And because no artist can work when he is angry, he gave up scratching pictures on bone.
No Man was undoubtedly a coward, but he was very cunning. He had schemes in his head that nobody else had yet thought of. He had the creative spirit.
So far it had been useful only in evolving pictures and ingenious ways of scratching them on bone; but now, so No Man swore, it should evolve him a weapon against which none could stand and his vengeance would be accomplished.
He thought over the different kinds of weapons then in use; clubs with stone-heads, wooden clubs, smooth round stones for throwing, and spears.
These last were just coming into fashion, we may say. They were short, stiff shafts with heads of chipped flint lashed to them with deer sinew, which if put on wet and allowed to dry, shrank and became as tight and hard as wire. No Man thought these over, and resolved to think of something entirely new. Clubs and spears brought you to close quarters, and that was not the way No Man wanted to fight. Throwing stones required a proficiency which he did not possess, and was not often fatal—even at best. He went back to the spear. Why not throw it? This was an entirely new idea. No use. Same business as stones—uncertain.
Then he pictured in his agile mind, how, the spear having missed, Strong Hand would chase him with a club and beat his brains out.
He went so far as to dream this unpleasant scene several times at night. When this happened he howled in his sleep.
No, he must have something entirely new, something that would kill—unerringly—at a good distance. But with all his cleverness, he could not think of just the right thing.
And if his fellow-tribesmen had not been charitable, he would have starved to death while he was thinking.
One day the big nut tree in front of No Man’s cave was struck by lightning, and when he got the courage to go and look, he discovered that it had been split into fine wands, half as big as his wrist. He tried to break one but it would only bend. When he let go it sprang back nearly straight, but not quite because it was sappy and unseasoned.