So Cold flapped his wings, and blew a bitter blast from the frozen north, and all the little raindrops were turned to beautiful white flakes of snow, and all the marshes and streams and lakes were covered with ice many inches thick.
The north wind swept through the valley like a knife, and made the cave people shiver and shake to their very bones. They put on their fur coats, and huddled over fires in the caves, waiting for the cold to go away, as it always had before. But this time the cold did not go away, but got worse and worse, and the snow whirled down and covered all the valley, and the ice got thicker and thicker. The cave people had never seen anything like this before, and they were afraid. After a while, when they had eaten all the food they had in the caves, they began to get hungry, so hunting parties went out to find food. These parties searched everywhere through the valley, and the marsh-land outside, but they could find hardly anything. The ice on the marshes kept them from spearing fish; they broke holes in it here and there, but the fish would not come near the holes, and they could not reach them with their spears. The thick snow which covered the ground prevented them from finding any of the sweet roots they often ate when other food was scarce, and there were scarcely any animals about that they could kill. The few that they saw easily got away, for the cave people could not run through the thick snow fast enough to catch up with them. Party after party came back to the caves with little or nothing at all; a few wild fowl that they had managed to knock down with stones, and some small animals that they found frozen in the snow. There was not enough food to go around, only a mouthful apiece, and as the days went by, and the cold got worse, the cave people once more found themselves starving.
THE SACRED FIRE
Many of them went to the cave of the Sacred Fire, and prayed to it, for they thought the fire was a god which could drive away the cold.
Many of them went to the cave of the Sacred Fire, and prayed to it, for they thought the fire was a god, the spirit of warmth and heat, which could drive away the cold. But they brought no offerings of food to place before the fire, because they had none to bring. Even to the fire watchers they could bring nothing.
This, however, made no difference to Ra-Na and his companion, because the fire cave was full of food, and they had plenty to eat.