“And the mound was cleared away from top to bottom, and very hard work this was; for it was solidly built of tree-trunks laid in rows like the sheaves in a corn-stack: there were hundreds of trees, though none of them very large. Then there were piles driven in upright to hold the others together, and great stones that had been sunk to keep the beams down: and at the bottom of all were bundles of brushwood and more large stones, which had been put down first for the foundations. And if you bear in mind that the people of the lake-village had had to chop down all those trees and lop off the branches with their stone axes, which, as Joe reminded us, were not the best sort of cutting tools, and bring every faggot and every stone and every beam across the water in their canoes, you will see it must have been a great piece of work for them. The farmer and his men had a stiff job to pull the mound to pieces and clear it away; but these old people, we may be sure, had a much harder task in building it.” Joe said that, perhaps, they floated out the tree-trunks on the water--that would be easier than putting them on the canoes. “That’s right,” said Uncle John. “When they had got the foundation of stones and faggots laid, they made rafts of the trees and towed them out and loaded them up with stones and so sank them upon the foundations; and then laid more trunks on these, until they got to the right height above the water.” “Did you find any other things in the rubbish heap?” David asked. “We found some bone harpoons for spearing fish, and a number of objects of stone, such as weights for sinking fishing nets, and some that were used, perhaps, as whorls for twisting thread in spinning, and some beads of jet and a number of bone needles; but not many arrows, and only two or three axe-heads, one of which was broken.” “Why didn’t you find more weapons?” David asked; “I expect the people had many more, hadn’t they?” “I expect they had,” said Uncle John, “but I’m afraid I can’t tell you why no more were found. Perhaps the people went away to live somewhere else and took their belongings with them.” “I wish we had been there when you were digging at the mound,” Dick said. “I suppose there isn’t another one anywhere about?” “No,” said Uncle John. “I’m afraid there isn’t another one.” _Chapter the Twenty-sixth_ _THE STORY OF TIG: How the Old Chief Died_ NOW it happened, when they all came home again from the hunting camp, that the old chief of the village fell ill. Caerig was his name, but the people always called him Old Chief, for he had been the head man of the village for many years, and they all honoured him because he had been a clever hunter in the past days and a brave fighter. The women of the village attended to him in his sickness, and tried to cure him with the medicines made from wild plants which they gathered in the woods; but the medicines did no good, and Old Chief grew worse.