waters. And the fishermen had better spears and hooks now, for comparison was necessarily always made among devices, and bone barbs and hooks were whittled out from which the fish no longer often floundered. There came, in time, the making of rude nets, plaited simply from the tough marsh grasses, but they served the purpose and lessened somewhat the gravity of the great food question. CHAPTER XXVI. FACING THE RAIDER. One day, at noon, a man burst, panting, through the wide open entrance to the Fire Valley. His coat of skin was rent and hung awry and, as all could see when he staggered down the pathway, the flesh was torn from one cheek and arm, and down his leg on one side was the stain of dried blood. He was exhausted from his hurt and his run and his talk was, at first, almost unmeaning. He was met by some of the older and wiser among those who saw him coming and to their questions answered only by demanding Ab, who came at once. The hard-breathing and wounded man could only utter the words "Big tiger," when he pitched forward and became unconscious. But his words had been enough. Well understood was it by all who listened what a raid of the cave tiger meant, and there was a running to the gateway and soon was raised the wall of ready stone, upbuilt so high that even the leaping monster could not hope to reach its summit. Later the story of the wounded, but now conscious and refreshed runner, was told with more of detail and coherence. The messenger brought out what he had to tell gaspingly. He had lost much blood and was faint, but he told how there had taken place something awful in the village of the Shell Men. It was but little after dusk the night before when the Shell Men were gathered together in merrymaking after good fishing and lucky gathering of what there was to eat along the shores of the shell fish and the egg-laying turtles and the capture of a huge river-horse. It had been, up to midnight, one of the greatest and most joyous meetings the Shell People had joined in for many years. They were close-gathered and prosperous and content, and though there was daily turmoil and risk of death upon the water and sometimes as great risk upon the land, yet the village fringing the waters had grown, and the midden--the "kitchen-midden" of future ages--had raised itself steadily and now stretched far up and down the creek which was a river branch and far backward from the creek toward the forest which ended with the uplands. They had learned to dread the forest little, the water people, but from the forest now came what made for each in all the village a dread and horror. The cave tiger had been among them!