But She Wolf did not die; and she abode with No Man for three days in that place, and afterward she went with him to his cave, and fawned upon him.
CHAPTER VIII
THE FAINT HEART OF NO MAN
No Man and She Wolf kept the secret of the bow safe in their cave, and in the early mornings She Wolf went forth to hunt armed with spear and club, while No Man sat in the sun, and scratched the story of his life upon a fine white bone.
He scratched away with much boastful imagination; picturing in order all the clever things that he really had done and as many others that he hadn’t as he could possibly think of.
Whenever She Wolf came back from the hunting, she would admire the progress of the bone, and think to herself that No Man was the bravest and cleverest man of whom there was any record.
For the most part No Man was kind to her, but when she returned empty handed, or his work did not please him, he would beat her till she was half dead. And she loved him alike for the caresses and the blows.
The pictures that she liked best were those in which she herself figured—first savage, untamable and to be feared—then hunting with No Man in the forest, then lying insensible by the brook, then fawning at No Man’s feet, and then following him to his cave.