In the morning, Ka-Ma's first thought was to find water. Even the shell-fish they ate for breakfast did not satisfy their burning thirst. They went up to the higher ground of the shore, but the sand was hot and dry, with no sign of a stream anywhere. Only a few low bushes and trees grew about, and they tried to relieve their thirst by chewing the tender green leaves.
Mother Nature, who saw the danger they were in, called Wind and Rain to her and told them to make a storm. When noon came, the waves of the ocean were dashing against the shore with a roar like thunder, and the rain poured down in torrents. Ka-Ma and Tula lay on the ground, with their mouths open, but the few drops which fell upon their tongues was not enough to satisfy them.
When the storm was over, however, and the sun came out again, they found many pools in hollow places in the rocks, and from these they drank their fill. Then, feeling stronger, they went back farther and farther from the ocean, until they found a clump of trees, with coarse grass growing about, and a spring of fresh water forming a little pool. The place where these trees grew was on a fairly high hill, overlooking the ocean, and here Ka-Ma decided to make their home. He knew, of course, that they could never again go back to the valley.
He had always been used to living in a cave in the rocks, until now, but here there were no rocks, except those which jutted out along the seashore. So he built a strong hut of saplings and rushes. First he cut with his stone axe two posts, higher than his head, and as thick around as his arm. At the top of each of these posts was a fork, where the sapling had branched into limbs. He dug two deep holes in the ground with his spear, and set the two posts in them, pounding down the earth about them until it was firm and hard. Then he cut a third pole, and laid it across the top of the other two, its ends resting in the two forks. Tula, using rope made of plaited marsh grass, bound the cross-pole firmly to the posts.
When this was done, Ka-Ma cut many more long slender saplings, and placing one end of each on the ground, rested the other end against the cross or ridge pole, to which Tula tied them fast. These long slanting poles on each side, from the ridge pole to the ground, made a sort of tent. Then they gathered great bundles of the long tough rushes which grew in the salt marsh along the river bank, and wove these in and out of the slanting poles, until they had made a sort of ragged frame like coarse basket work. On top of this they laid more rushes, running the same way as the poles, that is, from the ridge pole to the ground, until the roof was many inches thick. Over these they tied more poles, to hold the rushes in place. One end of the little hut they blocked up with earth and brush; the other they left open, for a door, so that they could crawl inside and keep dry when it rained. Ka-Ma was very proud of his hut; he had built smaller ones like it, with his companions from the valley, when hunting trips kept them away from the caves for several days, but he knew this one was to be his home, so he took great pains to make it large and strong.
EARLY STONE WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS