's for fire," he grumbled;
"and it is growing dark."

Tired and hungry, he left the cave.

He had not gone far when a dead branch fell across his path. He jumped
back.

"The people who live in the trees did that--some of those shadow
people," he said to himself. "They tried to kill me. The man who
lives in the wind is angry, too. Hear him roar!

"I do not like shadow people," he thought as he walked on. "They live
in trees and wind and rivers and fire and stones and everything, but
you cannot see them. They will hurt you if you make them angry. I am
afraid of them. I wish I had a torch to scare them off. All the other
shadow people are afraid of the fire man."

Then to keep up his heart he sang in a loud gruff voice:

"O why did the water put out the fire?
O why did the water put out the fire?"

Strongarm gave a loud call as he came up to Hickory's cave. The old
man came to the door and asked what the trouble was.

"Trouble enough," growled Strongarm. "My fire is out. I came for
coals."

Old Hickory gave a great roaring laugh. His wife laughed, too, as she
pushed the children aside and raked out coals. These she put into a
hollow branch that Strongarm handed her.

"They will keep alive in there," he said, "even if it rains."

Then with a good pine torch and his branch full of coals, he hurried
home.

When Burr came back to the cave, she, too, found the fire out. There
was a deer on the floor, so she knew that Strongarm had come from the
hunt.

"The man has gone to old Hickory's for fire," she told her father.

"Um," said Flint, "he might have rested his legs. I can get fire from
stones."

"From stones!" cried Burr, her face white.

The old man quietly pulled two stones from his bag. One was flint, the
other was quartz. He took dry leaves from his bag and rubbed them very
fine between his hands and laid them on a rock. Over the leaves he
held the two stones and began to strike one with the other.

Burr and the boys watched with scared faces.

"The fire man--will he not be angry?" she asked.

Flint said nothing. He was striking the stones together. A spark
came! then another and another! He kept on striking very fast until
the sparks came like a flame and caught the dry leaves. He put on more
leaves and little sticks, and soon there was a good fire blazing on the
floor.

[Illustration: The sparks came like a flame and caught the dry leaves]

"From stones!" Burr kep