“Grannie can have the other egg, can’t she, Firetop, because we scared her so,” said Firefly, when they had each eaten one.
“You may scare me every day that you bring me bird’s eggs,” said Grannie.
Grannie took the last egg from the ashes and was just cracking it when suddenly there was a shout which made them all jump. Those were pretty jumpy times, I can tell you, for a new sound might mean almost any kind of danger. There were so many wild beasts in the forest that no one could feel safe a single minute unless he was deep in a cave. Even then the cave had to have an entrance so narrow that no man-hunting animal could get into it, or else a fire must be kept burning before it to frighten them away.
The moment they heard the sound, Grannie dropped her egg and sprang to her feet. Firetop and Firefly popped into the cave and were out of sight in an instant. Grannie threw fresh sticks on the fire, and as it blazed up, she looked fearfully about in every direction. Now she heard another sound besides the shouts and screams of children’s voices. From far away down the river came a long low roar and the tramp, tramp of many feet. A group of children came tearing up the path toward the cave, shouting at the top of their lungs, “The bison are coming, the bison are coming!”
Grannie took up the cry. “The bison are coming, the bison are coming!” she shouted into the cave, and out tumbled Firetop and Firefly in the twinkling of an eye.
“Where, where?” they screamed.
“There, there, in the river bottom,” panted Squaretoes, the biggest of the boys. “We were hunting for frogs and all of a
sudden there was a roar,—at first so faint we could hardly hear it,—then far down the river we saw them coming! Run, run to the big rock, and you can see them too.”
Grannie threw a great heap of dry wood upon the fire and ran with the children to the big rock, which lay part way down the path toward the river. From the top of this rock the whole valley was spread out before them like a map.