Pic shut one eye and grinned in the other’s face. His future career as a business man was rapidly shaping itself.
“I will need food and hides as well,” he shrewdly suggested. “Perhaps your men will supply them too.”
The Mousterian leader cocked his head thoughtfully on one side. He began to see that neither he nor his followers were to be furnished new tools and weapons unless they gave something in return. Far from resenting Pic’s shrewdness, he congratulated himself on having established close relations between himself and this remarkable youth. Raw flint was plentiful enough. Sharper, finer weapons, meant more meat and hides—more fruitful hunting. He and his followers could meet Pic on his own terms.
“Agreed,” he said. All nodded assent; and Bargain Number Two was closed.
The hide and severed portions of the slain buck were now raised on half a dozen pairs of brawny shoulders; and with Pic in their midst, bearing himself like a returning conqueror, the Cave-men of Ferrassie returned across the meadows to the overhanging cliffs.
XXIII
With the beginning of summer weather, the Mammoth and Rhinoceros forsook the Dordogne region for a cooler climate. Pic had disappeared and they were compelled to leave alone. After a season of aimless wanderings in the North, they returned to their winter quarters in the Vézère Valley, their minds filled with the idea that life minus Pic was incomplete and that they would not go off again without him.
But Pic had vanished and there appeared no clue pointing to where he had gone. Cave-men rarely roamed abroad during the freezing weather but kept to their caves, large numbers of which were to be found in the cliffs which lined the valleys of the Vézère and its tributary streams.