254 THE COMING OF MAN 



before careless men set them. These embers that the 

 cave men saved they tended carefully with dried 

 leaves and twigs. Very, very careful they had to be 

 of those fires, for if they let them go out where could 

 they get another? But after a time they learned to 

 start their fire. Perhaps it might have happened this 

 way. 



Suppose that two of those men were busy in their 

 cave long, long ago, boring a hole in a piece of wood 

 with a sharpened stick. That was the way they made 

 the handles for their stone implements. Now it 

 might have happened that the wood they were using 

 was much harder and drier than usual, and the man 

 who twirled the pointed stick was very strong. He 

 twirled so fast that the wood became quite hot, and 

 smoked a little. But neither of the men knew what 

 that meant, and so they kept on with their work. 

 Then, suddenly, a flame leaped from the hole they 

 were making and burnt them and their sticks of 

 wood, and even the dry straw spread over the floor 

 of the cave for a bed. 



Now it may be that the first man was angry, seeing 

 that all their work was ruined and their beds gone. 

 But the second man, the one who twirled the stick, 

 waved his arms and shouted for joy, because he saw 

 how men could make that mysterious and useful fire 

 when they wanted it. 



So the stick-twirler ran for more wood, and, squat- 

 ting down at the entrance of the cave before all the 

 other inhabitants, showed them how to get a spark 

 that they could coax into a fire. That was a joyful 

 discovery, for it meant that they would not have to 



