One of Feather’s skin bags I took, and fastened it to my skin belt, that I might not be bothered with the carrying of it, and, besides it, only my flint spear, the long, strong staff of which I thought might aid me in my leaping or in balancing upon the tussocks. Across the plain I went until I reached the eastern side of the great marsh, in the midst of which rose the island--not very high, but showing green with its shrubs against the dreary gray stretch of little ponds and black mud and brown rushes which lay between it and where I stood. It was true, as the old man had told me, that there stretched irregularly across this space a line of little uprising mounds and tussocks, upon some of which were stunted willows growing, but they were not as close together as I could have liked, and all seemed desolate and threatening. However, the sun shown brightly, and some of the scummy pools were glittering in a way, and I felt a little braver than I would have had the day been gloomy, and so set my teeth together and started to make the passage. There was shallow water between me and the nearest uprearing hummock; but I felt the bottom with my spear, and found it to be safe enough, and waded out easily to the hummock, which was gray and grassy, and firm beneath my feet. The next was farther away; but again I felt the bottom with my spear, and again I waded, and once more landed easily. And so from hummock to hummock I waded, sometimes leaping when the dry places were near together, always feeling my way carefully with my spear, but going forward rapidly. I laughed then at the foolish fears of the people of the village. “It is but an old tale,” I shouted aloud in my glee. “It is but a fearsome story invented by the old men and women. A child might wade to the island.” I was within a hundred yards of it. I leaped to the next hummock and across it, and again thrust down my spear. The water was shallow now all the way to the shore. But, though I thrust it in to the butt, I could reach no solid bottom through the black ooze. It clung to the spear, and strength was required even in pulling out the slender shaft.