Although Strong Arm, who was the wisest and strongest and swiftest man among the Cave People had been dead, and in part eaten and in part buried beneath a great pile of earth and stones, the Cave People felt sure that he had not remained dead. More than one of the members of the tribe had seen him fighting and hunting, eating and dancing, during the dreams that come in the night, and so they believed that a part of Strong Arm, the spirit or ghost part of Strong Arm, still lived. Again and again he had appeared to them in the spirit, or in dreams, to advise them about the things the tribe intended to do.
The Cave People were unable to understand these things and there was nobody to tell them that dreams were not of the world of reality. And so they believed that Strong Arm still lived, and that other dead men and women and children of the tribe still lived in the Spirit World. It was true that the spirits of these dead did not appear in the broad light of day, but the Cave People believed that they haunted their old grounds, invisible to the eyes of their tribesman.
152They believed that the spirits of the dead may return to befriend the members of the tribe, or to hinder their enemies, provided, always, that the members of the tribe enlisted their aid and their affections.
Now Big Foot, since there was no longer the wise voice of Strong Arm, nor the mighty strength of the old chief to enforce the good of his people, set himself to become the leader of the Cave People. He slashed his hairy thighs with his flint knife to prove how brave he was, allowing the gashes to become sores in order to prolong the evidence of his courage. He strutted about and waved his poison-tipped arrows when the young men refused to listen to his words. Also he rubbed the noses of all the women of the tribe and sought to caress them, attempting to drive the men of the tribe from the new nests, or caves or huts, which they had built in the far North country so many moon journeys from the old hollow where little Laughing Boy was born.
Big Foot boasted with a loud voice and bullied the children and spoke soft words to the women, while he glared at the young men and urged them into the forest to hunt for food. Always he kept his poisoned darts at his side and he managed to secure for himself the tenderest portion of the young goats which the people had discovered leaping and running wild amid the sharp slopes and crags of the mountains.
153So the tribe grew weary of his sorry ruling and there was much fighting and discord, which laid them open to the attacks of their many enemies.
Without doubt Big Foot was possessed of much cunning, for while other men of the tribe were as strong of limb and as fleet of foot, Big Foot was more powerful than they. Longer was his arm because he had learned first how to make and to wield his great bow and arrows almost as well as young One Ear, who had escaped from the Arrow Throwers and returned to his own people, the Cave Dwellers, bringing knowledge of the weapons of these strange enemies.
The Cave Dwellers had paused in their journeyings and battlings northward, on the banks of the lake that shone like white fire When the sun beat down upon its rolling surface. The way was new to them and unknown dangers threatened everywhere and they had utmost need to walk warily, lest a new tribe descend upon them with some new weapon of destruction and turn them back into the dangers they had outstripped.
Instead of holding the people together with wise words and instead of preparing to search out the lands to prepare for the strange evils that lie in wait for primitive man whenever he travels beyond the ways of his experience, Big Foot caused nothing but conflict. It was only his superior skill in the use of the flint-tipped arrows, which the 154Cave People were acquiring very rapidly, that prevented him from being slain by the members of the tribe.
Then it was that One Ear dreamed a dream. He thought that his spirit had journeyed far into the spirit world where it encountered the spirit of Strong Arm. And Strong Arm had spoken with One Ear, sending words of wisdom to the people of the tribe. He had called Big Foot the enemy of the Cave People. And when he wakened in the morning, One Ear remembered his dream. So he gathered all the people together and told them these things. And no man or woman among them knew that he spoke only of a dream. They believed that the spirit of Strong Arm still lived and that the things in One Ear’s dream had actually occurred.
So the Cave People chattered together and gesticulated and stole the fresh meat Big Foot had hidden in his cave and menaced him from cover by shaking their clubs and growling like angry dogs. Big Foot fled to his branch hut, where he glared at the members of the tribe and waved his long arrows.
The Cave People had long respected the words of Strong Arm and when they heard what he had spoken to One Ear in a dream, they hated Big Foot more fiercely than ever.
At last Big Foot returned to the people of the tribe, many of whom were sitting about a 155wood fire, and he spoke to them, trying to gain their good will and attempting to show them that none was so swift, so strong or so brave as he. But the people screamed “Strong Arm! Strong Arm!” to remind Big Foot that the old chief had spoken against him.
And Big Foot grew frantic with the rage that came upon him. He seized the club of Strong Arm which had been given to Laughing Boy in order that he might derive from it some of the virtue of bravery which his father, Strong Arm, had possessed. Big Foot spat upon it and crushed it beneath a great stone; then he hurled the shattered fragments far out into the green waters of the lake.
All the Cave People shivered with fear, for they thought this was a very foolish thing. They believed that the spirits of the dead grow angry when their weapons are broken or destroyed and they felt sure that the spirit of Strong Arm would punish Big Foot for the desecration he had worked on the club of the old chief.
But Big Foot was too angry to be afraid. White foam appeared upon his lips. When he thought of the spirit of Strong Arm he longed for a tangible foe, with flesh upon his bones that he might crush, with red juice in his skin that he might spill, with ears and a nose that he might bite and twist and tear. He desired an enemy into 156whose soft belly he might hurl one of his sharp arrows.
But there were only the Cave People beside him and the menace in their eyes and their lips, pulled back, snarling from their teeth, made him afraid. So he lifted up his voice in a frenzy of hate and scorn while he called the name of “Strong Arm! Strong Arm! Maker of lies;” he called him, and “Fool! Coward! Weak One! Baby!” an............