one
could feel safe a single minute unless he was deep in a cave. Even then
the cave had to have an entrance so narrow that no man-hunting animal
could get into it, or else a fire must be kept burning before it to
frighten them away.

The moment they heard the sound, Grannie dropped her egg and sprang to
her feet. Firetop and Firefly popped into the cave and were out of
sight in an instant. Grannie threw fresh sticks on the fire, and as it
blazed up, she looked fearfully about in every direction. Now she heard
another sound besides the shouts and screams of children's voices. From
far away down the river came a long low roar and the tramp, tramp of
many feet. A group of children came tearing up the path toward the
cave, shouting at the top of their lungs, "The bison are coming, the
bison are coming!"

Grannie took up the cry. "The bison are coming, the bison are coming!"
she shouted into the cave, and out tumbled Firetop and Firefly in the
twinkling of an eye.

"Where, where?" they screamed.

"There, there, in the river bottom," panted Squaretoes, the biggest of
the boys. "We were hunting for frogs and all of a sudden there was a
roar,--at first so faint we could hardly hear it,--then far down the
river we saw them coming! Run, run to the big rock, and you can see
them too."

Grannie threw a great heap of dry wood upon the fire and ran with the
children to the big rock, which lay part way down the path toward the
river. From the top of this rock the whole valley was spread out before
them like a map.

Squaretoes pointed toward the south, and there in the green marshy land
bordering the river were hundreds and hundreds of great dark hairy
beasts. They were running, and as they ran, they made a low roaring
sound that was frightful to hear.

"We shall have fresh meat to-night," said Grannie to the children. "The
herd has been frightened. I could not see the leaders. Some of our
hunters have surely found them."

They stood on the rock until the great herd had thundered by and was out
of sight around a bend in the bluff. Then Grannie said, "Come, let us
go back to the fire and gather plenty of fuel, so we can cook the meat
when it comes, and have a great feast."

The Cave Twins--by Lucy Fitch Perkins

CHAPTER TWO.

THE BISON FEAST.

For hours Grannie and the children worked together to get a huge pile of
fuel ready for a feast which they hoped to have at night. It was
something like getting