Og decided to set out to find the hairy people again since the roars and wails that came up from the steaming valley told him all too plainly that it was no longer safe for him to remain in that vicinity.
CHAPTER V
IN WHICH THE WOLF BECOMES DOG
All through the night Og cared for his fire. It was to him a new kind of animal; a strange pet that he must needs feed at intervals else it would disappear. Og was afraid that it would eat up all its food and go out. This he did not want to happen for he dared not go back into the valley for more flame because of the danger lurking there. If the fire should burn out he did not know how to get more of it. For that reason he watched over it as a mother wolf over a cub. At regular periods he awoke and got up from his cramped and huddled sleeping position and searched around in the dark for more wood to feed it.
During this very first night at fire guarding the hairy boy learned a lesson that has been carried down through thousands of generations of camp fire watchers ever since. About the fifth or sixth time he had aroused himself and searched about for wood he got an idea. Forthwith he squatted down and started thinking again. The result was that he did not stop in his wood gathering when he had enough to replenish the flame. Instead, he kept on gathering wood which he piled up on the shelf of rock. After that each time he awoke he had only to reach over and take a few sticks from the pile, replenish the fire and fall off to sleep again. His wood pile lasted him until morning.
With the coming of dawn Og began preparation for his search for the colony of hairy men and women who had fled the valley at the first signs of eruption. First of all he made certain of his fire. His original fire stick had long since burned, so he gathered together a bundle of fagots of the hardest and most knotted and pitchy sticks he could find. These he bound round with bark, and lighted from the fire. Thus he purposed carrying his new found treasure, determined to guard it with his life, for he knew full well if the flames went out he could never replenish them again.
This done, he squatted down to think. First he would need a stone hammer; the first and only implement the hairy men had invented. He searched up and down the shelf and scrambled over the cliffs and hillside until he found a stone of the proper shape, round and smooth and water worn, yet rough enough to permit a grip for the lashings of bark that would bind it to the haft. Several times Og found stones that would almost do, and each time he squatted down and examined them. In the back of his brain he felt that he could make them satisfactory if he only knew how, yet his brain was not developed enough to invent the simple method of chipping them into the proper shape. The hairy folk had not yet progressed so far that they could with their own handicraft make things to serve them. They must needs find the stones ready to be tied into war hammers else they went without or used clubs instead.
Og was particular. Half the morning he searched until he found what he wanted. Then taking it back to the ledge, he selected a tough stick for the haft and with bark lashed the two together. When he had finished it he surveyed it with pride. Crude though it was, it was far better than any he had ever seen, even better than the one his father took so much pride in, and that was the best hammer among the hairy men.
This done Og sat and thought longer. He would need throwing stones; five round ones that his long sinewy arms could snap out with deadly speed and accuracy. Some of the hairy folk had learned to be expert at throwing stones. Og was among the best of them.