It was a close finish—there could be no doubt of that. Wolf’s final swift rush told as they neared the cave, as with outstretched hand he almost succeeded in clutching the fleeing girl as she dived into the opening of the cave. Six Toes caught her in his arms as she came, and I sent an arrow whistling outward, but Six Toes was in my way and Wolf leaped aside unhurt. Then came a few moments’ pause. Laugh was safe within the cave. Wolf and his followers, who had by this time joined him, were gathered just aside from the entrance in noisy council. We waited alert and hungrily, for we knew that our time of vengeance was at hand, I guarding the cave opening, Six Toes at the porthole on the left.
As they conferred excitedly the party of Wolf moved farther to the side and I crept nearer and nearer to the mouth of the cave. I knew there would be happenings. Then I heard the voices moving more to the side and ran back into the cave again and looked over Six Toes’ shoulder. Suddenly the men outside moved again, and there, now they stood, not six yards from the point of Six Toes’ arrow, Wolf, with his broad back to it, waving his arms and commanding violently. Never was fairer mark offered a Cave man and never a deadly opportunity seized upon more eagerly. Slowly Six Toes drew the long shaft backward until the stone head touched the great bow, which creaked and groaned beneath the strain; then he released it!
There was a tearing thud; Wolf threw up his hands and stood wavering there with a short length of the knotted wood jutting from his back. For a moment he swayed and trembled, and then pitched forward as dead as the deer and the little wild horse stored beside us in the cave. With a yell of terror his followers started up the valley and I bounded out from the cave and sent an arrow after them as they ran. I could hear the “thut” and one of them began to run waveringly and laggardly. It was a fine shot.
It was good to see Laugh eat. Little cared she what we were doing. The smell of roasted meat had assailed her, and she was gnawing greedily at a bone with cooked flesh still upon it as we turned to look upon her, still flushed from the race. She looked up at Six Toes and laughed happily. Then he, too, laughed and sat down beside her. They were mated now, and were content.
So, for a few days, there were no happenings of note. Six Toes and Laugh were cheerful in their end of the cave, and I only less so in a little alcove at the side where I slept now dreamlessly. Laugh helped in the skinning of the game. We brought and cooked the flesh and kept ever a sharp lookout up and down the valley. Did Laugh become lax in any of her duties, Six Toes, as a husband should, admonished her with a strip of hide, but she rarely needed such correction, and his strokes were light, for were they not newly wed? I alone became, finally, somewhat restless. I felt that there was more to come, not that I feared it, but I was curious. The half-freezing tribe would soon be heard from.
We had not long to wait. Following the death of Wolf there had been much debate in the great cave. Evidently Six Toes was a wizard, and evidently a great wizard was a good thing for a clan to have. Besides, Six Toes was a famous hunter and a man of might, and why not yield to him?
They came, one day, a straggling group, including even the older men, and I, who guessed their mission as I saw them in the distance, conferred swiftly with Six Toes and advised him earnestly. They halted at a distance from the cave and yelled forth the nature of their visit and then, assured of safety, laid down their weapons and came forward. Six Toes, I standing beside him, received them somewhat gruffly. They said that they were cold and that he could make fire for them; as they were leaderless, too, would he not return to them?
Six Toes was stern but not unfriendly. He said that they were right. He was a wizard and could make fire. They were leaderless, because he had slain Wolf. He could slay others. He had been driven forth from the band, he and his brother Scar, but he would not remain angry with them if they would take him as a wizard and as the head of the clan and so obey him. If they disobeyed, well, he could burn all enemies. The sun was shining and he drew forth the fire-stone from his pouch and set into flame the bundle of dry reeds I brought. The sight startled and appalled them, and some of the old men even grovelled at his feet. All yielded wildly and blindly and, the young men carrying our belongings, Six Toes and Laugh and I in the lead, we took our way to the great cave of many galleries where the remainder of the band received us with mingled fear and joy. Then Six Toes made fire outside and lighted from it, other fires soon blazed within the great cave’s chambers, and meat was roasting everywhere, and there were warmth and feasting and rejoicing.
There were hosts of wild things for the hunting, the band had stores of nuts and roots, there were fire and warmth, and the winter passed in comfort for the Cave man. There came the spring and summer and the brown autumn, and in all our wanderings with Six Toes as our head we had fire at need, and the clan flourished beyond the ordinary lot of the wild man of that time. Next to Six Toes, I was the strongest and starkest man among them, and it came to me that, like him, I would take a wife. There was a girl, Black Eye they called her, who was most holding of desire to look upon. She I resolved to take, and I knew, from the looks she sometimes gave me, that she would come willingly. I was content in those days.
None other of all the band was so soft of foot as I when need came. I could thread the wood without the crackling of a twig. I could creep as silently as the forest cats which caught the birds upon the ground; I could steal so close to any creature that, if it saw me not, nor smelled me, I could come to stand beside it and impale it with a close driven arrow or even with my spear. So I wanted no clumsy-footed companion with me to mar the outcome when I hunted, and, save when we sought the fiercer creatures, rarely went forth other than alone.