And Ang told Wang how they had learned to cook the venison; how they had learned to feed the Red One and keep him from wandering. He told how the fear of him was on all the beasts of the woods, so that not even the most savage and the most hungry dared stand before him; and the smallest child was safe within the circle of light.
Then they took the wondering Wang and showed him the sacred fire, gift of the Keeper of Secrets; they cooked venison over the coals so that he might taste it. And when Wang started for home Oma gave him a shoulder of smoked deer's meat and cakes made of acorn meal.
And now a strange thing happened. Pity stirred the heart of Ang. Odin had helped him in the time of his troubles; why should he not help Wang? He turned to Oma. "The hunting is good; the stream is full of fish; the Red One can warm more than three. I will go and bring Wang and his woman and his child. They can live in the cave which we thought should be Om's. It is the will of the All-Father that men should live together."
And the men went together and brought Wang's wife and child, and they made a screen and bark door for the new cave home. Oma taught Suta, wife of Wang, the mysteries of the fire, and Ang and Wang became the first neighbors, and that also was one of the gifts of the Revealer, through the Spirit of the Fire.
As time went on, the story of Ang, the fire-man, spread through all the north country, and often men came as Wang had done, many day's journey, through trackless forest, to see the wonderful fire in front of the cave of Ang. But Ang told to no one but Wang the secret of how to call the Fire Spirit. To men who were friendly he gave live coals to carry away in bowls hollowed out of soapstone. Men who were the enemies of Ang did not dare come near his cave for fear of the red knives which guarded it.
By and by men began to say to each other, as they went to hunt or sat about the carefully tended fire, that Ang, the fire-man, must be loved by Odin, and they came to Ang and said: "Tell us of the Great One," and Ang was troubled because he had not heard his voice or seen him. As he hunted in the stillness of the forest, he pondered: "Why had no one ever seen the Great Spirit? Or was the sky his face and the sun and moon his eyes? Why had no one heard his voice? Or was the thunder his voice? If so, no one understood his language." The more he thought, the more troubled he became. For days at a time he rarely spoke and went about as one in a dream, and Oma said to Wang and to others who came, "The spell of Odin is on him," and they began to look on Ang with awe and wonder.
One night as Ang was far from home and slept in a cave on a hill-side, he dreamed that his shadow self left his body and journeyed to a far country, and there he saw his father and his father's father and the men of long ago. They all sat about a great fire and beckoned to him to join their circle. There was a silence like that before the storm, and each one in the circle looked steadfastly into the fire, which burned on and on, though no one fed its flames.
As Ang continued to look into the flames, it seemed as if something was lifted from his eyes and he saw what no one had seen before. The earth was the body of Odin. His life was the life of all. He had not one voice like man, but many. He spoke in the thunder, in the voice of the storm, but also in the song of the birds and in the words of one's best beloved.
Ang awoke just as the sun was driving the mists from the valley beneath him, and these words came to his lips as if they were a message from the dream-world which he had just left: "The wise son of the All-Father sees him everywhere and hears his voice always." For the first time in his life Ang saw the beauty of the world at his feet, and the song of the birds which filled the vibrant air awoke a new joy of melody and harmony in his soul.