Part 46

All the bravest men volunteered, for they were eager to make an attack. Fleetfoot placed them in two lines and told them what each one was to do.

Fleetfoot led one of the lines through the grass to the right, and Blackcloud led the other to the left. They crept softly through the tall grass until they had surrounded the herd. Approaching the herd cautiously, they drew nearer and nearer together.

Fleetfoot gave the signal to attack when they were about a spear's throw away. At once the harpoons whizzed through the air and struck many a mortal blow. The bison were taken by surprise and they attempted to escape. But no sooner had they run from one side than they were attacked from the other.

Many a bison was killed that day and many others were wounded. Many of the Cave-men carried away marks of an ugly bison's horns.

But all of the people had food and all the people were happy. And to show that they honored both Fleetfoot and Flaker they bored holes through their batons.

#THINGS TO DO#

Make such a stretcher as you think the women made to carry Flaker.

Make tents whose roof and walls are one and the same thing. Make a tent whose roof and walls are separated. Tell how you think people learned to make such perfect tents.

Dramatize one of the following scenes and then draw a picture to illustrate it:-- The fear of the people at the disappearance of the herds. Bearing gifts to Fleetfoot and Flaker. Flaker threatening the angry god. Sending the scouts. Surrounding the herds. Showing honors to Fleetfoot and Flaker.

XLII

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

If there were not men enough to surround a herd can you think of anything the Cave-men might do to drive them where they wanted them to go?

How do we get animals into traps?

Why do you think people first began to make fences and walls?

How do you think they used them?

Why do we have fences? What do we use them for?

How Things were Made to Do the Work of Men

When the clans returned to their own hunting grounds, they could not surround the large herds. There were not enough men in one cave to hunt in this way. Sometimes they partly surrounded a herd and drove the animals over a cliff, but unless the herd was near the cliff, there were not enough men to drive them.

And so the men tried to coax the animals to the edge of the cliff. Sometimes they did it by imitating the cries the animals made. Sometimes they did it by dressing so as to look like the animals themselves. But even then they often failed to get the animals into their trap.

It was when Fleetfoot saw a bison frightened by a feather that he thought of making things do the work of live men.

The greater part of the day the bison fed some distance from the cliff. Fleetfoot wanted to find a way of driving them up to the very edge. The bison drive which he invented was the way he succeeded in doing it.

It was shaped like a letter #V# with the point cut off. The sides were piles of brush, or stones, or vines stretched from tree to tree. At the edge of the cliff where they started, the sides were only a short distance apart. But the farther out they extended, the farther they were apart.

Men, women, and children joined in making the bison drive. They piled stones and heaped up brush, and they hunted for long vines. Then they hunted for feathers and bits of fur, which they tied along the lines.

Flaker performed the magical ceremony before the hunt began. Fleetfoot dressed in a bison's skin so as to coax the herd along. Women and children hid behind piles of stone and brush. And the men formed themselves in line far out from the cliffs in the rear of the herd.

Everybody kept still until Fleetfoot's signal sounded. Then the men sprang up and with loud shouts they ran after the herd. The bison saw Fleetfoot in disguise; and, thinking he was one of the herd, they followed where he led.

When the bison came near a pile of stones a woman or child frightened them. When they came near the fence of vines they were frightened away by the feathers and fur. And so the herd kept on toward the steep cliff.

And with loud shouts and drumbeats, with the clatter of weapons and hard hoofs, the bellowing herd galloped madly on toward the steep cliff. Then Fleetfoot, throwing off his disguise, slipped under one of the lines; but the frantic herd rushed headlong to the brink of the precipice. Then, seeing the danger, the foremost ones attempted to escape. But the maddened herd pressed blindly on and pushed them over the cliff.

After such a hunt as this, there was food enough for many days. Very likely the women dried meat during this time.