Part 22

While the children slept that night, Antler talked with the women. And when morning came, the women took skins and made the children warm clothes and moccasins.

When the children put on their wolf-skin suits, they looked like a pack of wolves. Sometimes they played they were wolves. Then they chased make-believe wild horses.

Sometimes when the children were playing in the snow, they found the antlers of a full-grown stag. The children began to look for the antlers of the full-grown stags in early winter. But they knew that the other reindeer kept their antlers until early spring.

An old stag's antlers were large and strong, and the children liked to find them. They would pick them up and hold them in their hands and would then make believe they were Cave-men trapping reindeer in the snow.

One day Greybeard showed Fleetfoot and Flaker how to trap the reindeer in the snow. He showed them how to dig a pitfall in the drifts. The boys found a large drift near the trail and they cut out a large block of snow. They hollowed a deep pit under the crust which they took pains not to break. Then they fitted the block of snow in its place, thus covering the pit.

To make sure that the reindeer would come to the pitfall they scattered moss over the thin crust. Then Greybeard taught them to say,

"Come down to the river, reindeer; Come down to the river to drink. Come eat the moss I have spread for you, Come and fall into my trap."

All the Cave-men believed that these words would charm the reindeer to the spot. They always muttered such lines as charms when they went out to hunt. And so Greybeard taught the boys the lines, for he wanted them to know all the Cave-men's charms.

#THINGS TO DO#

Name the animals which you know by their tracks. Draw a picture of the tracks you know best.

Tell a story about hunting an animal by tracking it.

Next time there is a heavy fall of snow, play hunting animals by driving them into the drifts.

See if you can show in your sand-box how the pitfall was made.

See if you can think of a way of having real drifts in your sand-box.

Draw a picture of the children playing with the antlers of the reindeer.

Draw a picture of the reindeer in the pitfall.

XVIII

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Do you know whether we can tell what the weather is going to be?

Have you ever heard any one talking about the signs of the weather? What signs do you know?

Notice animals and see how they act before a storm.

Notice what animals and birds are here in summer that are not here in winter. Are any here in winter that are not here in the summer?

Why did the bison go away from the Cave-men's hunting grounds each winter? When they went away would they go in large or small herds?

If the weather kept pleasant how do you think they would travel? What would they do if it looked like a storm?

Notice the animals that live near you and see whether they turn their heads or backs toward the storm.

Overtaken by a Storm

Winter passed and summer came and now it was almost gone. The cattle had gone to the forests in the lowlands where they spent the winter. Straggling lines of bison were moving down the valley. Now and then they stopped a few days to eat the tall grass. Then they slowly moved onward toward the lower lands.

The days were like the Indian summer days which we sometimes have in late autumn. Everybody enjoyed each day as it came, and thought little about the coming cold. But one morning the sky was gray and gloomy, and the sun could not pierce through the heavy clouds. The air was cold and now and then a snowflake was falling.