Why had they not killed him? This question puzzled Og more than any other. Certainly they had had ample opportunity. That night, there in the sequoia forest, they could have strangled him and left his body for the wolves. Or at any time during their long tree top journey they needed but to drop him from the branches of one of the high palms and the crash to the ground would have broken every bone in his body. And again, when they attacked him, Scar Face could have broken his back, but refrained, or the group of warriors together could have literally torn him limb from limb, yet they had not done so. Surely it could not have been cowardice that had stayed them, nor yet mercy, for mercy was a quality that Og knew but little about and the tree men nothing at all. Why then had he been spared?
Og puzzled with this question many times in the[87] days that followed, and tired his slowly developing brain to absolute fatigue more than once in pondering for a reason.
It was strange position he found himself in. He was a prisoner. He knew this only too well, for during the hours of daylight Scar Face and some of his stalwart fighters crouched at points of vantage and Og knew by their demeanor that he could not pass them and go where he pleased. But his was a strange sort of prison. They had hurled him into a veritable blind canyon carved by nature in the rocky side of a mountain, whose high walls tapered from their broad opening into the pleasant valley, to a narrow declivity behind him that ended in the black and foreboding entrance of a great and deep cavern.
Og feared this cave, as did the wolf cubs. They kept as far away from the black entrance as they could, and always they watched it with signs of terror in their eyes. Og could read their fear in their growls and bristling hair, and instinct told him, too, that death lurked there in some terrible form. Just what it was he could not understand, for his sensitive nose, or delicate ears, or yet that strange protective instinct that was his, did not give him any definite indication of what the[88] danger might be. Still danger, he knew, was there and he too kept as far away from the cave’s entrance as possible.
He and the wolf cubs were allowed to roam at will up and down the canyon, from the cave to its very mouth, where it looked out upon the broad and sunlit valley, but beyond this point they could not go for always Scar Face and his tree people were on guard to prevent him. It was at the mouth of the canyon, that, once a day, he found food. The tree people always at midday left a pile of strange fruits and stranger nuts for him to eat. There on a flat rock they laid them and Og knew by this that they were afraid to come further inside the canyon in which they had made him prisoner.
The strange diet of fruit and nuts was at first distasteful to Og. The hairy people were meat eaters and fruit formed a very small part of their diet, save berries and certain roots and barks, which his people had learned to use. But the tree folk were not flesh eaters, and they gave him only what they ate themselves, but they gave in abundance, and Og, after a day of fasting, found that he could eat this new food with a certain degree of relish.
[89]
This being a prisoner was strange and unpleasant to the hairy boy and for a time he did little but sit among the jagged rocks, with the wolf cubs beside him, and wonder what it was all about. But on the second day, as his numerous cuts and bruises began to heal, his spirits lifted and presently he began seeking about for ways out of his difficulty. The discovery that the tree folk were prevented by fear from entering the canyon, although it aggravated his fear of the lurking menace of the cave, also made him realize that in his prison he could do about as he chose without any interference from them. This fact discovered, Og forthwith set about making himself weapons, for he felt that he might need them sooner than he anticipated.
A stone hammer was his first thought, and as he cast about among the rocks for desirable material, he could but think of the valuable weapons he had once possessed in the fire brands. How he regretted the over-confidence and the lack of vigilance that had made him let that precious fire burn out. Oh, if he only knew of some way of rekindling the flame; of calling back the Fire Demon.
Although there were rocks in profusion scattered about the canyon, Og was surprised to find[90] that there was really a dearth of good material for a stone hammer. The rocks were all too large or of the wrong shape, and he spent a great deal of time searching and wandered all too close to the foreboding cave, before he recalled quite suddenly, and with a great deal of interest, the methods he had employed in getting the stone knife with which he skinned the wolves that day in the sequoia forest. He remembered suddenly that, not finding satisfactory material, he had broken a sharp scale from the large rock, by pounding it with another stone. Why not do the same thing to shape a hammer head?
Og sat down and thought the idea over. Then he found the best shaped stone he could and puzzled over it for some time before he proceeded with his first effort at craftsmanship. The stone was too heavy and too long. Og realized that if he could break off one end it would be nearer what he wanted. He proceeded to beat it against a bowlder and presently he was rewarded by having part of it break off, leaving in his hand a rather good hammer head. But, this achieved, Og was not satisfied. He surveyed the product and realized that it was not as satisfactory as the last one he had possessed. It was too irregular and misshapen.[91] The question then took form in his mind, why not reshape it with the aid of other stones!
Elated with the idea, Og proceeded to find another stone that he could handle, and after a search he picked up one about the size of his fist that was black and extremely hard. Og did not know that he had fortunately found a piece of flint. With this and the rude hammer head in his hands he sought out a flat rock, and sitting down with the h............