Then all went well with her; and, when she returned to the cave, she carried proudly with her the long, slender, three-stranded cord. After they had eaten, Black Bow took the string from the child, and began playing with it, and testing its strength. He wondered at it. He had not thought that the marsh grass so plaited could be so strong. He called to me, and I went to his cave, and we considered the thing together. Why could we not use this queer device to bind things together, as we used the twisted sinews of the wild creatures we had killed? We learned from the child how to plait the tough grass, as did the women of the clan; and henceforth, because of these cords, a new convenience existed in the huts and caves. The only fault with the marsh-grass cord was that, tough as it was, it was not quite strong enough for many uses to which it might be put. “If it were only bigger,” said Black Bow to me as we talked of the matter; and then, all at once, there came to him a great thought. If three of the strands of the marsh grass could be braided so, why could not three of the cords already made be plaited in the same way, and so on to any size? We worked together, and when the sun went down that night we held in our hands a great braid--one he and I could not break, though, each taking one end, we strained against it with all our force. We owned a rope of might. And other ropes we made--some from the inner bark we peeled from the linden tree; but, in the end, the marsh grass proved the best. It was queer, but always, it seems to me, when one good thing is found, there comes another. It may be it is because the first one makes us think. There was much use for our ropes. We could tie our boats to the bank with them, needing no longer always to drag the craft ashore; huts could be bound about with them to resist the wind storms better; and there were many other uses for them. Then came the last and greatest thing, for which I gave Black Bow much credit. In Black Bow’s cave were always ropes, for Humpback had learned to make them strong, ever getting the longest and best of the grass, and plaiting carefully and deftly, and they sufficed to buy much fish, flesh and skins, and so lessened the labours of Black Bow and Loon. A rare creature was Humpback.