dragged the carcase once more from the fire, and fell to hacking
off suitable morsels, each for himself. In a few minutes every one who
could get hold of a long arrow, or a spear, or a pointed stick, was
busy learning to cook. Even the wailing old mourner, finding the
excitement irresistible, forsook the body of her slain mate and came
forward to take her share. Only the dead man, lying outstretched in
the sun by the cave-door, and the crippled giant Ook-ootsk, away in
the green hollow nursing his honorable wounds, had no part in the
rejoicing, in this revel of the First Cooked Food. The hot meat
juices, modified by the action of the fire, were almost as stimulating
as alcohol in the veins of these simple livers, and the revel grew to
something like an orgie as the shriveled nerves of the elders began to
thrill with new life. A-ya, seeing the carcase of the elk melt away
like new snow under a spring sun, gave orders to skin and cut up the
body of the first bear.

But the old men were too absorbed in their feasting to pay any
attention to her orders; and she herself was too exhilarated and
content to make any serious effort to enforce them. Every one, old and
young alike, was sucking burnt fingers and radiating greasy, happy
smiles, and she felt dimly that anything like discipline would be
unpopular at such a moment.

During all this excitement the main body of the tribe came straggling
back along the beach from their hunting of whelks and mussels. At the
foot of the bluff below the cave they found the body of the second
bear, and gathered anxiously about it, clamoring over its spear-wounds
and the arrows sticking in it, till Bawr and Grom, who were in the
rear, came up. It was plain there had been a terrific battle at the
Cave. With most of the warriors the two Chiefs dashed on and up the
path, to find out how things had gone, while a handful remained behind
to skin the bear and cut up the meat.

When the anxious warriors arrived before the cave, they were amazed at
the hilarity which they found there--and inclined, at first, to resent
it, being something to which they had no clue. What were all the old
fools doing, dancing and cackling about the fire, and wasting good
meat by poking it into the fire on the ends of sticks and spears and
arrows?

The younger women, coming up behind the warriors, were derisive. They
were always critical in their attitude towards A-ya--so far as they
dared to be--and now they ran for