The hairy boy was startled to receive an answer from close at hand.
“I am here, O stranger. I, Wab, once the mighty hunter. I am here ready and waiting for you, O, stranger. If you are death come take me. I am no longer of use to any one. I, the mighty hunter, am blind and an outcast.”
The voice came from behind a nearby boulder and, looking, Og beheld the crouching form of a powerful man across whose face were many scars, one of which had wiped out both of his eyes. It was as if a great claw-armored paw had at some time raked him and all but torn his face away. Yet despite this disfigurement Og recognized him as Wab, the mighty hunter, and his father.
“Father, I have returned. It is your son,” cried the hairy boy, running to his side.
“No. Not my son. My son perished in the great fire that drove us from our homes many moons ago. You are Death. I know. I heard the others shouting that you were coming from the den of the tiger, with a tiger skin over your shoulders, and a wand of mysterious power in your hand; a wand from which fire and smoke flashed. I know you. You are Death. Not my kin but kin of the cave tiger, whose claw marks I bear on my face. The tiger sent you to avenge the blows of my stone hammer. She feared to come back herself even though she knew I was blind. She feared me and she sent you instead. But I am ready to go with you, Death. I am an outcast among my people. I am blind and helpless and therefore useless. I cannot get my own food and no one has time to get it for me. They throw me scraps and bones to gnaw upon sometimes. They help me up to my miserable little cave sometimes. But when they are in a hurry and run to save their own precious lives, they forget me and leave me here, a blind man, to scramble up the cliffs as best I can or to remain here and be killed.
“They left me to-day when they ran from you in dread. They left me here. I sought to hide myself behind this stone. But when you called Wab, I knew that you were Death and I knew you had come for me. So I am ready to go. Take me.”
Og was kneeling beside the man now. “No, no,” he cried, “I am Life, not Death, for you, my father. I have slain the tiger that has crippled you so. I come with a mysterious wand, true. It is a wand of fire. I have conquered the Fire Demon. I can make him come from stone and do my bidding. He guards me against the chill of night. He dispels the blackness. He keeps me safe from the sabre-toothed one and all other animals. I have tamed the wolf dog too. They are my companions now. I have won me a name. I am Og, your son Og, and I have come back to protect you, to care for you, to hunt for you, and to fight for a place in the sun for you. It is well.”
“It is well. If this be true then I am happy. If you are my son, you have been reborn to me. You have been reborn from the fire. Og, Son of Fire, are you, and my son, too. And now if this be true help me, my son, up the cliff to my miserable cave, where we may talk together.”
And Og reached a strong arm under that of his father, once the mighty hunter, Wab, and together they climbed the narrow trail up the cliff. And the wolf dogs followed slowly after.