But Ugh could not keep his eyes from his split club. It was rent fairly across the middle of its heavier end for a length of more than a foot from its head, and he, with his strong hands, could pull the sides an inch or two apart. Woof stood beside him, and as Ugh thus strained the wood until there was an opening, Woof, in sheer sport, dropped into the inviting space a great flake of flint which had parted from the rock and lay there ready to his hand. As Ugh, surprised, released the parts they clashed together upon the flint and held it there, for the wood was tough of fibre and had a vicious springiness. There, held strongly and tenaciously in the jaws of the cleft club, was the broad, heavy flint flake, its sharp edges outstanding inches on either side. In the hand of Ugh was a rude axe, the first whose handle was ever clutched by man! We all stood looking curiously at this strange mingling of wood and stone, when Ugh, with a hoarse cry, swung it aloft and waved it above our heads in mock threatening and shouted “Kill!” Well might he yell out “Kill!” We knew it could do that were the stone but firmly fixed, and we all alike yelled, but wondered at it. The stone was left in the club just as it had been gripped and so was carried back with us. More than it did the others, the stone and wood so seemingly grown together in what might be a mighty weapon, fascinated me. For the split club with a stone--already we sometimes, by signs, exchanged things in the beginning of all barter--I gave Ugh my own fine club, and my new possession I carried with me to my cave that night. A dim idea of something great was forming in my mind. Could the stone be held there always, what a weapon I would have! I smote with the rude axe, and unshattered and unmoved it bit deep into thick tree bark. With repeated strokes the axe stone loosened a little in its accidental socket and I was troubled. I strained it into proper bearing in the cleft again and studied how to make it permanently firm. The problem was still with me when I reached our cave with Woof. It came to me to tie the axe as we tied things, with sinews--for we had, somehow, learned how to make a knot--and with sinew I toiled long beside the fire until I had bound, with my utmost straining strength, and firmly fastened together the intersection of the rugged flake of stone and the tough wood. Then I ran out and down the path in the moonlight and tried the axe recklessly upon a tree trunk and found the stone immovable. It could not be wrenched nor sprung from the eye. I had an axe! The axe, mightiest weapon and implement in the hand of man for thousands of years to come, had been invented by chance, and rudely, in a single day. The age of wood and the club alone had passed. The Age of Stone had come!