“They’ll never let you,” Firefly whispered back.
“I’m going anyway,” Firetop answered. “Don’t you tell.”
“If you go, I’m going,” said Firefly. “I can go as well as you can.”
“Sh-sh-sh—” said Firetop, for Grannie was speaking.
“The river is wide and dangerous,” she said. “The current is swift, and who knows what monsters may be in it? I myself saw a rhinoceros wallowing in the mud only a few days ago. Some say they have seen a serpent as large as the trunk of a tree.”
“We can go up the river until we find a shallower place to cross,” said Hawk-Eye. “I have killed a tiger and a rhinoceros and a cave bear in my time. We can take care of ourselves.”
When Limberleg heard him say “We” she knew that she was going, and she was glad. She was as brave as Hawk-Eye and almost as good a hunter.
When they saw that Hawk-Eye had really made up his mind to go, nobody else said anything. They knew it would be a waste of words; and in those days there were fewer words to waste than we have now.
“We must start early,” Hawk-Eye said to Limberleg. “We will take one extra skin apiece and our axes and spears.”
Limberleg rose at once and went over to the corner of the cave where the Twins were. The Twins shut their eyes tight and pretended to be sound asleep. Firetop even snored a little. Limberleg spread the skins of two bears upon the cave floor and threw herself on one of them. Hawk-Eye went to the cave-mouth, took a look at the stars, yawned, warmed himself at the fire, and then he too went to bed. The rest of the men and women found their own places in other shadowy corners of the cave, and soon the whole clan of the Bear was sound asleep.