Not until they had learned to fashion cane rafts rudely strung or bound together with strips of bark, were the Cave People able to ride against the current of the river. But these cane rafts were so light that they were able, with little effort, to paddle up stream, if they hugged the banks of the river where the current was weak.
When the men of the Hairy Folk, who dwelt far up the river, descended upon the Cave People and sought to take away their women and their daughters, the Cave People gave them blow for blow and, in the end, drove the intruders back into the wood.
And the secret of the matter was a strange sickness that had came upon the women of the Hairy Folk, and had stricken them with an unknown illness. The women of the Hairy Folk had died in great pain, one by one, till only the old and unattractive ones remained to the tribe. And the young men of the Hairy Folk went forth to seek new wives.
Now Run Fast was the greatest coward among the tribe of the Cave People, but after the Hairy Folk were driven away, he felt that a great strength had come into his heart.
Much hair covered his face, and his limbs were as lithe as the branches of the willow, shining in the sun like bars of burnished copper. But his courage was like the water of cool springs, running from him always.
For this reason he had never been able to win for himself a wife. Stripling lads had routed him and taken the young women he loved, and so he remained alone in the tribe.
Deep in his heart Run Fast knew that it would be by brave deeds alone that he could gain a wife. And it was the laugh of the Cave People and the scorn of the young women, as well as the hunger in his heart, that drove Run Fast one day along the river bank.
He bore only his bone weapon, split at the end like a strong javelin. At his side, and beyond, down past him, flowed the great river and as he ran, he kept close to the bank for he knew that there only would he be able to elude the fierce hyenas and the black bear.
It was the first time Run Fast had ever traveled forth from the Cave People alone; there was a trembling in his strong limbs, and upon the breaking of a twig, or the falling of a branch, he started forth closer to the river.
And the waters rushed continually past him with a mad roar and he knew that he had only to throw himself into the current to be borne swiftly back in the direction whence he had come. Of this one thing Run Fast had no fear, for he had been accustomed to the water for many seasons.