Two-Legs sat thinking outside his cave. The dog lay at his feet asleep. Indoors, Mrs. Two-Legs was busy preparing breakfast.
Two-Legs was in a bad temper, for he had had bad hunting.
The day before, he had scoured the forest without coming upon any game whatever and he had done no better that morning.
The animals had become afraid of him. His spear had reduced their numbers so greatly that they fled the moment they saw him come in the distance. They knew the hours he went hunting and they hid from him. They posted sentries who warned them with loud cries when he or the dog came in sight. There was not a stag nor an ox nor a sheep nor a goat in the country that lay nearest to the cave. Scarcely ever did an animal graze in the meadow down below in front of it. They had all retired to where the forest grew thickest and where he could only penetrate with difficulty. Nor did it give him any pleasure to hunt up there, where the lion might so easily be lying in ambush.
“Things are looking bad, Trust,” he said to the dog. “We must invent something new.”
He sat and sharpened his knives and axes, which he had made out of flint, and then Mrs. Two-Legs came out with the breakfast, which consisted only of apples and nuts. There was not even a fish to be had. The fish disappeared as soon as they saw Two-Legs’ reflection in the water.
“I say,” said Two-Legs, suddenly. “It would be much easier if I caught a couple of sheep and we kept them here in the cave. Then they would get lambs, which we could kill, and I need not continually and perpetually go hunting.”
Mrs. Two-Legs thought this a good idea and, as they sat and talked about it, he recovered his temper. He wove a long rope of tendrils and then went off with his spear, the dog and two of his sons.
He stole along the borders of the forest until at last he caught sight of a sheep who was grazing in a distant meadow with two lambs. He crept up to her on all fours, while Trust received orders to be quite still. When he was near enough, he flung the sling and was lucky enough to drop it just over the neck of the sheep. She bleated pitifully, but the noose held fast and tightened. Two-Legs, rejoicing, led the animal home and the two little lambs came after, for they did not know what else to do.
When he came home, he fastened the sheep to a tree in front of the cave. They ate one of the lambs and let the other live. The children ran down to the meadow and fetched armfuls of grass and the sheep ate and gave her lamb to drink.