CHAPTER XV
FIRE
Sunrise went away from No Foot’s cave, and his mind was full of the sparks which his arrow head had struck from the boulder.
“They were like stars,” he told She Wolf, “only more bright; yet when I went to pick them up there was nothing. Nor could old No Foot instruct me, tho’ he said that in working with flints he had often seen the like before.” But She Wolf was not interested and Sunrise told the tale of the stars to Dawn, and she lent him both her ears, and opened her mouth besides.
It befell after this, that often when Sunrise had a flint that was damaged he would shoot it into a rock, for joy of seeing the sparks. And it must be confessed that sometimes, when the desire of the sparks was too heavy to bear, he would sacrifice a perfectly good arrow on the flinty altar of his passion. But that did not matter much, because Sunrise was now a very wealthy young man, and could afford to pay for his pleasure.
He had one other greatest pleasure in life and that was the scratching of pictures on bone.
She Wolf had carried away many of the best examples by No Man from the old cave, and Sunrise had been brought up on this gallery. Many a rainy day he stayed at home imagining scenes and etching them into the bone, while She Wolf and Dawn looked on and admired.
In time he excelled his father, and made the most wonderful pictures of which there was any record.