Seeing that it was getting late, I couldn't walk to the stone cave at the bottom of the pot today, so I decided to spend the night here. The two of them, with two dogs, and two pigskin torches, which they turned over and tied to a stick, went into the hole.

After entering the cave, they found that the torch in their hand could not shine on the edge of the stone wall at all, and beyond the torch was dark and swarthy, and they did not know how deep and large the cave was, and this must not be used as a place to spend the night.

So they had to look again, and went down the ravine, and they came to a small river, and in autumn the river had become smaller, and in many places the riverbed was exposed, and some water nests were formed, and even where the river passed, the water was not deep, and the bottom of the river could be seen at a glance.

My father stood by the river, not knowing where to find a place with similar conditions to spend the night, but time waited for no one, and it was dark in two hours. If you can't help it, let's set up camp by the river.

Under the division of labor, one chops wood, one chops thorns, one burns a fire for cooking, and the other builds a tree wall to make a grass shed.

Before dark, they simply enclosed a protective ring with thorns on the outermost layer, and built a thatched hut the size of a house with a few tree walls inside, and the fire burned in the room, and a pot of stew next to it was bubbling hot, and the smell was fragrant.

After eating, as usual, he stood guard.

There are almost no barriers everywhere here, and they stand guard in a three-to-one way, that is, three people stand guard, one person sleeps and rests, and one shift per hour.

When it was his son's turn to go to bed and rest, he said, "I can't hold it anymore, I'll take a break and go back to sleep." The father said, "Whoever is blind in the black light, bring a torch and don't leave our sight, and the three dogs will go with you." ”

The son walked downwind, and the three dogs stood three feet away and watched vigilantly, torches planted on the ground, hunting in the night wind.

At this time, the night was so quiet that the sound of the wind, the crackling of firewood, and the jokes of the children standing guard could be heard far away in the cold and lonely night sky, and the son who was relieving himself heard it really.

My father watched the children fight and frolic lovingly while fiddling with a stick, and his thoughts gradually returned to the scene when he was a child hunting with his father and brothers.

Life is short, generation after generation, and there is almost no time to enjoy it, and it passes in a flash.

Originally, I was going to invite a few brothers and nephews to participate in this hunting, but some of them were busy, some were studying outside, some were doing things in the city, some were wandering the rivers and lakes to make a living, and some were earning a few coppers in the hard life to marry a daughter-in-law, and the world was becoming more and more incomprehensible.

A cold wind blew, blowing the sleepy fire suddenly became energetic, the burning coals had already covered a thin layer of charcoal ash, but this blow blew away the charcoal ash, revealing the red coals, particularly dazzling, steaming for a while, shining on everyone's faces.

The father suddenly remembered that the child had been in the past for a long time, and according to the previous habits, he had already solved it, and couldn't help but look towards the place where the child was squatting, only to see that the torches were still swaying in the wind, but the people and dogs had disappeared, and secretly screamed "not good", and rushed over there, and the two sons saw this and hurriedly grabbed a few burning sticks to follow.

When I came to the front, I saw that the place where I had just squatted to relieve the water was stinking, except for the faintly shiny torch inserted on the ground, which was a little angry!

Everyone immediately shouted, but there was no echo in the empty night sky.

One of the sons ran back to the fire, took five or six torches made of boar skins, lit them, and lit them up a little bit around them, while the other went and brought a knife and three sharpened sticks that had been prepared before standing guard last night, to guard against the danger that might approach at any time, which was invisible in the night.

My father said, "This place is weird. The three of us don't separate, just search in a line. ”

In this way, the father and his two sons tossed back and forth in the vicinity all night, and did not see any movement, and they were all annoyed.

Look at the sky gradually white, the father took his two sons to eat the leftover soup and dishes last night, and then came to the place where the child was relieved last night to check, this look does not matter, it turned out that the two steps behind the child's solution was a deep soil hole that collapsed, and the child and the three dogs were lying upright on the grass in the hole.

I searched the surroundings like a grate many times, but I forgot to look carefully around the place of the incident.

Everyone built a ladder and lifted them out of the hole one by one, their bodies were cold, but when they looked at their noses and pulses, they were still alive!

When they came to the fire, a son carried a pile of hay and put it underneath, and the father took off his clothes and covered the child, and the children also took off their coats and put them on the dog.

The father hurriedly set up the big iron pot that had just been removed, boiled the leftover soup and water, and fed it to his son and the dogs.

Everyone was still in a deep coma, and all the soup that was fed to their mouths flowed out of the corners of their mouths.

One son said, "Father, don't worry, they'll get better when they're warmer." ”

The heat of the fire slowly radiated to the children and a few dogs, and they gradually warmed up and slowly woke up.

When he woke up, his son didn't remember anything about what happened last night, except that he smelled a particularly bad smell when he was relieved, a bit like the smell of rotten eggs, and he didn't know it again.

A hot soup and hot water cheered up my son and three dogs.

My father said that when we went over last night, I also smelled a stench, and I was so anxious that I thought it was stench, but now I think it must be something else.

He took one of his sons to take a look, and saw that the hole must have recently collapsed, and found nothing unusual, so he put his ear to the ground and listened, only to hear the slightest noise under the ground, as if something was spurting.

And the father said, Bring two torches.

The father took the torch to a stick and lengthened it, and walked forward tentatively, and when he came to the place where the child had squatted last night five or six paces away, there was a "bang", and the torch seemed to set the sky on fire, and a fire dragon burst out of a hole the thickness of a thigh, which was so high that the father and the children fell to the ground in fright, and looked at the monster that suddenly ran out of the ground.

The cave looks very similar to the last time there was a large collapse in the ditch, and although you don't know what it is, it's very dangerous.

The father and children hurriedly packed up their things and left this dangerous place.

According to my father's plan, everyone should return to the original cave.

So, after deciding to set off, I knew that there was no other good place to spend the night along the way, so I had to arrive before dark.