One day, as he was working with a very thick bar which he had rubbed, it seemed to him that it moved without his touching it. Then he took a vessel of water, put a cork in the water and the iron bar on top of the cork.
“Look, look, it’s turning!” cried the boy.
And so it was. It turned one end to the north and the other to the south. Two-Legs shifted it, but it turned back to the same position as soon as he let go. He experimented with the other bars, but they did exactly the same. One day, he laid two side by side, each on its own cork, and saw that the north end of the one and the south end of the other attracted each other. When he brought the two north ends or the two south ends together, they at once pushed each other away.
“Look, look!” cried the boy.
Two-Legs sat, plunged in thought, and looked. Then he made a little bar, rubbed it with the lodestone and put it on a pivot, so that it could turn easily as it pleased:
“Go and give this thing to the skipper,” he said. “When he goes far out to sea and cannot sight land anywhere, he will always be able to see by it which is north and which is south and direct his course accordingly.”
Thus Two-Legs invented the compass.
But he forgot it as soon as the boy had gone with it. He thought how much stronger the spirit was in the iron than in the other things from which he had produced it and pondered how he should make the spirit obey him with all his power.
“I found the stone that did it,” said the boy, when he returned. “Give it a name, Father Two-Legs.”