wer, he felt himself suddenly little
less than a god. The fire was surely something of a god; and if he had
any measure of control over the fire, so as to make it serve him surely,
then still more of the god was there in his own intelligence. His heart
swelled with a pride such as he had never before conceived, and his
brain seethed with vague but splendid possibilities. Never before had
he, though at heart the bravest of his brave clan, been able to listen
to the terrible voices of the cave-bear, the cave-hyena, or the
saber-tooth without fear, without the knowledge that his own safety lay in
flight. Now he feared them not at all.

A louder roaring came out of the shadows, closer than before, and he
saw A-ya's eyes dilate as she clutched at his knee. A slow smile
spread across his bony face, and he turned about, rising to his feet
as he did so, and lifting the girl with him.

With a new, strange warmth at his heart he realized how fully the girl
trusted him, how cool and steady was her courage. For there, along the
edge of the lighted space, glaring forth from the fringes of the
thickets, were the monstrous beasts whom man had most cause to dread.
Nearest, his whole tawny length emerging from the brush, crouched a
giant saber-tooth with the daggers of his tusks, ten inches long,
agleam in the light of the dancing flames. He was not more than thirty
or forty paces distant, and his tail twitched heavily from side to
side as if he were trying to nerve himself up to a closer approach to
the fire. Some twenty paces further along the fringe of mingled light
and shadow, their bodies thrust half way forth from the undergrowth,
stood a pair of huge, ruddy cave-bears, their monstrous heads held low
and swaying surlily from side to side as they eyed the prey which they
dared not rush in and seize. The man-animal they had hitherto regarded
as easy prey, and they were filled with rage at the temerity of these
two humans in remaining so near the dreaded flames. Intent upon them,
they paid no heed to their great enemy, the saber-toothed, with whom
they were at endless and deadly feud. Away off to the left, quite
clear of the woods, but safely remote from the fire, a pack of huge
cave-hyenas sat up on their haunches, their long, red tongues hanging
out. With jaws powerful enough to crack the thigh-bones of the urus,
they nevertheless hesitated to obtrude themselves on the notice either
of the crouching saber-tooth or of the two giant