he could make an axe-head with an edge which would cut clean through a
copper ring as though it was but cheese; next, when he was in a hurry
to cool it off, and for that reason put it into water, he found that
the metal became so hard that he had no tool which could scratch it,
no bronze which it would not cut sheer through; and in all the
Forestland no chief was so happy as the headman of that village! Axes
that would cut wood as never axe cut before! Weapons which would not
break nor grow blunt at the first blow! What treasures!

Every fragment of those heavy stones was brought to Umpleton. They dug
deep into the hillside for them. They made so many tools that although
both stone, copper and bronze ones were still in use yet they were
used only by those who could not afford the better ones. And in some
such way began what we now call the Iron Age; and at last, one joyous
day, two young boys found a mass of metal so heavy that they could not
lift it; and by the carvings on it Umpleton found that it was indeed
the treasure of his family for which he had searched so long, and the
search for which had been the cause of his present fortune. Once more
the Iron Star was in the hut of the son of a Cave Man.




SPARK IV.

HOW THE STAR WENT TO THE NORTHLAND.


The Iron Age! What a ringing, resonant sound, stern and grim! There is
nothing in it of the dull "tunk" of stone, or the blither "clink" of