Wymez had given him some good flint before he left, roughed out and preshaped so that new points could be made easily. He had made the bone-pointed spears before they left the Summer Meeting, to show how they were done. They were typical of the kind his people used, but he had learned how to make the flint-tipped Mamutoi spears as well, and because he was a skilled flint knapper, they were faster for him to make than shaping and smoothing bone points.

In the afternoon Ayla started to make a special meat-keeping basket. When she lived in the valley, she had spent many long winter nights easing her loneliness by making baskets and mats, among other things, and she had become very quick and adept at weaving. She could almost make a basket in the dark, and her new carrying container for meat was finished before she went to bed. It was made extremely well, she had thought carefully about the shape and size, materials and tightness of weave, but she wasn't quite satisfied with it.

She went out in the darkening twilight to change her absorbent wool and wash the piece she was wearing in the small stream. She put it near the fire to dry, but out of Jondalar's sight. Then, without quite looking at him, she lay down in their sleeping furs beside him. Women of the Clan were taught to avoid men as much as possible when they bled, and never to look at them directly. It made Clan men very nervous to be around women during that time. It had surprised her that Jondalar had no qualms about it, but she still felt uncomfortable, and she took pains to be discreet in caring for herself.

Jondalar had always been considerate of her during her moon times, sensing her disquiet, but once she was in bed, he leaned over to kiss her. Though she kept her eyes closed, she responded with warmth, and when he rolled over on his back again, and they were lying side by side watching the play of firelight on the walls and ceilings of the comfortable structure, they talked, though she was careful not to look at him.

"I'd like to coat that hide after it's mounted on the frame," he said.

"If I boil up the hooves and scraps of hide and some bones together with water for a long time, it will make a very thick and sticky kind of broth, that dries hard. Do we have something that I can use to cook that in?"

"I'm sure we can think of something. Does it have to cook long?"

"Yes. It does need to cook down, to thicken."

"Then it might be best to cook it directly over the fire, like a soup… maybe a piece of hide. We'll have to watch it, and keep adding water, but as long as it stays wet, it won't burn… wait. What about the stomach of that aurochs? I've been keeping water in it, so it wouldn't dry out, and to have it handy for cooking and washing, but it would make a good cooking bag," Ayla said.

"I don't think so," Jondalar said. "We don't want to keep adding water. We want it to get thick."

"Then I suppose a good watertight basket and hot stones might be best. I can make one in the morning," Ayla said, but as she lay quietly, her mind wouldn't let her sleep. She kept thinking that there was a better way to boil down the mixture Jondalar wanted to make. She just could not quite think of it. She was nearly asleep when it came to her. "Jondalar! Now I remember."

He, too, was dozing off but was jerked awake. "Huh! What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. I just remembered how Nezzie rendered out fat, and I think it would be the best way to cook your thick stuff. You dig a shallow hole in the ground, in the shape of a bowl, and line it with a piece of hide – there should be a big enough piece left from the aurochs for that. Break up some bones and scatter them over the bottom, then put in the water and the hooves and whatever else you want. You can boil it for as long as we keep heating stones, and the little pieces of bone will keep the hot stones from actually touching the leather, so it won't burn through."

"Good, Ayla. That's what we'll do," Jondalar said, still half-asleep. He rolled over and was soon snoring.

But there was still something else on Ayla's mind that kept her awake. She had planned to leave the aurochs's stomach for the people of the Camp to use as a waterbag when they left, but it needed to be kept wet. Once it dried out, it got stiff, and would not go back to its original, pliable, nearly waterproof condition. Even if she filled it with water, it would eventually seep out and evaporate away, and she didn't know when the people would return.

Suddenly it came to her. She almost called out again, but muffled it in time. He was sleeping, and she didn't want to wake him. She would let the stomach dry out and use it to line her new meat-keeper, shaping it while it was still wet to fit exactly. As she fell asleep in the darkened lodge, Ayla felt pleased that she had thought of a way to replace the very necessary item that had been lost.

During the next few days, while the meat dried, they were both busy. They finished the bowl boat and coated it with the glue Jondalar made by boiling down the hooves, bone, and hide scraps. While it was drying, Ayla made baskets, for the meat they were leaving as a gift for the people of the Camp, for cooking to replace those she had lost, and for gathering, some of which she planned to leave behind. She gathered vegetable produce and medicinal herbs daily, drying some to take with them.

Jondalar accompanied her one day to look for something to make into paddles for the boat. Shortly after they started out, he was pleased to find the skull of a giant deer that had died before the large palmate antlers were shed, giving him two of equal size. Though it was early, he stayed out with Ayla for the rest of the morning. He was learning to identify certain foods himself, and in the process he was beginning to understand how much Ayla really knew. Her knowledge of plants and her memory for their uses were incredible. When they returned to the Camp, Jondalar trimmed the tines off the broad antlers and attached them to sturdy, rather short poles, making entirely serviceable paddles.

The next day he decided to use the wood-shaping apparatus he had set up to bend the wood for the boat frame, to straighten shafts for new spears. Shaping and smoothing them took most of the next couple of days, even with the special tools he had with him, carried in a roll of leather tied with thongs. But while he was working, every time he passed by the side of the earthlodge where he had thrown it, Jondalar noticed the truncated spear shaft he had brought up from the valley and felt a flush of annoyance. It was a shame that there wasn't a way to salvage that straight shaft, short of making a cropped and unbalanced spear out of it. Any of the spears he was working so hard to make could break just as easily.

When he was satisfied that the spears would fly true, he used yet another tool, a narrow flint blade with a chisellike tip hafted to an antler-tine handle, to hollow out a deep notch in the thicker butt ends of the shafts. Then, from the prepared flint nodules he had with him, Jondalar knapped new blades and attached them to the spear shafts with the thick glue he had made as a coating for the boat, and fresh sinew. The tough tendon shrank as it dried, making a strong, solid bond. He finished by affixing pairs of long feathers, found near the river, from the numerous white-tailed eagles, falcons, and black kites that lived in the region feeding on the abundance of susliks and other small rodents.

They had set up a target, using a thick, grass-stuffed bed pad that the badger had torn up and made worthless. Patched with scraps from the aurochs, it absorbed the force of a throw without damage to the spears. Both Jondalar and Ayla practiced a little every day. Ayla did it to maintain her accuracy, but Jondalar was experimenting with different lengths of shaft and sizes of point to see which would work best with the spear-thrower.