Chapter Four.
The Journey.
One.
All the rest of the day they followed the river, looking for a place where it was shallow enough for them to cross without serious danger of drowning. They did not know how to swim. For their supper they had only the rabbit. They ate it sitting on the bluff, with their backs to each other so they could watch in every direction for signs of danger. When the shadow of the bluff grew long across the meadows, Limberleg said:—
“Darkness will soon be upon us. Where are we going to sleep?”
“We won’t sleep in a cave anyway,” said Hawk-Eye, “even if we could find one. We might find the cave bear at home in it. In that case, we should probably spend the night in his stomach, and I am sure that would be too crowded to be comfortable.”
“We can’t spend the night on the ground surely,” said Limberleg. “Or we might wake up in the stomach of old Sabre-tooth instead.” This was just their way of joking, because I never heard of any one waking up after being swallowed, except Jonah and Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. And of course, this story happened long before either Jonah or Red Riding Hood or her grandmother did.
Hawk-Eye took out his flint knife. I almost said he took it out of his pocket, because it seems queer to think of a man without pockets. Of course, he didn’t really have any, though. The flint knife was fastened to his belt by a thong.
“Go and find all the grape-vines you can,” he said. Limberleg and the Twins flew back into the forest to search for vines. There were plenty of them, and they pulled up a great heap of long, tough stems, and