2 94 Musings by Camp- Fire a7id Wayside 



utilized this knowledge to capture those he would 

 eat and frighten off those that would eat him. 

 Now he could command, when and where he chose, 

 the terrible serpent which devastated the forest and 

 mountain. He could turn it loose in fury upon his 

 enemies or domicile it tamely in his cave. He was 

 master of the elements, and could create summer in 

 the midst of winter. He was lord of the beasts, 

 because the king of them all was his slave — a pas- 

 sionate and dangerous servant at times, liable to 

 break away from his control, and from which in his 

 wrath he must hide in his cave; a slave-god to be 

 circumvented with cunning and placated with food. 

 It prepared his nuts and acorns, his fish and veni- 

 son, and made them sweet and tender. It stood 

 sentinel at the door of his cave and kept his ene- 

 mies at bay while he slept. Restrained by water, 

 it hollowed out the trunk of a tree for him and gave 

 him his first boat, from which, when he was afloat 

 in it, his torch would show him the fish deep down 

 in the water, and the beasts roaming on the shores, 

 but would not let them see him; so he could steal 

 upon them with his flint-barbed spear. By laying 

 one log across another, the fire-god would cut both 

 of them almost squarely in two, and enable him to 

 utilize them in building a shelter; and at last — for 

 Adam lived very long — he learned to compel iron 

 out of tawny dust with fire, and fashioned it into 

 tools and weapons with which he could go forth 

 armed for his unceasing battle with elemental 



