We two were not in a good way, even as ways went with the Cave men in that rough land and time. We were outlaws--I, Scar, and Six Toes, a greater personage than I, and all because of the deadly enmity between my companion and the head man of our clan. We had been driven from the great galleried cave in the cliff beside the river a mile above us where all had sought refuge together for the harsh winter, and, thus forced to fare alone, had, after some perilous wandering, found shelter in this smaller and less pleasant and safe abode. We were cold, but in this respect not so greatly worse off than the body of the clan who, through rare misfortune, were, temporarily, nearly as unfortunate as we. The winter was upon us. Long ago, so the legend of the story-telling old men ran, our people had drifted to the south, where was a warmer clime, but something had driven them northward again and they had long lived a roving, sturdy, and fierce community in a country of rock and plain, fruitful in season, it is true, and with good hunting, peopled as it was by many grass-eating brutes and furred beasts of prey, and warm as well, but hard to bear in winter because of the breath of northern glaciers. Now, the clan had been for a time in a strait such as was never known before. Venturing, because of an unaccountable influx of the deer and the little wild horses, into a ruder country than our ordinary haunts, we had lost our fire. There were no fire mountains here, and, despite the finding of the big cave, living had become uncomfortable. We had not yet learned the art of making fire ourselves, and, when the clan moved as a body, carried it always with us, moving slowly and making fires ahead on our way as far as the runners could go with brands. Now, it had, for once, been neglected by the keepers in the cave and become lost, and we must half freeze and live on roots and nuts and dried meat until we should visit some distant clan, or the fire from the sky, as it sometimes did, should smite some towering dead tree and make it burn for us. But no such good fortune had come, and those of our own kind of whom we knew were far removed from us, and sometimes hostile. We must endure until the warm time came again. The little cave in which Six Toes and I--he was called Six Toes because he had, when a youth, left four of his toes in the jaws of a savage river fish, though the hurt did not impair his strength or swiftness--were harbouring was close to the edge of a declivity which overhung the river valley. We were savagely restless and discontented, and not without great reason. Not only against the bear and wolf and prowling tiger of the time must we be on guard, but against even the creatures of our own kind and clan.