And ever our bartering increased with the tribes on every side. Those distant purchased the new weapons and those still farther away saw and must have them, until our community became the most prosperous, as it was becoming the most numerous, in all that far-extending country of plain and hill and forest. There came even some from that huge illimitable forest to the south, peopled by the tall strong men who had come from the far East even as had come our own people, though at some different time, albeit with these our trading was but a little, for they were fierce and dangerous and we cared not much for their close acquaintance, despite our growing strength. As for Hammer and me, we were growing older and less inclined to risk or venture. Yet there was no abatement in our constant thought of all that might be done with the red copper. There followed a time when Hammer spoke less often and seemed lost in some new thought. One day he told me of it. “If,” he said, “we could only melt and mould the copper!” And he said also, “You and I will go to the village and work there a while and try to do certain things.” So I went with him. The flat rock which had been our anvil was in its place, and sound as ever, seemingly, stood the hollow tree trunk near it, and I saw that it was at this trunk with the hollow opening at its bottom that Hammer looked first and examined most carefully. In the times of our working here I had noticed one thing about this opening at the base of the trunk--that, especially when the wind blew up the valley, it roared and whistled up the trunk through the opening and even drew curvingly the flames of any fire which chanced to be made near it. Could it be this, I thought, that was now in the mind of Hammer? I was not mistaken. He called to the men in the village and bade them bring from the banks of the stream behind the village a great quantity of the soft tenacious clay such as we used in making our pottery, at which work both men and women among us were most skilful, and this clay he spread upon the earth in and before the opening, thus making a clay platform. He also plastered the inside of the trunk upward as far as he could reach, with this same clay; then upon the clay platform he made a fire, not too high, and fed this fire until nightfall, and for some time later. Then we slept, for we were older men now and cared not to work into the night.