On the third day I had solved the problem.
Hastily gathering up every fragment of lime-stone lying near, I piled it in a cone-shaped heap and around it and over it I laid a mass of dry leaves and billets and over all such logs as I could lift. Then, striking fire with my flint and tinder I set the pile in flames.
In the morning I was rejoiced to find a heap of the purest quick-lime beneath the ashes.
By means of an empty skull of some animal of the deer family, which I found lying near, I at once began to feed the waters trickling over Bōga-Drappa’s steps with the lime.
All that day and up to the noon hour of the next, I kept the water which flowed down the stairway, milk white with the lime.
Now, however, came the greatest difficulty. From the size of the stream I realized that it would be impossible for me to stay its course by means of any dam that I could build, for a longer time than one brief half hour. But, I dared not wait too long, for the coating of lime, which, by this time I knew must have been deposited on the rocky steps, to harden in the sun.
The dam might break and undo all my work.
At high noon, when the sun was beating down the hottest, I put the last touch to my dam. I was startled to see with what rapidity the waters gathered in the basin I had built. With anxious eyes and throbbing heart, I stood at the head of Bōga-Drappa’s stair of rock and gazed up and down.
I could see no signs of drying on the black and glistening steps. One moment after another glided by. At last a faint trace of whiteness began to show itself here and there. I turned an anxious glance at the gathering waters. The frail dam seemed about to yield to the ever-increasing pressure.
In one or two places, I caught glimpses of tiny rivulets trickling through.