But Umpl did really know it all, for the very good reason that he had been a Cave boy himself not so very long before. So when he went out from that village at the head of his men one fine day, while the sun was shining brightly and the birds were singing, he did not neglect a single one of the many things which he had been told would bring good luck to his hunting. Every arrow was as perfect as it could be made, from feather to point. Every head of flint or bone had been tested to make sure that it was firm. Each young man had his own little sack full of bread ready baked, so that no fire by its smoke need betray them; while as to the danger because they had no fire--why, that was a part of the game. Lastly--but in Umpl's eyes the most important of all--they carried, as of old, in a sling, the Iron Star. Surely this was not the time to leave that good-luck-bringer at home, so Umpl reasoned. Thus the Star once more set out upon its travels. Now, the errand which one goes on sometimes has a great deal to do with what he finds at the end of it. I don't mean to say that the Star had anything to do with it at all, or that it knew right from wrong. But this is certain; on its last journey Umpl was seeking only a home where he and Sptz might live and find food in a time of famine. But now he was seeking to harm people who had never even heard of him; and if bad fortune befell, the errand itself was not good enough to deserve a better. A wise man long afterward once wrote down the words of Jesus, "They who live by the sword shall perish by the sword," and it is a good saying. Thus it happened, that, after a wild hunt through the silent forests to the northwest for many weeks, one day they found a village which was all too strong for them. It was like arousing a hornet's nest. Umpl got out of it safely enough, with an arrow hole or two here and there where they did not count. But he did not have so many to lead back home again; and the Iron Star, alas! was lost, captured by the enemy. Umpl never laid eyes on it again. Neither did Umpl's son. But the son of Umpl's son knew all about it, as far as any one person knew; for in the long nights when the water rippled lazily up against the mossy logs beneath the huts, and the evening smoke curled upward from the after-supper fires, then was the time for stories of great marvels in the days of old; and Umpleton, as the boy was called, knew well that far in the northwest was the Star that once had made the fortune of his family. So, when he in his turn was partly grown up, he packed up a sack full of cakes, as his grandfather had done, took another full of beautiful bronze knives and trinkets which he himself had made, and the Star-club, which Umpl had never lost. With these he started off on a trading expedition. Times were better now than in the old days, and traders were more plenty.