, "I can climb a tree faster than any man here!"
"No, no!" shouted five or six men who jumped up and ran to trees.
"Go!" called a man.
They all jumped as high as they could and then climbed very fast, hand over hand, feet and legs pushing as if a wounded bear were after them. Crowfoot reached the top first.
Everybody shouted, "Crowfoot! Crowfoot!"
Then a man with big arms stood out and said, "I am best man in throwing the spear!"
A dozen men snatched spears and ran out. Everybody stood where he could see. The men with spears stood far back from a tree. One threw. His spear struck the tree, but fell. Everybody laughed. The next man threw.
His spear missed the tree. Everybody yelled and roared. Strongarm threw. His spear struck and stood in the tree shaking.
"Strongarm!" shouted the people.
Other men threw, whose spears stood in the tree. Then those men ran and pulled out their spears and stood farther back and threw again. Each man threw many times. Strongarm's spear stood oftenest in the tree from the longest distance.
