an-like to undertake it as the working out of a problem.
I roamed disconsolately up and down the bank, keeping as close to him
in his involuntary travels as I could, while he wailed and cried till
it was a wonder that he did not bring down upon us every hunting animal
within a mile.

The hours passed. The sun climbed overhead and began its descent to
the west. The light wind died down and left Lop-Ear on his log floating
around a hundred feet away. And then, somehow, I know not how, Lop-Ear
made the great discovery. He began paddling with his hands. At first
his progress was slow and erratic. Then he straightened out and began
laboriously to paddle nearer and nearer. I could not understand. I sat
down and watched and waited until he gained the shore.

But he had learned something, which was more than I had done. Later in
the afternoon, he deliberately launched out from shore on the log. Still
later he persuaded me to join him, and I, too, learned the trick of
paddling. For the next several days we could not tear ourselves away
from the slough. So absorbed were we in our new game that we almost
neglected to eat. We even roosted in a nearby tree at night. And we
forgot that Red-Eye existed.

We were always trying new logs, and we learned that the smaller the log
the faster we could make it go. Also, we learned that the smaller the
log the more liable it was to roll over and give us a ducking. Still
another thing about small logs we learned. One day we paddled our
individual logs alongside each other. And then, quite by accident, in
the course of play, we discovered that when each, with one hand and
foot, held on to the other's log, the logs were steadied and did not
turn over. Lying side by side in this position, our outside hands and
feet were left free for paddling. Our final discovery was that this
arrangement enabled us to use still smaller logs and thereby gain
greater speed. And there our discoveries ended. We had invented the most
primitive catamaran, and we did not have sense enough to know it. It
never entered our heads to lash the logs together with tough vines or
stringy roots. We were content to hold the logs together with our hands
and feet.

It was not until we got over our first enthusiasm for navigation and had
begun to return to our tree-shelter to sleep at night, that we found the
Swift One. I saw her first, gathering young acorns from the branches of
a large oak near our tree. She was very timid. At