CHAPTER VII
A CAPTIVE OF THE TREE PEOPLE
The hairy people had not yet developed to the state where they possessed knives. True they had learned the use of sharp stones for cutting purposes. Their method was to take a jagged piece of rock and with the object to be cut laid upon another rock, beat it until it was worn or chewed into the required pieces. Then the rocks were cast aside. None had yet had the forethought to keep a sharp stone in his possession to be used as a knife. They had not progressed far enough up the scale to be able to think ahead. Meeting the future was not to be considered.
Og suddenly found himself greatly handicapped because of this trait of his people. He wanted to skin the two wolves that had been killed the night before; the grizzled old leader of the pack and the one he had dispatched with a thrown stone. The hairy men used teeth, fingers, sharp sticks and stones in their skinning. They did not remove the skin to preserve it. They pulled it off in strips and threw it away. Their chief desire was to get at the meat. They had not the ingenuity to make use of the hairy coat. They had not yet thought of wearing clothing for warmth.
Og did not at first have any other idea than that of tearing the skins from the wolves, so that he could eat them. But the skins were tough and his teeth and fingers were inadequate. He needed a sharp stone. But there were no sharp stones to be had. Here in the forest there were few stones, and those that he did find were worn smooth and round by weather and water. Og searched and searched till the sun had climbed high in the sky and still he was unrewarded. And as he searched he perforce thought of many another good sharp stone he had used in the past and had thrown away. He wished now that he had one at hand.
This wish made an impression on him. Indeed, he stopped short in his searching and turned the idea over in his mind. Why had he not saved one of those sharp stones; carried it with him as he did his stone hammer? It would be available now and worth a great deal to him. He stored this thought in a recess of his brain where was slumbering the idea he had had when he first started this journey; the idea that it would be a good thing to carry food or provisions with him.
This thought had come to his mind as he surveyed the two dead wolves that morning. Here was more than enough food for him and the wolf cubs. Any other hairy man would have stayed and camped there until the food was all eaten. But Og did not intend to do this. He was traveling. He meant to go on in search of his people as soon as he could start, but he hated the thought of leaving so much good food behind. Then out of the corner of his brain had come the suggestion: why not carry it along! Og had pondered over this idea for a long time. It was a good thought, he could see. But to carry the two wolves as they were would weigh him down. There was a great deal on each wolf that he could not eat, the head, the feet, the heavy bones, the skin. Why not remove them and take only the meat! That he would do, but first he must needs find a sharp stone with which to skin the beasts.
The hairy boy searched for that stone and wandered far away from the big bowlder beside which his camp fire burned. Each time he found a stone, he examined it carefully for a sharp edge. He would sit on his haunches and turn it over and over, while back in his brain was the same thought that he had had when he was searching for hammer stones and that was that if he only knew just how he was certain that he could put a sharp edge on to it. Presently he got the idea that perhaps the sharp edge was inside the stone. He would break it open and see. He had broken stones before by hitting them against other stones. He would try to break this one open.
Og beheld in the lower branches three big forms
With all the force of his long strong arm and heavy shoulders he hurled the stone against a boulder. It rebounded with a sharp crack and Og hastily retrieved it. It had not smashed, but its force had broken loose from the boulder a big scale of stone with a capital cutting edge on it. Og picked up the scale and examined it. It was just what he needed. He gave a grunt of triumph as he felt of the edge. Then he went over and looked at the scar it had left on the boulder. And as he examined this scar a crude thought took shape. Why could he not make a stone knife by breaking round stones with other stones until they were the shape he wanted them to be? Indeed, why could he not break stone with other stones into hammer heads or throwing stones or anything else that he wanted? The suggestion was fascinating. The idea of making anything to suit a given purpose was born in Og. He was the first of the hairy people to conceive this possibility and it stirred in him almost as much interest as had his discovery of fire. He was inspired by a new desire. He would try to make a knife out of a round stone, some day. It would be an achievement to make a stone, the hardest substance he knew, into any shape he wanted just by chipping it with other stones. He would——