Og—Son of Fire

by Irving Crump

Several good stones he piled up with his fagots and his stone hammer. Then he spent more time in thinking. Gradually he worked out the idea that it would be a good thing if he could carry some provisions with him. This was an entirely new thought for a hairy man; never before had one of the race ever had intelligence enough to think ahead to the extent of providing for the future. They lived from day to day, feasting while food was before them and hunting only when they grew hungry again. With watering mouth Og thought of his feast of the day before; of the abundance of roast horse meat down in the valley of steam, traces of which were still wafted to his sensitive nostrils. But he dared not go back into the valley again. The presence of the Mountain That Walked and Sabre Tooth forbade this.

Og’s eyes brightened as he saw the wolf cubs still sprawled beside the fire. But as he looked at them they looked up at him and their tails wagged with pleasure. Og could not understand the strange feeling that swept over him, but he knew then that he could never bring himself to kill them. He would go hungry rather than slay them and cheat himself of their companionship. Og’s sense of loyalty had grown out of all proportion to anything of the sort that had ever been possessed by a hairy man before. And so he gave up the idea of carrying food with him, but he stored the thought away in his brain for future use.

Although Og had been out hunting when the hairy folk had fled the valley at the first rumble of the volcano he knew well which way they had traveled. No hairy man of late years ever journeyed north. Always there was a cold, ominous spirit in the Northland who killed with icy breath and numbing pain and left his victims stark and stone-like; at least, that is the story that a hairy man had brought to the tribe years ago when he staggered among the cave dwellers and besought some to take him into their cave and wrap their arms around him and draw him close to their bodies as the hairy folk did to keep each other warm. He was the last of as many men as he had fingers who had traveled into the Northland. The rest, he said, were dead and turned to stone.

So Og knew that the hairy folk had not gone north. Nor had they gone east, for that was where night came from. Hairy men feared the hours of night for it was then that Sabre Tooth and the Stalking Death hunted. The volcano was in the west, so the only road that lay open was southward. Og knew the tribe had gone southward. He knew it because of his crude reasoning as well as by a pack instinct fully developed in him.

And so Og faced southward, and as he picked his way up the cliff and along the face of the rugged, rock strewn and partially wooded hillside he was indeed a strange sight, one big hand clutching his stone hammer and the other carrying his flaming fagots and his supply of throwing stones, while the two wolf cubs romped ahead and in front of him. The crest of the hill finally gained Og found that his way lay in a deep forest, a forest of such tremendous trees that Og looked like a dwarf among them. They were the giant sequoia, the ancestors of the few remaining big trees still left, and in Og’s day they clothed a greater part of the entire earth. They were so tall that their tops were brushed by low hanging clouds, and so big at the base that Og knew that every man, woman and child in his colony, by joining hands, could not encircle them and Og’s tribe was a big tribe composed of almost a hundred people. Og had seen the trees before and did not stand in awe of them.

For hours he swung along among the big trees, his eyes, ears and nose alert as always. Once the wolf cubs started two rabbit-like animals from their cover. Og saw them as quickly as the wolf cubs and as they whisked across an open space he dropped his hammer, shifted a throwing stone to his right hand and whipped it after one of the scurrying beasts with the speed of a bullet. Og heard with satisfaction the thump as it thudded against the rabbit’s ribs. Then, as the animal leaped into the air, and fell to the ground kicking, Og gave voice to a hunting yell of triumph. He was about to rush forward and seize his kill when he noticed the wolf cubs. Both had given chase to the other rabbit, and so close had they been to that animal when they started it that it had to take to another cover immediately, which it did by dodging into a hollow under some rocks. The wolf cubs were working frantically to dig it out when Og caught sight of them. He watched them with interest for a moment. Then his eyes brightened with a new thought. Hastily he secured his own prize, then hurried over to where the wolf cubs were digging, throwing a veritable shower of earth between their legs as they dug their way deeper and deeper under the rocks. Og squatted down close at hand and watched them. Soon they had dug a hole deep enough for one cub to squeeze into. The more active of the two shouldered his companion out of the way and wriggled in. Deeper and deeper he went until just the tip of his tail showed. Then Og heard a growl, a shrill frightened squeak that was cut short by the crunching of breaking bones.

Og squatted down close at hand and watched them

Presently the wolf cub began backing out. Og watched his progress and as his head came to view with the limp form of the rabbit dangling from his jaws Og seized him by the scruff of the neck and wrenched the rabbit from his mouth. With a growl the wolf cub sprang at him. But Og was waiting for just this and as he leaped Og’s hand shot out and cuffed him so hard that he was knocked heels over head and sent sprawling into the rock pile. Og looked at him and smiled. Then as he came whimpering back toward him, Og tore off a leg of the rabbit and tossed it to him. He did likewise for the other cub. Then he squatted down and tearing the rest of the animal to pieces he ate the choicest parts and tossed the scraps to the wolf cubs. And as he crouched there eating the raw flesh of the rabbit his brain was still very busy (as the brightness of his eyes attested) with the discovery that the wolf cubs could be made capital hunting companions. He reasoned that he could teach them to hunt and give over their kill to him if he went about it properly and once trained they would be invaluable, for they were swifter of foot and keener of eye and of nose than he was.