e by side,
and came in together sweating and panting.

The people clapped their hands and said laughing, "They are good cave
men; they can both fight and run away."

By this time the meat was roasted. The women pulled it from the holes
with long sticks, and the people took great pieces in their hands and
ate them, and then took more.

"Mammoth meat is good and juicy," one man said.

"Yes," said another, "but not so tender as horse or reindeer meat."

After eating all they wanted, Thorn and Pineknot and old Hickory's
children and some of the other children went off to play. They played
being grown up; and Thorn fought with the other little hunters and
caught and carried off a wife, and played living with her and their
children in a cave.

The men ate for a long time, but at last they had enough. Then they
began to break up the tusks of the mammoth, and they gave a piece to
each man who had helped to kill the animal.

"To wear on your necklace," they said.

And they gave a piece to Thorn because he had found the mired mammoth.
Strongarm looked at him proudly then, and the boy stood straight and
tall and held his head high.

A man standing near him snatched for the piece of tusk, but Strongarm
shouted, "Get off!" and scowled and shook his fist.

The man grew angry and raised his stone ax. Strongarm snatched his,
and in a minute there was a clash of stone axes. The other men stood
around and watched. They loved a good fight. Before long Strongarm's
ax crashed down on the man's head, and he fell over and lay still. The
others looked at him, and then went on breaking up the tusks.

After that every man grew busy, and began to cut as much meat from the
big bones of the mammoth as he could carry. One bone was all cut bare.
Three men standing near it whispered together. Then they lifted the
bone and carried it toward a man who could not make axes and was too
lazy to hunt. They set it down before him.

"This is your prize," they said, without a smile.

Everybody was looking.

The man turned red and snatched a spear. But the other men ran away
and laughed. And everybody laughed.

Then the people started homeward, carrying the mammoth meat. Thorn
said good-bye to his grandfather for a while and went home with his
mother. Old Hickory and his family went along with Strongarm and his
family, and the children ran through the bushes and scared up the wild
rabbits and porcupines.

When they reached the