“Find them yourself,” snapped the Muskman irritated by the boy’s reply. “If you fail, I will see that you get no food.”
So Kutnar did as he was bidden or tried to at least. It was past mid-day and he would have welcomed a rest after his morning’s hunting trip. The blood was surging to his temples but the boy-mind still ruled and so he went down to the river bank to search the gravels for material on which to work. But he found only disappointment, for the waters were ice-bound, and even if flint-lumps were there, he could not reach them. He returned to Castillo just before nightfall, and of course he returned empty-handed. Gonch scolded him soundly, even as he trembled for his own safety at thought of what the morrow might bring when Totan learned of his failure. He jerked the boar-hide loose that Kutnar wore about his body and hissed, “No food nor warmth either for him who does nothing. You shall pay by taking a turn at fire-watching to-night. To-morrow will be your last chance. The blades we will and must have.” He would have said more but as he looked about him, he saw the giant hetman watching and beckoning him to come that way. Gonch went reluctantly, for he had a fair idea of what was in the chieftain’s mind.
“The boy pays small attention to your orders,” Totan said grimly when the two were together. “I believe that you have grown careless. He is a flint-worker but he works no flints. No doubt you lie when you say he does.”
“Blades cannot be made from nothing,” was the answer. “The lad cannot find the flint on which to work.”
This was in part, repeating Kutnar’s own words and the hetman’s reply was curiously enough word for word the same as Gonch had given the boy.
“Find them yourself,” was his gruff response. “I will have no excuses. The blades must be made or no one knows whom we will be eating next.” He leered so affectionately at Gonch that the latter felt cold chills creeping up his spine. He determined for his own health he would accompany Kutnar on the morrow and help him find the flint-lumps. He could not hold Totan off forever, for the latter was already nearing the limit of his patience. “If Pic would only come, my troubles would be ended,” he thought. “These two giants would destroy each other, leaving me master beyond dispute.”
But Pic had not yet arrived and there seemed small chance of his doing so in time to improve the situation. “To-morrow I will help the boy find the flint-lumps,” he assured his chief. “He dare not fail me this time. I will not let him out of my sight until he secures the material and begins to make the blades.”
Before curling up in his hide-wrapping, he gave Kutnar his parting instructions: “Watch the fire to-night. In the morning, you will join the hunters in search of game. This done, we will go forth together and find the flint-lumps. Before sunset you must be at work making blades. Then, if you have done well, another shall have a turn at fire-watching and you may rest.” With that, he went his way.
Kutnar listened but said nothing. When he could sit alone and gaze into the firelight, it was the nascent man-mind that now whispered to him: “Drudgery and death will be yours if you stay here. Why serve them you despise and him you loathe? Up, boy, and prove yourself a worthy son of the Mammoth Man. Your friends are rushing to your aid. Far in the distance behind the screening haze, I see the form of a huge beast with long, gleaming tusks, ploughing toward you through the drifts. A mighty man sits astride his neck and a stout shaggy animal trots by his side. Awake and bite back at these yapping wolves or remain a slave and see no more of father and people and your friends the Hairy Elephant and Woolly Rhinoceros.”