Bolo the cave boy

by Katharine Atherton Grimes

“You will only die, too,” he said.

But Bolo brought some flint stones and set to making his arrows. Then One Eye sat down to show him how to make them more keen and beautiful than any he had ever made. He took a curved piece of bone and chipped off the large flakes. Then he pressed off smaller flakes one by one, working very carefully, until he had made a fine, keen point. Bolo watched his father and worked in the same way, and soon they had a nice lot of arrows. Bolo made a new head for his spear, too, and bound it on with a fresh cord of reindeer sinew.

At last all was ready. One Eye brought a great, hollow bone that he had taken from the leg of a mammoth years before and fastened a wooden base to it. He drilled holes in the upper edge and strung thongs through them so that Bolo could carry it over his shoulder. Then he put the arrows into the hollow of the bone. It made a good quiver.

Bolo carried his bow over one shoulder and his quiver full of arrows over the other. He carried his spear in his hand, and at his side he hung a heavy hammer made of stone. One Eye wanted him to leave the hammer and take a great club that he had made from the jawbone of a cave bear, to which one long, sharp tooth was still attached. But Bolo was afraid of this club. He was afraid it would make the cave bears angry with him. So he did not take it. Fisher wanted to go with Bolo, but Flame said “No.” She had grown very feeble and she was afraid she might die. If both boys went away and never came back there would be no one to talk to the Fire-god. So Fisher stayed to help Flame tend the Great Fire.

For three days Bolo wandered about over the hills. At night he tied himself to the branch of a tree, safely out of the reach of harm, and slept soundly. He shot a rabbit now and then for food, and sometimes caught a fish. One day he found himself suddenly surrounded by a pack of snarling, hungry hyenas, but a few well-aimed arrows sent them scurrying off into the hills. How glad Bolo was that they were not wolves!

One day Bolo climbed a tall tree that stood alone on a hill. He hoped he might be able to find some trace of those he sought. He looked slowly about in every direction. On one side the hills lay like great, rounded billows, many of them covered with trees. On the other side wound the river, in some places between sloping shores, in others between steep banks. Off toward the north it disappeared behind a jutting cliff. It was a long way from Bolo’s tree, but he thought he could see something moving along the river bank. He looked again eagerly. Perhaps that might be his mother and little Antelope.

He climbed down the tree and ran across to another hilltop closer to the river. Here he climbed another tree, and from that he saw something so strange that he held his breath in terrified surprise.

“[Bolo had never seen any animals like this before]”

Great, lumbering creatures were moving about along the edge of the river. They had heavy, swinging snouts, and from their enormous heads rose in great curves immense, yellowish things that looked like queer horns. [Bolo had never seen any animals like these before]. He watched them with fascinated eyes, wondering what they could be. Sometimes one of them would reach up into a tree with its great snout and pull a branch down. Two of them appeared to be quarreling, and one thrust its shaggy head and wicked looking tusks against the side of the other and made him stagger. Another waded out into the river and appeared to be drinking. In a minute he threw his trunk over his back and out spouted a stream of muddy water. There were fully twice as many of these animals as there were fingers on both of his hands.