Og paid small heed to the tree people who gathered at a safe distance to watch him. This task of skinning the great cave tiger was too absorbing and too important. He worked diligently until the sun was overhead before he had the huge pelt removed and spread out on the surface of a sun-warmed rock to dry. But he did not stop there. He fancied the long knife-like claws of the great cat, and with his stone hammer he broke all of these off. He wanted the sabres, too; the long tusks that protruded from the upper jaw and were almost as long as his forearm. With his stone hammer he broke these off and laid them aside with his other trophies. All this accomplished, he sat down to rest and suck the blood from his messy fingers. It was then that he realized for the first time that he was hungry. But the strong, unsavory cat flesh did not appeal to him, despite the fact that he had not[107] tasted meat for several days. With his flint knife he hacked a muscle from the carcass and tried it. It was not pleasant and he flung it to the wolf cubs.
They devoured it greedily and turned to the carcass for more, and Og knew that with the help of the vultures that already circled overhead or sat hunched on nearby rocks, they would soon leave nothing but gnawed bones to remind the tree people of the terrible cave-dwelling tiger.
His hunger recalled to Og that the tree people had provided him with food. He looked out toward the mouth of the canyon, where a number of them were gathered in little groups in trees and on the tops of rocks, watching him curiously, and he noted with a sense of satisfaction that as he watched them they became uneasy, and chattered among themselves, and some that had ventured a little too far from the security of the trees scrambled back and took refuge among the palm tops, nor did they jabber at him derisively as ape people did at hairy folk when they felt safely out of reach. They held him in awe and Og knew that his triumph over Sabre-Tooth was accountable for it. Even the powerful Scar Face and his[108] band of warriors moved to a distance with the others.
Og was elated, nor was he slow to take advantage of this new situation. With a rolling walk that had about it a faint suggestion of swagger, he walked to the mouth of the canyon and looked at the flat rock on which the tree people had each day placed the fruit and nuts that were his food. It was bare. He looked at it in silence for a moment then up among the palms at the peering, chattering tree people. In the fiercest voice he could muster he began shouting for food, at the same time brandishing his stone hammer.
Much to his satisfaction his easily interpreted actions caused a commotion among the ape men and forthwith Scar Face and a number of others began chattering loudly, and presently the whole horde was scurrying about among the tree tops. Og, with the demeanor of a tyrant, which he already felt himself to be, walked back to his tiger skin and sat there watching, and before long he was gratified to see timid tree folk hurrying toward the food rock with armfuls of fruit, and it was not long before they had deposited there a pile of food that was staggering in its proportions. It contained more than Og could eat in many[109] days, all of which gave the primitive boy grim satisfaction. He was fast beginning to feel his importance as the slayer of the cave tiger and it delighted him to see that the tree people were awed to fear by his prowess.
Still, his fast developing egotism did not overbalance his discretion, for that night and many nights thereafter he and the wolf cubs sought out protecting rocks on the sloping sides of the canyon, behind which to crouch and slumber.
Nor did the fact that he was held in awe and feared by the tree people incline him toward being a bully and a despot. Og was developing too swiftly for that. There were too many things he wanted to do and he did not want to spare time to make life miserable for Scar Face and his people through their fear of him. True, he did demand that they bring him food, but that was no hardship. Indeed, it soon became apparent that this was in the nature of a pleasure for the ape people, for daily scores of the food carriers gathered among the rocks and trees at the mouth of the canyon and watched him as he went about accomplishing the things that he had set out to do. They watched him with the curiosity that only ape folk can display, and many of them tried to imitate[110] him in some of the things he did. Especially was this true of Scar Face, the leader of the tree folk. When Og chipped stone diligently for half a day, Scar Face and several of the other tree men, after watching him in silence for a time, would get two stones and knock them together too and watch the result curiously. But, of course, they never achieved anything from their effort for they had no object in knocking the stones together in the first place, save that of imitating the hairy boy.
Og spent a great deal of time in knocking stones together, for he h............