And all the tribe wondered and admired, and much desired such store of seed as was in the hut of old Ox and Feather. And others would do as she had done; and that year they garnered many seeds, and stored them, and when the spring came again they cleared a field on the plain close to the hillside and near the village, and made a high fence of brush about it to keep out the wild beasts at night, and there planted the seed. The grain grew and ripened, and the children guarded the field to keep away the flocks of hungry birds; and with the autumn came such store of seeds as the tribe never had owned before. The winter might be cold, and the snow lie deep, and the hunting be bad, but there would in time be no starving in the huts, for with each year the field was made larger, and the crop the greater. But old Feather joined not with the others. She but worked in her own little field, and pondered much and planted carefully. And old Ox became very feeble and died, and we carried him into the hills, and heaped many stones upon him, that the prowling beasts might not reach him, and promised Feather that some day we would lay her beside him, for so she asked us. Feather then lived alone beside her little field; but an abundance she had brought to her of fish and game, because of what she had done for all of us, and because she had such an abundance of good grain to furnish for the seeding. There was a great marsh perhaps two leagues away from where we lived, beside the river which ran beside the cliffs, and this opened on a great creek which ran into our river after it had reached the plain. In the midst of the marsh was an island with not many trees but much shrubbery upon it, and all sorts of plants and grasses. Once old Feather had gone to the island in the later autumn, when the marsh was frozen over, for it was dangerous and avoided by all at other times, and there had found, not only much millet and barley, but another seed which grew a little like the barley, but with shorter husks and prickles to it, and another kind of seed. She had gathered but little of this seed; but it had proved most toothsome and best of all seeds to eat. The wheat, she called it. Much she longed for this seed, that she might plant it in her field, and raise plants of this kind, but she was too old and tired for such a journey now, and so I, who cared for the old couple who had done so much for the clan, made promise that some day I would get it for her. And this word I did not forget.