Wondering were the other Cave men when we put our boat in the lagoon and they saw how great indeed it was. Many days we practised, and learned to paddle, alone or together, and to turn the boat this way or that as we willed. We might, we thought, even venture upon the deep river, but we were not sure of that yet. Some day, though, we would make the venture; though far down the river, so the old men said their fathers had told them, were a strange people, who lived upon the shell-fish they dug from the sands of the shores and who were very fierce, and slew all strangers, though they had no bows, but only spears and axes and stone knives. Of all these things Thin Legs and I talked much, but we had no thought of going upon the deep river at this time. For a long time we used the boat, going where we would in the lagoon, and spearing the fish, though many we lost, because our spears would not hold them well; and great hunting had I in the beech and oak woods on the farther side, which we could not reach so easily before, and where the bush birds, and the cock that struts and calls, and all the creatures that feed upon the nuts and berries, were not so fearful as those on the side of the lagoon where were the caves, because they had not been hunted so often. Close upon these creatures I would creep, and drive my arrows through them; and we would come back to the caves with much meat. And there was none among the hunters who matched with me, Scar, the strong bowman. Then another great discovery. I had shot and killed a porcupine, and went back to the caves with him most carelessly; and because there was more than I could eat--he was a very fat porcupine--I called to Thin Legs to come and cook and eat him with me. I was careless, and one of the spines, the things upon the back of the porcupine, slipped into my thumb, and I could not pull it out again from the flesh below the first joint. Thin Legs tried to help me get the piece of porcupine out of my hurt thumb; but it would not come back, though we pulled, and it hurt me, and I yelled. Then suddenly I pushed it--I don’t know why I pushed it--and it went easily and smoothly. Thin Legs took hold of the other end of it, and pulled the great quill through without hurting me at all. The next day we took our little boat, and rowed up and down all around the edges in the yellow, shallow water, and, with our flint spears, speared many of the fishes; but many of them slid off--not all of them, because sometimes we used to toss them swiftly into our boat or to the bank. But the most of them slid off; and though we were very keen of eye and deft of hand, Thin Legs and I, we never got the half of them. But something came into my mind that afternoon, and I looked at Thin Legs as we lost fish after fish, and rowed to the shore with him, and sat down on a little rock, and then I asked him what it was that made the quills of the porcupine hold things so.