The
lurking hyenas had found the food, and a long, inquiring howl from
another direction told that the wolves had scented it and were gathering.
For the instant Ab was himself almost helpless with fear. The woman was
simply nerveless. Then the man, so accustomed to physical danger,
recovered himself. He sprang forward, seized a stout fragment of limb
which might serve as a sort of weapon, and, turning to the woman, said
only the one word "fire."
Lightfoot understood and life came to her again. None in all the region
could make a fire more swiftly than she. Her quick eye detected just the
base she wanted in a punkish fragment of wood and the harder and pointed
bit of limb to be used in making the friction. In a time scarcely worth
the noting the point was whirling about and burning into the wooden base,
twirling with a skill and velocity not comprehensible by us to-day, for
the cave people had perfected wonderfully this greatest manual art of the
time, and Lightfoot, muscular and enduring, was, as already said, in this
thing the cleverest among the clever. Ab, with ready club in hand,
advanced cautiously toward the point at the wood's edge where lay the
body of the bear. He paused as he came near enough to see what was
happening. Four great hyenas were tearing eagerly at the flesh of the
dead brute, and behind them, deeper in the wood, were shining eyes, and
Ab knew that the wolf pack was gathering.
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