The Stone Axe of Burkamukk

by Mary Grant Bruce

"Don't do that!" she said boldly. "We are all in the same fix together, and we will not be beaten by you. If you strike one of us we will all push you off into the deep water—and this time we will not pull you back. Therefore, you had better be warned."

Murla looked so fierce as she spoke that Karwin stopped the hand he was lifting to strike the woman, and scratched his head with it instead. It was quite a new experience for a blackfellow to be ordered about by a lubra, and you can fancy that he did not like it. Still, the other women were clearly prepared to back up Murla; and he did not forget how he had struggled in the water at the edge of the bank before they pulled him in. So, instead of hitting the woman, he growled unpleasantly and waded to one end of the log, where he sat down and gave himself up to very bad temper. This time, however, he kept it inside him, and so it did not hurt anyone.

The sisters looked at Murla with great respect, but Murla only laughed at them. She was a pretty woman, for a lubra. Her hair was long and very black and curly, and she was much fairer than most of her tribe, with a fine flat nose and a merry smile. None of her teeth had been knocked out, which happens to many lubras, and so there were no holes in her smile. She was little more than a girl, but she was tall and strong, and very clever. And she was not at all afraid of Karwin.

For two days the four castaways sat on their log and watched the flood. Once it rose higher, when a fresh mass of snow was washed from the distant hill-tops, and came down to swell the river; and they thought their log was again about to be carried down-stream, and gave themselves up for lost, for they knew that now they were too weak to hold on for very long. But the log held firm upon the bank, and the danger passed. It was very cold. They plastered themselves all over with a thick coating of mud, hoping that when it dried it would keep them warmer; and this helped them against the cold wind, though it was not at all comfortable in other ways.

But worst of all was hunger. On the second day they began to break pieces off the log and chew them, and that, as you can imagine, did very little good. Karwin became more and more bad-tempered, and looked at the women as if it was their fault. Also, he was very sore from the prickles, and the two sisters and Murla spent quite a long time in picking them out of his back, though he was only a little grateful to them.

On the second day, the water began to go down. The river still roared and raced past them, bearing on its breast all kinds of things: trees, logs, bushes, interlaced fragments of ruined wurleys, drowned animals, and even dead blacks; but its water slipped back from the bank where their log lay, until it left them on a little mud island, with the brown sea still rippling about them in every direction. The tops of the trees came farther and farther out of the water, and new tree-tops came into view, with their boughs laden with mud. Often they saw little living animals in the brushwood that went drifting by them in the river; and nearly all the floating rubbish was alive with snakes that had taken refuge from the flood. Sometimes the brushwood would break up in the current, and they would see the snakes swimming wildly until the river carried them out of sight. Two came ashore on their island, and Karwin killed them with a stick he had taken out of the river. They ate them, and felt a little better. But they knew that they must soon die if they did not get more food. They watched the river anxiously, hoping that it might bring them something else.

Towards evening, they were gazing up-stream, when Murla cried out suddenly.

"What is that?" she said, pointing to a dark spot on the water.

"It is a bush," said one of the women, in a dull voice.

"No, I am certain it is an animal," Murla said. "It is floating towards us. Let us try to get it."