Chapter 12: The Candle Tree

"If only the dogs were here," said a son, carrying a whole bag of dried fruits, as he walked back, and the joy that had stirred up everyone's just moment suddenly fell into the ice hole, and everyone sighed.

When he came to the top of the mountain, a sharp-eyed son cried excitedly: "Dog, dog, look, the dog is back!"

Everyone looked and saw that the three dogs were lying at the door of the cave, drowsy, and they did not get up and wag their tails when they saw them.

They walked briskly, came to the dog's side, threw down what they were carrying on their shoulders, picked up the dog and kissed it.

After a period of intimacy, everyone found that several dogs had blood stains on their bodies, and they were all injured to varying degrees.

The father hurriedly ordered one of his sons to burn the fire, and one son took the dog into the cave and lay down in the leeward place, and called the other son out to look for herbs to stop the bleeding and reduce the swelling.

At the intersection of the forest and the meadow on the top of the mountain, my father found a hairy candle tree—in fact, it was a vine-like plant, the shape of the tree was a bit like a morning glory, and the upper part produced some slender and slender pods like bean pods, and in late autumn, the pods burst, revealing a white-white hairy thing like cotton wool inside the pod, and occasionally a little black spot on the down, that is, the fruit, and the hairy thing was a miracle medicine for hemostasis.

The father quickly picked up a large handful of pods along the vines, some of which had been cracked, revealing the fluff, and some of which had not yet cracked, so he walked back and forth to the hole, and dressed the dog's wound, which soon stopped bleeding. Then, he opened the back pot he carried with him, poured water into the palm of his hand, and let the dogs drink.

The dogs may have collapsed from exhaustion, and after a few sips of water, they fell asleep.

At this time, it is estimated that it is still in the afternoon, and the sky is overcast.

The father instructed one of his sons to light a fire to keep the cave warm, and took his two sons to take a handful of dried fruits that had just been roasted on the fire to hunt, and they wanted to find some meat for the three dogs to eat, and it was best to find some prey with more blood, so that the dogs could recover quickly by drinking blood, and it was difficult to have the energy to digest meat at this time, and it would be bad if it was not done well.

He asked one of his sons to dig a hole in a meadow, put a handful of dried fruit in the hole, peeled off the skin, and a strong aroma of flesh came to his nose.

A large slate stone was placed on top of the cave, and the stone was propped up by a small branch, and at one end of the branch was a rope pulled at a distance, and one of the sons watched it, and when he saw an animal entering, he pulled the rope and put it on the stone, and smashed the prey to death.

The father, with his other son, walked forward.

The sharp-eyed son suddenly noticed a hare staggering forward in front of him, usually the rabbit jumps and walks, but this rabbit is obviously injured and cannot jump.

They didn't think there was such a cheap ready-made one to pick up, and they thought they were going to go up and catch rabbits.

The father grabbed the child, quietly squatted down, looked over, and found that not far behind the rabbit, a thigh-thick python was circling forward, chasing the fleeing rabbit.

It turned out that the rabbit was bitten or pinched by a python and escaped, and it was impossible to escape the claws of the python when it looked like this.

Seeing such a big python, the son hurriedly whispered to the brother who was pulling the rope to come and help.

The father drew his bow and arrow, and without hesitation shot at the grass in front of the rabbit, and the rabbit stopped in fright, and stood there shivering, not knowing whether to continue to run for his life or sit still, and his two big pointed ears turned around.

Just hesitating, the father and son saw the python speed up, in the blink of an eye to the rabbit, the big mouth bit the rabbit, and then the snake rolled over, about to entangle the rabbit to suffocate to death, and the rabbit with only strength, reflexively bit the snake's neck, the snake was forced to let go, but the teeth have been deeply bitten between the muscles and bones of the rabbit's body, and it can't be pulled out in a hurry.

The father beckoned, and his two sons came to the two animals that were fighting fiercely, and sat on the snake, and at the same time grabbed the snake's seven inches with both hands.

