There followed many days more of the eager working of the old man and the young one in the cave, and there was much testing of the new device, and finally, one morning, Ab issued forth armed with his ax and knife, but without his spear. He bore, instead, a bow which was the best and strongest the two had yet learned to fashion, and a sheaf of arrows slung behind his back in a quiver made of a hollow section of a mammoth's leg bone which had long been kicked about the cave. The two workers had drilled holes in the bone and passed thongs through and made a wooden bottom to the thing and now it had found its purpose. The bow was rude, as were the arrows, and the archer was not yet a certain marksman, though he had practiced diligently, but the bow was stiff, at least, and the arrows had keen heads of flint and the arms of the hunter were strong as was the bow. There was a weary and fruitless search for game, but late in the afternoon the youth came upon a slight, sheer descent, along the foot of which ran a shallow but broad creek, beyond which was a little grass-grown valley, where were feeding a fine herd of the little deer. They were feeding in the direction of the creek and the wind blew from them to the hunter, so that no rumor of their danger was carried to them on the breeze. Ab concealed himself among the bushes on the little height and awaited what might happen. The herd fed slowly toward him. As the deer neared the creek they grouped themselves together about where were the greenest and richest feeding-places, and when they reached the very border of the stream they were gathered in a bunch of half a hundred, close together. They were just beyond a spear's cast from the watcher, but this was a test, not of the spear, but of the bow, and the most inexperienced of archers, shooting from where Ab was hidden, must strike some one of the beasts in that broad herd. Ab sprang to his feet and drew his arrow to the head. The deer gathered for a second in affright, crowding each other before the wild bursting away together, and then the bow-string twanged, and the arrow sang hungrily, and there was the swift thud of hundreds of light feet, and the little glade was almost silent. It was not quite silent, for, floundering in its death struggles, was a single deer, through which had passed an arrow so fiercely driven that its flint head projected from the side opposite that which it had entered. [Illustration: AB SPRANG TO HIS FEET, AND DREW HIS ARROW TO THE HEAD]