“We can never at this rate,” said Koree, “construct boats enough to cross this water. We have already toiled many days and only one man has yet crossed and returned.”
“Even if we could get our boats ready,” replied Pounder, “we could not rely on them to carry us safely across. Duco waited long for a good wind, and when it came it blowed him in many directions before landing him on the opposite shore. If we entered such vessels, we would be scattered and lost.”
“Let us go back,” said Oko, “or we will lose all.”
Koree at this moment observed that several of the logs had floated together, and were being driven about in a cluster. The boys were amusing themselves by jumping from one to another, and all were being carried along by the flood.
“If we could fasten those logs together,” he said, “they would hold many of us, and by making several such collections we could all get across.”
This was a new idea which was immediately acted upon by the Ammi. It did not take our early ancestors long to adopt a suggestion or introduce an improvement. From the thought to the act was only a step, and, though most steps were failures, they made so many that occasionally they achieved a success.
“Collect all the logs,” he said, “and get willows and bark to fasten them together.”
They were, therefore, soon busy collecting the logs that were in the water, and rolling others from the land with their clubs, which they used as levers, thus learning incidentally an important mechanical principle. With their hatchets of flint they chopped off branches, shaped the timber into the desired form, and even felled trees for their bark or trunks. It was obvious that a raft would soon be constructed and set afloat.
They had shortly before built in a similar manner a small bridge near their dwellings to enable them to cross to a dry point in the Swamp; and, seeing a flood carry it away, (when it floated on the water), they were not wholly unprepared to see this new raft also float.