Argosy, Vol. 117, No. 2 — page 51: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE SON was about to rise from where he squatted when he heard a stamping and thrashing up the trail, and_a doe with a fawn ap- peared. The hunter’s eyes gleamed and he crouched, tense and watchful. As the fawn drew opposite him he leaped to his feet and with a swift overhand motion hurled his lance. The fawn dropped, the doe dashed for- -ward, and instantly there was a_ wild stampede among the animals about the water-hole, bison, cattle, and sheep tearing madly off through the forest in blind terror. En-ro threw the. body of the fawn over his shoulder and he and Va-m’rai returned to their cave, where he skinned his kill and the two fed full on the tender flesh, then rolled stones against the mouth of the cave and lay down to sleep. Next morning they fed, and En-ro squatted down before the cave to think, Va- m’rai sitting beside him. At length she could bear the silence no longer, and asked: “Carver of Tusks, my love, do we start to-day for the Land of the Dying Sun?” En-ro shook his head. “The winter is coming on,” he answered, ‘and we have no skins. We would die of cold. And I must make throwing-stick and darts, for Meng has mine. And no lance or ax or dagger have I, save only these foolish things I brought. And we must dry meat in the sun, to carry with us; we cannot be sure of finding game along the way.” “But you will not stop to carve your weapons with ornaments, will your Can you not make the ones you have do till we are farther away? Let us get as far from Meng as we can!” “T am not a fool! Time enough for carving when need does not press us so close. But weapons and tools and skins and food we must have for a long journey. And flints are plenty not far from here; I marked them as we came. ‘Twice or three times seven days will we work, laying up stores, then start again on our journey. Meng will not find us here—we blinded our trail well.” . Then for three weeks they labored hard, preparing for the long and arduous journey that lay before them, En-ro chipping flints OF THE RED GOD. 201 and making darts, a dagger, knives, and a lance. From the thigh-bone of a sheep he fashioned a cup and bound it firmly to a shaft of wood as long as his arm, for a throwing-stick. It was the custom among the Ta-an to make the stick the length of the user’s forearm from elbow to finger-tip, but so skilful was En-ro in the shaping of well-balanced darts that he could use a stick much longer than most, thus gaining force and distance, still keeping accuracy. While the Carver of Tusks was making his weapons and tools Va-m’rai was dress- ing hides. En-ro had lain in wait by the water-trail and had killed a sheep—the one from which he took the cup of his throwing- stick and the thongs he needed—as well as two of the wild cattle that came to drink, and a leopard that disputed a kill with him. These hides the Swift Runner spread, hair down, on the trunk of a fallen tree, scraping from the skin all particles of flesh and fat (she used a flint En-ro shaped for her) and rubbing fat from the beasts well into the skin, then hanging them up for a few days, after which she pressed out all the grease she could with a bone-scraper, and the hide was done. While this was going on she also dried the flesh of the sheep and one of the cattle, cut- ting it into strips and hanging it in the sun, and made thongs from the sinews, for such are always useful, even, in a pinch, to bind Jance and dart heads to the shafts, though for this purpose raw-hide is better. One day En-ro was splitting a flint, using another flint as a wedge, driving it with a rude hammer-stone, when Va-m’rai called him: “Oh, Carver of Tusks, here is a task well done! Come, look!” She was a few yards away, working over the leopard-skin, and En-ro got up from where he squatted before the cave and went to the log astride of which she sat. She had finished pressing the grease from the skin, and showed him how thoroughly she had done her work. “ Feel!” she said. “Is it not soft and clean?” and she held it up to him. He took it, bent it this way and that, squeezed it in his hands, -and grunted. ‘““ Never have I seen a better!” he re- COPMNICLOOOKS (E@