besides learning to make tents, to prepare
skins, and to make them into garments. It would take too long to tell
all the things that little girls learned in those days.
Snowflake learned her lessons well and she found new ways of doing
things. It was when she found a reindeer caught in the vines that she
took the first step in making a snare. She had started to the hillside
to dig roots and had gone only a little way when she heard something
pulling and tugging among the vines.
She peeked through the branches to see what it was, and there stood a
beautiful reindeer. His antlers were caught in the tangled vines and
he was trying to get loose.
Snowflake's heart went pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, when she saw the
reindeer. But she kept going nearer, and the reindeer pulled and
pulled until he was strangled by the vines.
When Snowflake came to the cave dragging the handsome reindeer, the
people shouted for joy. And when they had knocked off the beautiful
antlers, they gave them to Snowflake and changed her name.
Whenever she went to the spot where the reindeer was caught she always
looked for another reindeer. But the reindeer kept away from the
spot.
So, at length, Antler thought of cutting vines and fastening them to
branches. Then she learned to tie knots that would slip and tighten
when pulled. And, after a while, she used the slipknots in making many
kinds of snares.
[Illustration: "_Then she set snares on the ground and fastened them
to strong branches._"]
Antler watched the birds until she knew the spots where they liked to
alight. Then she set snares on the ground and fastened them to strong
branches.
The birds, alighting on the spot, caught their feet in the snare. When
they tried to fly away, they pulled the slipknot which held them fast.
[Illustration: "_Antler learned to protect the cord by running it
through a hollow bone._"]
Some of the birds were frightened away, and did not return to the
spot. So Antler tried to coax them back by scattering seeds near the
snare.
Once Antler set a snare in a rabbit path just high enough to catch the
rabbit's head. A rabbit was caught, but he nibbled the cord and ran
off with the snare. And so Antler learned to protect the cord by
running it through a hollow bone.
There was no better trapper than Antler among all the Cave-men. It was
she who taught the boys and girls how to make and set traps. When the
marmots awoke from their long winter's sleep, all th
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