When encountering a rabbit with a new helper, the snake can only let go of the snake tail that is tightly wrapped around the rabbit and want to come over and roll it up.

Before the snake's tail rolled over, the sons had already sat on the snake's tail like their father, and the snake suddenly became honest.

The two sons cooperated with each other, twisted the two ends of the snake's body with their hands, put them on their knees and dusted them down, the snake's vertebrae were suddenly broken in two, and the snake could no longer twist its waist.

My father even said a good way, and he also grabbed the two ends of the snake's seven inches, and broke it vigorously, and the vertebrae on the snake's neck were also broken, and the whole snake body immediately withered, and he was out of breath if he didn't die.

The child took the rabbit out of the snake's teeth, and several blood holes were gurgling out, and it seemed that he would not survive.

They carried pythons and rabbits, and sang all the way to the cave.

Passing by the place where the trap had been dug, they were surprised to find that the stone on which they had been standing had fallen, and when they lifted the stone again, they saw that four or five rats had been crushed to death underneath.

It turned out that the rat smelled the scent of dried fruit and came to fight for food, but accidentally touched the rope during the scramble, and in this way he threw the stone down and died. What an accident.

Back at the entrance of the cave, they put down the rabbit and the mouse, took out the killing knife and cut it in a protruding place in the snake's mandible, and immediately blood sprayed out, and the father hurriedly asked the children to carry the dog over, and fed the snake blood to the dog's mouth, so that the three dogs drank to their heart's content.

After a meal, the three dogs recovered and looked alive, stood up and shook their heads and tails, and looked towards a ridge in the distance.

The father knew that the dog must have been injured somewhere, and that it was not an ordinary small animal that had bitten the dog, but if it had been an ordinary small animal, with the agility and strength of three hunting dogs, he would have caught them and brought them back.

But why did the dog run so far away, it should not be the reason for hunger, the hunting dog is a specially trained dog, only the master's order is obeyed, and it will never leave the owner half a step for no reason, especially when it has just come to a new place full of crises, then there is only one possibility, when everyone is busy, the dog found a huge danger close at hand, and even did not have time to tell the owner to attack, and the unknown animal was chased by the dog for a long distance at first due to timidity, and then found that the owner of the dog did not chase together, so he turned around and fought with the dog。

A life-and-death struggle came, and the three dogs were lucky enough to pick up a life, and returned to the cave where the owner was by strong perseverance, which shows the deep attachment of the dog to the owner.

Seeing the dogs come back to life, the father and children are happy, and the dogs are happy to roll on the ground to amuse their owners.

The father took a son, and came to the halfway point of the mountainside to dig the height of the mouse hole, and found a kind of thunder tree, the shape of the tree is between the shrub and the tree, there is a person to be high, the branches are fine, and the whole body exudes a fragrance, and its green seeds can be used by children to play in the summer.

The specific method is to prepare a piece of bitter bamboo that is slightly longer than the chopsticks for later use - because the bitter bamboo is slender and uniform - and then use a chopstick for backup, the chopsticks are slightly shorter than the bamboo tube and one hand to support the head. Hit the thick end of the chopsticks into a bitter bamboo tube, and scrape the other end of the chopsticks with a knife until it can be inserted into the bamboo tube just right, and can enter and exit smoothly. Put the fresh thunderwood seeds into the bitter bamboo tube, push forward with chopsticks until the chopsticks are all submerged in the bamboo tube, and then push another seed, and wait for the second seed to be pushed by the chopsticks to half the depth of the bamboo tube, the seed in front of it is quickly squeezed out of the bamboo tube due to the high-intensity air pressure between the two seeds, and shoots out, and makes a loud "bang" sound. The juice of the ejaculated seeds is squeezed out, and the juice forms a cloud of smoke during high-speed movement, and the seeds hurt when hit at close range, making adults feel unbearable pain, which becomes the favorite game for children.