After marching awhile they were rejoined by Fire-tamer, who had gone in search of another “wood-eating beast.” He was successful in his search, and his game was acceptable to the Ammi, who had learned to appreciate the beast in cold weather. Even Gimbo was secretly glad, though he had to protest, from force of habit, that they were introducing a demon among them, and that they might as well be destroyed by the cold as eaten by the hot monster.
They now all collected brush, and soon there was a roaring fire on the ice, at which they dried themselves and planned their future movements. The pieces of ice which Oko and others had carried for weapons, and which they had laid by the fire to warm, were found to have disappeared. They had melted and run away. Oko thought somebody had stolen them, and he got into a fight with Pounder over the matter, when finally a halt melted piece was seen to be turning into water. They then charged the theft to the wood-eating monster, which they thought was devouring their rocks.
“He is worse than a hog,” said Oko, “to eat both wood and stone.”
They observed at this time that neither apes nor wild beasts approached them while they sat by the fire, but turned off at the sight of it with fear; so that Fire-tamer remarked:
“If we could always have this animal with us, no other danger would come near.”
It was sometime after this, however, before men took to building fires as a protection against wild beasts.
They observed also that some of the fruits and roots which Cocoanut-scooper had tried to warm by placing them near the fire (for they were frozen) became scorched, or boiled in their own juice, and thereby much changed in taste. They found them better for the change; so that they soon sought to do by design what they first did by accident—prepare their food by fire—which was the beginning of the art of cooking.
They also discovered that their food, thus treated, was more tender and wholesome, so that they could eat many things which were before too hard or tough, and they thereby greatly increased their food, which was a matter of importance at a time when it was being reduced by the cold.
They also observed that when the fire was burning at night, it illumined the space about them, making a kind of artificial day. Night fled from it, as well as Cold and wild beasts, and stayed away as long as it remained. By its means they could see without sun, or moon or Aurora Borealis; and to overcome darkness in this way seemed the greatest triumph yet made by man or beast.
Taking a stick one night which had been lighted at a heap of coals, Fire-tamer was enabled, by carrying it around, to find a wolf skin which Koree had lost, and which could not be found in the dark. This opened the eyes of the Ammi, and from that moment they began to use fire for light, as well as heat; and that stick was the first candle of the human race. That day could be carried about in small pieces seemed astounding.