Around the Fire Village the zone of
safety spread. The roar of the great cave tiger was less often heard
within miles of the flaming torches of the valley so inhabited. There
grew into existence something almost like a system of traffic, for, from
distant parts, hitherto unknown, came other cave men, bringing skins, or
flints, or tusks for carving, which they were eager to exchange for the
new weapon and for instruction in its uses. Ab was the first chieftain,
the first to draw about him a clan of followers. The cave men were taking
their first lesson in a slight, half unconfessed obedience, that first
essential of community life where there is yet no law, not even the
unwritten law of custom.
Running in and out among the children, sometimes pummeled by them, were a
score or two of gray, four-footed, bone-awaiting creatures, who, though
as yet uncounted in such relation, were destined to furnish a factor in
man's advancement. They were wolves and yet no longer wolves. They had
learned to cling to man, but were not yet intelligent enough or taught
enough to aid him in his hunting. They were the dogs of the future, the
four-footed things destined to become the closest friends of men of
future ages, the descendants of the four cubs Ab and Oak had taken from
the dens so many years before.
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