ry," said Thorn. "When you go back to the stone yard, I
will go with you."

Strongarm turned round where he sat and pulled up a little hickory
tree. "We will put handles on these axes," he said.

He hacked off a piece of the little tree and split it half way down,
and hacked off one split piece. The other split piece he bent around
his ax. Then he took wet string made of skin. This he put around and
around the ax handle, and pulled it tight.

[Illustration: Stone axe]

The boys stood by watching. "The wet string will shrink and draw up
short," their father told them. "Then the ax will be very tight on the
handle."

The boys now tied on their ax handles with their father's help. And
Flint tied on Burr's. Then all set to work with sandstone pebbles and
rubbed them smooth. Strongarm's was soon done. He threw his old ax
away, stuck his new one in the string around his waist, and went off to
hunt.

Burr took her digging stick from beside her door and hacked a point on
it with her new ax. Then she burned the point in the fire until it was
hard. She took a basket in her hand, and her baby on her back, and
went out of the cave. Old Flint and the boys rolled a stone up to the
door to keep out wolves and foxes. Then they all went into the woods,
and Burr began looking for things to eat.

She found a root and pushed it out of the ground with her digging stick
and threw it into her basket. It was the root of a wild turnip. She
found other roots. They were wild carrots and celery. In the open
places, tall grasses grew. They were the wild grains. These she bent
over and beat with a stick until the ripe seeds fell into her basket.
Under the oak trees she gathered acorns.

[Illustration: Woven basket]

Little wild pigs were there eating the acorns, and the boys ran one
down and brought it, squealing, to their mother. Burr laughed and
said, "You are little men. You will soon hunt for yourselves."

It began to rain, and they all sat under a tree until the rain had
passed.

[Illustration: Little wild pigs were eating the acorns]

CHAPTER VI

THE COMING OF FIRE

When Strongarm came back from the hunt, he found the cave cold and dark
and wet. A stream of water was running down through the smoke-hole.
It had put out the fire. The ashes, too, were wet; and there were no
coals from which to start the fire again.

He looked at the black fire-place.

"Now I must walk all the way to old Hickory