a hole in the roof. The walls and the roof were blackened by smoke.

Strongarm's young wife was named Burr. She was glad when she saw the meat. She took her stone knife quickly and cut up the meat, and threw the pieces on the hot coals. While the fire blazed and snapped and cooked the meat, the boys looked on with hungry eyes.

When the meat was done, Burr pulled it from the fire with a long stick. The boys and Strongarm snatched it up and tore it to pieces with their white teeth.

"Um-m! how good and tender and juicy!" said the boys, grinning, and smacking their lips.

When the meat was all gone, the bones were broken and the sweet marrow scraped out and eaten; for that was good, too.

While the family was still eating, a big black bear came along. He smelled the meat, and put his great rough head in at the door and sniffed.

[Illustration: A big black bear came along]

"Bear!" shouted Strongarm, jumping to his feet.

Burr and the boys cried out and quickly ran away to hide. Strongarm snatched a blazing log and struck the bear. He was burned and hurt, and he grew angry. He stood up on his hind legs and growled and showed his sharp teeth.

Strongarm snatched his ax and made for the bear, but he had gone. His growls sounded farther and farther away. Still Strongarm stood with his ax ready, his heart thumping and his eyes big. When he saw that the bear was not coming back, he dropped his ax with a gruff laugh. Then Burr and the boys came creeping out of their holes. And they all laughed and talked at once, telling how scared they had been.

The growls of the bear still sounded through the woods, so the boys ran to the door to see him.

"There he goes!" cried Pineknot with wide eyes, pointing.

"How big he is!" cried Thorn; "I shall make his picture."

Thorn ran back into the cave and quickly threw a pineknot on the fire. It blazed up and made all the cave light. He broke a piece of limestone from the wall and picked up a sharp stone from the floor. Then he sat down by the fire to make his picture of the bear. After a while he held up the piece of limestone with the picture scratched on it.

[Illustration: Then he sat down by the fire to make his picture of the bear]

"O mother," said Pineknot, laughing hard, "see Thorn's picture of the bear. It shows his big body and his long head and his little ears."

"That is the very bear that made us run," said Burr, laughing.

All this time Strongarm had been making a picture of wild horses. He now held up the picture, scratched on a piece of deer antler.

"See, this horse has his ears up," he said. "He heard me coming. Here I am with my spear."

Burr and the boys crowded round and said, "Oh!"

While Strongarm and the boys were making pictures, the baby had been tumbling about on the floor. She crept around or pulled herself to her feet by holding to the rough places in the wall. After a while she grew sleepy; then her mother took her in her arms and sang this song:

        "Little child!
        Little sweet one!
        Little girl!
        Though a baby,
Soon a-hunting after berries
        Will be going.
        Little girl!
        Little sweet one!
        Little child!"

The baby went to sleep, and Burr laid her on a bear skin on the floor. Soon afterwards Pineknot fell asleep on another skin, and in a little while Thorn lay beside him. Then Burr put ashes over the coals, while Strongarm threw burning logs before the door. Soon all was quiet in the cave. The cave folks had gone to sleep.

[Illustration: Ram horns]

CHAPTER II

THE NEEDLE, THE CLUB, AND THE BOW

Nearly every day Strongarm went out to hunt. But he did not always bring back meat to the cave, for he could not always kill an animal. But sometimes he brought home the meat of deer or bison, and then again it was that of mammoth or ox.

Burr always took the meat when Strongarm brought it home, and sometimes she cut tendons from it. A tendon is a strong white cord that fastens a muscle to a bone. There are long tendons in the backs of big animals. Burr cut these out sometimes and hung them in the sun to dry. When they were dry, she broke the thin outside skin and tore the tendon apart with her fingers. It came to pieces in many little threads. Burr took some of the little threads and twisted them together and made a good strong thread for sewing.

One day she sat before the door of her cave sewing together skins of wild oxen.

[Illustration: Sewing together skins of wild oxen]

"What is the big skin for, mother?" asked Pineknot, who ran up.

"To lay on sticks above our door," said Burr. "Then, even when it rains, we can sit outside."

"Oh, that will be fine!" said the boy.

Burr went on with her sewing. She made holes along the edge of the skins with a sharp stone. Then she threaded her needle. She put it through a hole in each of the skins and pulled it tight. She worked on in this way and sewed the skins together.

"Where did you get the needle, mother?" Pineknot asked next, looking at it closely.

"I made it," said Burr. "When your father brings birds or deer from the hunt, I sometimes take a little bone from the leg of a deer or the wing of a bird. This I put in the cave to dry. When it is dry, I rub it smooth with sandstone. Then I must have a hole in one end to carry the thread. I take a sharp stone and turn it round and round on the little bone, pressing down. It is not hard work. In that way I make a smooth hole in my needle."

[Illustration: A little bone]

[Illustration: Bone needle]

"But when my mother sewed," Burr went on, "she used a little bone to push the thread through the skins. One day she found a little bone with a hole in it and took it home. She put her thread through the hole, wondering how it would do, and began to sew. Soon there was a crowd of women round her, pointing and saying, 'Oh, oh!' while the little bone carried the thread."

"It must be fun to sew with a needle," said Pineknot.

Thorn was nearby making bone whistles and marrow scrapers, and soon Strongarm came up dragging a little tree. He threw down his old hunting club and said, "It is broken. I will make a new one."

[Illustration: Broken