at the strong antlers, he could almost see the handsome
stags. He thought of them standing head to head ready to strike deadly
blows. And he wished he had had such powerful weapons to meet the
bison's charge.

[Illustration: _A wedge or tent pin._]

The children wanted to be good to Flaker and so they brought him the
antlers they found. They liked to play with the antlers, and their
mothers used them in many ways. They had learned to cut them with
choppers and chisels, and sometimes they cut them with stone knives.

All the women used the small prongs of the antlers. They used them as
wedges in prying the bark loose from the sap-wood of young trees. All
the women had learned to make hammers of antler by making two cuts
near the base. And sometimes they used the broad end of the brow
antler instead of a stone chisel.

Once when Flaker was watching Antler, he thought she was making a
dagger. But Antler had not thought of making a dagger. She was making
a hammer and wedge. When she had finished, she dropped the long beam
of the antler upon the ground and went away with her tools.

Flaker kept his eyes fixed upon the long beam. The more he looked at
it, the more it looked like a dagger. At length he reached and picked
it up. Then he took his knife and began to cut it.

[Illustration: _The head of a javelin._]

That night when Fleetfoot came home, Flaker gave him a dagger of
reindeer horn. Fleetfoot showed it to Bighorn, who took it, then
tossed it on the ground.

Bighorn had never seen such a dagger. He thought a good dagger had to
be made of stone. So he made fun of Flaker's weapon, then thought no
more about it.

But Greybeard and Chipper did not make fun of the weapons Flaker made.
They tried the dagger next day, and found that it stood the test. So
they asked Flaker to make each of them daggers and javelins of
reindeer horn.

#THINGS TO DO#

_Tell all you know about the antlers of full-grown stags. Tell all
you know about the antlers of other reindeer._

_Look at the antlers in the pictures on pages 16, 17, 108, and 121.
Find the part that would make such a wedge as is shown on page 119.
Find the part that would make such a hammer as is shown on page 74.
Find a part for a chisel or scraper. Find the long beam that was
used in making such a dagger as is shown on page 123. Do you think
that Flaker's first dagger was carved in this way? Can you tell why
the Cav