All my life I had read of primitive men making fire in various ways, and I tried them all. I blistered my hands twirling firesticks. I knocked bits of flesh off my fingers striking pieces of stone together. At last I was on the point of giving up in disgust. "I don't believe any one ever made fire," I grumbled. "You saw the nobargan make it," Duare reminded me. "There's a catch in it somewhere," I insisted. "Are you going to give up?" she asked. "Of course not. It's like golf. Most people never learn to play it, but very few give up trying. I shall probably continue my search for fire until death overtakes me or Prometheus descends to Venus as he did to Earth." "What is golf and who is Prometheus?" demanded Duare. "Golf is a mental disorder and Prometheus a fable." "I don't see how they can help you." I was squatting over a little pile of tinder laboriously knocking together various bits of rock that we had collected during the day. "Neither do I," I replied, viciously striking two new specimens together. A string of sparks shot from the two rocks and ignited the tinder! "I apologize to Prometheus," I cried; "he is no fable." With the aid of this fire I was able to fashion a bow and to make and sharpen a spear and arrows. I strung the bow with a fiber from a tough liana, and I feathered my arrows gayly with the plumage of birds. * * * * * Duare was much interested in this work. She gathered feathers, split them, and bound them to the arrows with the long blades of a very tough grass that grew in profusion throughout the forest. Our work was facilitated by the use of bits of stone we had found so shaped that they made excellent scrapers. I cannot express the change that came over me with the possession of weapons. I had come to feel like a hunted beast whose only defense is flight, and that is a most unhappy situation for the man who wishes to impress the object of his love with his heroic qualities. I really cannot say that I had any such intention in my mind at any time, yet with the growing realization of my futility I really did come to wish that I might cut a better figure before Duare. Now I stepped out with a new stride. I was the hunter rather than the hunted. My pitiful, inadequate little weapons swept all doubts from my mind. I was now equal to any emergency. "Duare," I exclaimed, "I am going to find Vepaja; I am going to take you home!" She looked at me questioningly. "The last time we spoke of that," she reminded me, "you said that you hadn't the remotest idea where Vepaja was and that if you had, you couldn't hope to get there." "That," I said, "was several days ago. Things are different now. Now, Duare, we are going hunting; we are going to have meat for dinner. You walk behind me so as not to frighten the game."