So the discovery, that was only half a discovery, was lost to the tribe for many years. Doubtless if you had reminded him of it and he could have spoken to you in a language you would understand, Strong Arm would have replied that there were the Hairy Folk and the Dart Throwers to be annihilated, the children of the tribe to be protected and food to be provided and that he had ceased to think of such foolish things as the sticking of fat tubers in the ground in the hope of making them the mothers of many little potatoes, and anyway, these were strange things past all the ability of any man to understand. [Illustration] IX THE FIRST POT Sometime before the Cave People discovered the use of the bow and arrow, they had learned to make clay pots or bowls. For many years the tribe lived in the tropical lands where the bread fruit ripened nearly the whole year round, and where nuts were plentiful and tubers and sweet yams were often to be found; where there were more nests than there were trees in the forests, filled with treasures of fresh eggs; and there were fowl and fish. As much as the horde loved to eat the wild duck or the cocoanut, or even the wild honey, one and all knew that when the hot sun beat down upon bare brown skins in the heat of the day during the summer there was nothing in all the valley so sweet as a drink of water. One could go without food for many suns, but if one day passed without fresh water for the members of the group, fevers came upon them, the strange fevers that caused them to do many foolish things. At first no member of the tribe willingly journeyed far from the source of fresh water, for they had nothing with which to carry water from one place to another. Then they used cocoanut shells, and sometimes the shells that lay upon the banks of the great river. But these held little and were easily upset. Then some one discovered that the hollow joints of the giant bamboo were more easy to carry and held more water, and these became the first water jugs of the clan. Later, when it became the fashion for men and women to decorate themselves with the skins of the animals they had slain, they found that there are many uses which hides may serve. The Cave People wore no clothes, but bound over their shoulders they bore great weights of skins and hides, of heads and tails, of bones and teeth, as a mark of their skill and bravery in the hunt. Great teeth cunningly fastened together made necklaces that spoke every day more loudly than a man’s voice of what that man had done.