Sometimes the fire in the other caves went out. Then Flame, for that was the old woman’s name, had to light a torch at the fire in her cave and give it to the person who needed it. So of course the Great Fire must never go out for if it did no one knew how to get any more.
No one knew where Flame got the fire in her cave. Her mother was Keeper of the Great Fire for the Clan as far back as the oldest men could remember. She taught Flame how to talk to the Fire-god and persuade him to give her the fire, but Flame had never told anyone else. She liked to be the fire-keeper herself.
Bolo and Fisher often went to Flame’s cave. They liked to watch the great blaze always burning on the big flat rock just inside the entrance to her cave. They brought her dry wood for it, and sometimes she would let them roast nuts or broil slices of meat or fish over the smaller fire where she cooked her own food. She would never allow them to go very near the Great Fire on the big hearth, and she never used that one to cook her food.
Bolo and Fisher often played in Flame’s cave. There was a small hole away at the back of it where they could crawl out into the sunlight. Flame did not like this hole. She was afraid some wild animal might come through it. So she told the boys always to roll a great rock against it when they were through playing. This was the first door any of the Clan had ever had.
When it rained the cave people stayed at home. They were warm and dry in the big caves. They always kept great piles of dry wood stored away so that the fires rarely went out. The little children played about in the firelight. The women, with Stitcher to teach them, pounded the skins soft or sewed them into garments. The men busied themselves making new points for their spears and harpoons. But One Eye always made arrow heads instead, and since Bolo killed the cave bear many of the men came to his cave to be taught how to make them, too. Many were beginning to think arrows much better than their old weapons, but some of the old men still declared they were of no use.
Once it began to rain, and for many days the clouds never broke and rain fell constantly. The season was warm and the boys had a great deal of fun running about in the wet. They always left their skin coats in the caves when they did that, for if the skins got very wet it made them stiff and hard.
At first this was sport, but as the days went on and the torrents still poured down the cave people began to get uneasy. Their stock of wood was running low, too, and the weather was turning colder.
“How high the river is running,” said Fisher one day. “And see how many branches, and even great trees, are floating down on it.”
“It is almost up to the hole in the back of Flame’s cave,” said Bolo.
“We had better go and tell her,” said Fisher. So away they went to Flame’s cave.