"But after fire came, all this was changed. For the fire would go out unless there was some one to keep it. So a man told his wife that she might stay and keep the fire, and said that he would hunt for both.
"The woman then took a place that she liked, near a stream, and built a shelter of branches and made her fire there and kept it. And the man brought meat to her, and she cooked it. And before very long all the people were living in that way. And so ever since that time, the man has been the hunter, and the woman has kept the fire and brought water from the stream and gathered seeds of the ripe grasses."
"And always since then, too, the family place has been about the fire. We sit beside it and warm ourselves and work and talk and rest; and that is home."
"True, true," grunted old Flint; and Strongarm nodded his head.
One morning not long after the lion hunt, Thorn and his grandfather started off to the stone yard. They soon came to the deep forest where they could not see far ahead of them, because the beeches and oaks and chestnuts grew close together, and under the branches there was a thick tangle of low bushes.
Old Flint watched carefully as he led the way through the woods. He listened to every sound, and looked often behind him. Farther along, the ground was more open; and from a hill they looked far away over wide level land. Herds of horses and bison were grazing there, and packs of wolves skulked through the edge of the forest. They waited to spring upon the animals that should stray from the herds.
Passing on, old Flint came upon the body of a rhinoceros partly eaten, and he stopped and looked anxiously around.
"This is the work of a tiger," he said; "and he cannot be far off, for the meat is fresh."
Flint peered through the bushes; but the tiger was not in sight, so he quickly cut meat from the rhinoceros and walked on slowly.
"The tiger may be somewhere near, sleeping. Keep a sharp look-out, boy; he is yellow with dark stripes, just the color of the dry grass, and you can walk almost onto him before you see him. No animal can hide better than he, and none can walk the forest paths with less noise from his padded feet."
They had not gone much farther when old Flint stopped and, catching his breath; stared into the shadows of a tree. Clutching Thorn's shoulder, he pointed to the spot without saying a word. There on a limb, asleep, beautiful in his tawny skin and easy grace, lay the great animal. Thorn looked while his heart beat fast. Never before had he seen anything that so held his eye. He would have liked to stay and watch him--to see him walk, to see his great claws and teeth, and his wild eyes. But Flint hurried him off, and without a sound they left the place. Not till he had put miles between himself and the tiger did Flint shake off a feeling of terror, and speak in answer to Thorn's question: