d run along, then," said Grannie.
"Keep a sharp lookout, for you know the wild beasts will soon be out for
their night hunting."

Firetop ran for the skin of the wild boar which was in the cave. It was
their water-cask. The other boys got gourds with holes cut in them to
make dippers, and then they were ready to start.

Grannie took three sticks of pine and laid the ends in the fire. When
they were burning well, she gave one of them to each of the boys for a
torch.

"It isn't dark yet, but you will be safer with these, anyway," she said.

As soon as the three boys had gone skipping and whooping down the path
to the river, Grannie and the girls set about getting a kettle ready.
They hollowed out a hole in the ground, not far from the fire. When it
was deep enough they lined it with a heavy piece of hide. They put
stones around the edge of it to keep it in place. Then they gathered
piles of small stones and threw them in the fire to get hot. By the
time all this was done the boys were back with the pig-skin full of
water. Grannie poured it into the hollow dish in the ground.

It was almost dark, and it seemed to the children that they could not
wait another minute, when they heard a welcome sound. It was the noise
of voices, talking and laughing together.

They sprang to their feet and gave a whoop of joy. It was answered by a
shout from the path.

"They are coming slowly and they are laughing. They have meat," cried
Grannie. She threw more wood on the fire. Up flew the flames, lighting
the forest with a red glare. Sparks floated away over the very
tree-tops. By its light they saw Hawk-Eye and Limberleg and all the
other men and women of the clan toiling up the path. The bigger boys
were with them, too, and they were all loaded down with great chunks of
bison meat!

The weary hunters dropped the bison-skins in one place to be stretched
and cured the next day. The meat they threw down on the ground at the
mouth of the cave, and Grannie and the other women began at once to cook
it.

Some of it they put in the fire to roast and some of it they put in the
leather kettle in the ground. Then they poked the hot stones out of the
fire into the water. They kept taking the stones out of the water with
sticks as they grew cool and putting them back into the fire to get hot
again. In this way they soon got the water to boil.

The smell of the roasting and boiling meat was too much for Firetop. It
m