Pic the Weapon-Maker

by George Langford

While Pic was watching the Cave-men swarming up the cliff, he failed to observe a figure approaching from behind him—a four-legged animal with shaggy hide and short, curling horns. This creature was glaring at the man. Its feet were pawing the ground. The shouts and cries infuriated it. They sounded like a challenge to battle.

The animal was a wisent or bison, a lover of meadows and grassy plains. For some reason and by some way unknown, it had strayed unwittingly to the heights above the Ferrassie Rock-shelter. The Bison had become nervous amid its unfamiliar surroundings. At sight of Pic this nervousness increased to vexation. At sound of the other’s cries, its wrath passed all bounds. With a loud snort, it dashed blindly forward in a thunderous charge.

But for the warning snort, Pic would have been overwhelmed in an instant. He glanced quickly behind him and had time only to spring nimbly to one side. The great brute swept by so closely, its streaming locks brushed his shoulder. Unconscious of peril and unable to check its momentum, the doomed beast plunged to the brink of the precipice. Too late, it saw the destruction awaiting it and reared high over the abyss in a last frantic effort to escape death; then with a terrified bellow, down it fell. The forelegs plunged into space and the huge body followed tumbling head over heels in a mad death-whirl to the ground below.

The Cave-men had nearly reached the summit of the cliff when they saw Pic suddenly step back. The next moment, a great hairy body came flying over their heads. A loud crash; and as they gazed below, there lay a full-grown bison quivering in the last agonies of death. All saw and were dumbfounded. They turned to Pic who was leaning forward with arms outstretched like one petrified as he peered down upon the brute whose wrath he had so narrowly escaped. The evidence was clear; he had hurled the bison down. Had he not urged them to hurry and partake of the feast?

For an instant, they stared in awe at the author of their good-fortune, then with one accord, back they scrambled pell-mell the way they had come. As Pic looked down he saw them leap upon the dead bison like a pack of ravenous beasts. They howled, shrieked, screeched with joyful anticipation as they cut and chopped the lifeless animal with their flint-blades. In a jiffy, the hide was ripped and torn off in a dozen gory fragments, permitting the Cave-men to set upon the carcass itself. In the meantime, several of the women with some wits left, ran about shouting to their companions to bring fuel and prepare the fire for the coming feast. In a few moments the Rock-shelter was a hive of buzzing activity. The women made ready the fire, stirring the embers and piling on wood while the men carried great hunks of flesh and severed limbs to the butcher-block, licking the dripping blood and meat-shreds to momentarily ease their hunger until the feast could be prepared and served.

Amid all this excitement and confusion, none thought of Pic. Food, food was the one thing in their minds and naught else mattered. Here it was and plenty of it, suddenly come between them and starvation.

The limbs and body were now dismembered; the head and offal alone remained. The old hag dashed to the fire, waving the bison’s heart sucked dry and bearing the imprints of her teeth. One of the men sprang to the shaggy head and pried open the mouth.

“Stand back,” thundered a voice. “The tongue is mine,” and there stood Pic with ax held threateningly across his shoulder. The man fell to his knees and stretched out his arms.

“Killer of the Bison!” he shrieked in a frenzy of joy. “Tamer of Lions!” his fellows added their exultant yells. “The tongue belongs to him. Out with it. May the sun ever shine upon him who has this day saved us from death.”