This place of refuge and home and fortress was acquiring an importance. CHAPTER XXX. OUR VERY GREAT GRANDFATHER. And the years passed. One still afternoon in autumn a gray, hairy man, a man approaching old age, but without weakness of arm or stiffness of joint, as yet, sat on the height overlooking the village. He looked in tranquil comfort, now down into the little valley, and now across it into the wood beyond, where the sun was approaching the treetops. He had come to the hill with the mere instinct of the old hunter seeking to be completely out of doors, but he had brought work with him and was engaged, when not looking thoughtfully far away, in finishing a huge bow, the spring of which he occasionally tested. Every motion showed the retained possession of tremendous strength as well as the knowledge of its use to most advantage. A very hale old man was Ab, the great hunter and head of the people of the Fire Valley. A few yards away from Ab, leaning against the trunk of a beech, stood Lightfoot, her quick glance roving from place to place and as keen, seemingly, as ever. These two were still most content when together, and it was well for each that they had in the same degree withstood what the years bring. The woman had, perhaps, changed less than the man. Her hair was still dark and her step had not grown heavy. She had changed in face and expression rather than in form. There had grown in her eyes and about her mouth the indefinable lines and tokens, pathetic and sweet, of care, of sorrow, of suffering and of quiet gladness, in short, of motherhood. As twilight came on the woods rang with the shouts and laughter of a party of young men who were coming home from some forest trip. Ab, looking down the valley, over the flashing flame, into the forest hills, in whose deep shade lay Little Mok, old Hilltop and Ab's mother, could see the lusty youths in the village, running, leaping, wrestling and throwing spears, axes and stones in competition. A strange oppression came upon him and he thought of Oak lying in the ground alone on the hillside, miles away. Ab felt, even now, the strong, helpful arm of his friend around him, just as it was in the evening journey from the Feast of the Mammoth homeward, when he had been rescued from almost certain death by Oak. A lump rose in the throat of the man of many battles and many trials. He shook himself, as if to shake off the memory that plagued him. Oak came not often to trouble Ab's peace now, and when he came it was always at night. Morning never found him near the Fire Village.