And now for hours Grom sat motionless, pondering, pondering, and watching the line of flames with deep eyes. The girl did not dare to interrupt his thoughts. With the going of the sun came a chill breeze drawing down from the ridges. Grom rose, led the girl nearer the flames, and reseated himself. As the girl realized the kindly and comforting warmth her fears diminished. She laughed softly, turned her shapely body round and round in the glow, and then curled herself up like a cat at Grom's knees. At last Grom arose once more. Picking up his remaining spear, he approached the fire with decision, and thrust the butt, instead of the tip, into the flame. When it was well alight, he thrust it down upon a tuft of withered grass. The stuff caught at once, blazed up and died out. Then Grom rolled the burning spear-butt on the earth till it, too, was quite extinguished. The sparks still winking in the grass he struck with his palm. They stung him, but they perished. He drew himself up to his full height, turned to the girl and stretched out his blackened hand. The girl sprang to her feet, thrilled and wondering. "See," said Grom, "I have made the bright Dancing Ones my servants. The tribe shall come here. And we shall be the masters of all things." Once more the girl threw herself at his feet. He seemed to her a god. But remembering how she had twice saved his life, she laid her cheek against his knee. He lifted her into the hollow of his great arm, and she leaned against him, gazing up into his face, while he stood staring into the fire, his eyes clouded with visions. CHAPTER IV THE CHILDREN OF THE SHINING ONE I From the lip of the narrow volcanic fissure, which ran diagonally two-thirds of the way across the mouth of the valley, the line of fire waved and flickered against the gathering dark. Sometimes only a few inches high, sometimes sinking suddenly out of sight, and then again as suddenly leaping up to a height of five or six feet, the thin, gaseous flames danced elvishly. Now clear yellow, now fiery orange, now of an almost invisible violet, they shifted, and bowed their crests, and thrust out shooting tongues, till Grom, sitting on his haunches and staring with fascinated eyes, had no choice but to believe that they were live things like himself. The girl, curled up at his side like a cat, paid little attention to the marvel of the flames. Her big, dark eyes, wild and furtive under the dark, tangled masses of her hair, kept wandering back and forth between the man's brooding face and the obscure black thickets which filled the valley behind him. The dancing flames she did not understand, but she understood the ponderous crashing, and growls, and savage cries which came from those black thickets and slopes of tumbled rocks. The man being absorbed in watching the wonders of the flames, and apparently all-forgetful of the perils prowling back there in the dark, it was plainly her duty to keep watch.