It was good to see Laugh eat. Little cared she what we were doing. The smell of roasted meat had assailed her, and she was gnawing greedily at a bone with cooked flesh still upon it as we turned to look upon her, still flushed from the race. She looked up at Six Toes and laughed happily. Then he, too, laughed and sat down beside her. They were mated now, and were content. So, for a few days, there were no happenings of note. Six Toes and Laugh were cheerful in their end of the cave, and I only less so in a little alcove at the side where I slept now dreamlessly. Laugh helped in the skinning of the game. We brought and cooked the flesh and kept ever a sharp lookout up and down the valley. Did Laugh become lax in any of her duties, Six Toes, as a husband should, admonished her with a strip of hide, but she rarely needed such correction, and his strokes were light, for were they not newly wed? I alone became, finally, somewhat restless. I felt that there was more to come, not that I feared it, but I was curious. The half-freezing tribe would soon be heard from. We had not long to wait. Following the death of Wolf there had been much debate in the great cave. Evidently Six Toes was a wizard, and evidently a great wizard was a good thing for a clan to have. Besides, Six Toes was a famous hunter and a man of might, and why not yield to him? They came, one day, a straggling group, including even the older men, and I, who guessed their mission as I saw them in the distance, conferred swiftly with Six Toes and advised him earnestly. They halted at a distance from the cave and yelled forth the nature of their visit and then, assured of safety, laid down their weapons and came forward. Six Toes, I standing beside him, received them somewhat gruffly. They said that they were cold and that he could make fire for them; as they were leaderless, too, would he not return to them? Six Toes was stern but not unfriendly. He said that they were right. He was a wizard and could make fire. They were leaderless, because he had slain Wolf. He could slay others. He had been driven forth from the band, he and his brother Scar, but he would not remain angry with them if they would take him as a wizard and as the head of the clan and so obey him. If they disobeyed, well, he could burn all enemies. The sun was shining and he drew forth the fire-stone from his pouch and set into flame the bundle of dry reeds I brought. The sight startled and appalled them, and some of the old men even grovelled at his feet. All yielded wildly and blindly and, the young men carrying our belongings, Six Toes and Laugh and I in the lead, we took our way to the great cave of many galleries where the remainder of the band received us with mingled fear and joy. Then Six Toes made fire outside and lighted from it, other fires soon blazed within the great cave’s chambers, and meat was roasting everywhere, and there were warmth and feasting and rejoicing.