There had been a wide and deep creek close beside the caves in which our forefathers dwelt, and it had been a great barrier between the rocky country and good hunting grounds on the other side. One day my own great grandfather, when a young man, slipped upon a wet stone and fell into the water and was swept away and they did not even look for him, for in those days he who fell into deep water was drowned, and what good to seek for that which was gone? But my great grandfather caught hold of a piece of light driftwood, and though it would not lift him entirely, yet, with his chin upon it, his head was sustained above the water until he reached a shallow place where he could wade ashore. He came back to the caves and beat my great grandmother sorely, because she was eating when he returned. He brought back with him the bit of driftwood and thenceforth played in the water with it, tying it beneath his chin and making great strokes with his arms and legs until there came a day when he found, to his wonder, that he did not need the driftwood to sustain him, but could go about in the water as did the otter and the beaver, though never in a way to equal them. And others tried to do as he did, and, though some were drowned, in the end it came that all the Cave people, even the children, could swim. A great advantage was this in the hunt or on a journey of any kind. And among us all, at this time, my mate, my slender Otter, was swiftest in the water. So her name had come to her. We travelled far this day and crossed many streams and I was nearly spent, when after nightfall we came upon ledges of tumbled rocks uprising near the river and in the midst of a dense wood, and there entered our own cave without arousing any of the people in the other caves. It was not a large cave, but was most comfortable. There was a great bed of moss covered with skins beside one of the brown walls, and from an ash-filled hollow at one side Otter uncovered still glowing embers. In front of this hollow were a lot of stones laid carefully, whereon meat could be roasted. Just inside the cave’s entrance, but not large enough to entirely fill it, was a round rock of sandstone, not too heavy, which Otter alone rolled into the opening. We sought the couch of moss and skins and slept at once, for each of us was weary.