An occasional death, though it were the killing of one cave man by
another, was not a matter of huge importance. He was not inflamed in any
way by what he heard, but as he looked and listened to the comfortable
young person who was speaking, the idea, hastened it may be by some loving
and domestic instinct, grew slowly in his brain that she might make for
him as excellent a mate as any other of the "good matches" to be found in
the immediately surrounding country. He was a most directly reasoning
person, this Hilltop, best of hunters and generally respected on the
forest ridges. After the thought once dawned upon him, it grew and grew,
and an idea fairly developed in Hilltop's mind meant action. His
fifty-five years of age had hardly cooled and had certainly not nearly
approached to freezing the blood in his outstanding veins. He had a suit
to make, and make at once. That he might have no interruption he bade
Stone-Arm, his remaining son, who sat on a rock near by, and who had
listened, open-mouthed, to the recital of Moonface, to seek his brother
and Lightfoot in the forest path. There might be beasts abroad and two men
were better than one, said this crafty father-hunter-lover.
The boy, clever tracker as a red Indian or Australian trailer, soon found
the path his brother and Lightfoot had taken and joined them.
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