THE FLIGHT OF THE TRIBE
Panting he bade She Wolf and Dawn leave the cave and run till they could
run no further, and he dashed from cave to cave and called upon his
people to run for their lives.
And the people looking to the southward beheld the black smoke and heard
the roaring of the fire, and snatching up whatever was dear to them,
turned and fled howling into the North.
There was no cave to which Sunrise did not run and when he had visited
the last cave of all, he struck out in a great circle, until he crossed
the trail of She Wolf and Dawn and then he followed, running at full
speed, crouching, and frenzied both with wonder and with fear.
He overtook slower runners, men overladen, women with children, little
children—and his heart became sick and heavy as he ran, for he knew that
in that hunt many must be overtaken. And he knew that the fault was his.
For the slow there was no mercy. The oldest, the youngest and the dearest
possessions were abandoned to the rapid fire. With despair, dormant
instinct came to life. For men sought safety in the tops of trees, and
fell presently to the ground charred and shrivelled.
No Foot, trailing his crushed foot after him was one of the first to
start into the North, but he went at a snail’s pace, and was soon
distanced by the others.
[Illustration]
The old man’s arms were full of unfinished bows, and his good tools and
his precious flints. He walked along, limping at the very tail of the
procession, and gradually dropping further and further behind.
And after a little as he was stumping along and dragging his crushed foot
after him, the fire caught up with him and threw him on his face, and
passed on.
So many thousands of years after No Foot died, that we may not even guess
at their number, men digging for a railroad came upon a skeleton lying
face down upon a pile of half finished flints.
The left foot of the skeleton was curiously twisted and deformed; but
presently, on being exposed to the air, the bones turned to powder and
nothing remained but the flints. At first the men thought that they had
opened a prehistoric grave; but considering that the skeleton was lying
face downward, in a sprawling attitude, and that the flints upon which
it lay, were but half finished and were charred by fire, something like
the truth dawned upon the workmen, and they wondered over their cans of
noonday food what manner of man the lame flint maker had been and what
life had been like in the old days.
But we know that the lame flint maker was old No Foot, and that first,
last and always he was a good workman.
[Illustration]