There was no need. Old Mok had
special gifts, and they were such as made him a desirable friend among
the cave men. He had, in his youth, been a mighty hunter and had so
learned that he could tell wonderfully the ways of beasts and swimming
things and the ways of slaying or eluding them. Best of all, he was such
a fashioner of weapons as the valley had rarely known, and, because of
this, was in great request as a cared-for inmate of almost any cave which
hit his fancy. After his crippling he had drifted from one haven to
another, never quite satisfied with what he found, and now he had come to
live, as he supposed, with his old friend, One-Ear, until life should
end. Despite his harshness of appearance--and neither of the two could
ever afterward explain it--there was something about the grim old man
which commended him to Ab from the very first. There was an occasional
twinkle in the fierce old fellow's eye and sometimes a certain cackle in
his clucking talk, which betokened not unkindliness toward a healthy
youngster, and the two soon grew together, as often the young and old may
do.
Though but what might be called in one sense a dependent, the crippled
hunter had a dignity and was arbitrary in the expression of his views.
Never once, through all the thousands of years which have passed since he
hobbled here and there, has lived an armorer more famous among those who
knew him best.
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