At last, after thinking about the matter for a long time, he found a way. First he took two long, stout poles of seasoned wood, such as the tribe used for making the handles of their spears. These two wooden poles he laid side by side on the ground, and then bound their ends tightly together with leather thongs. When this was done, he pulled the two poles apart in the middle, bending them like two bows until they were about three feet apart. A stick of this length, placed between the two poles in the middle, kept them apart. He now had a strong framework, very much the shape of a long, narrow leaf, pointed at each end, and widest in the middle. When this was done, Ma-Ya got another pole about three feet longer than the framework, and bent the two ends of it upward at right angles to the main part of the pole. These bent ends, which were about eighteen inches long each, did not bend upward sharply, like the upright leg of the letter "L," but sloped upward on a curve, like the sides of the letter "U." Then he fastened the two uprights to the ends of his framework, with the straight part of the pole eighteen inches below it. This gave him the main framework of his boat. Then he took many strong slender reeds and bent them U-shaped, fastening the middle or bottom of the "U" to the bottom pole, and the two ends to the two upper or side poles. Because these side poles were widest apart in the middle, the U-shaped reeds were wide and flat there, but toward the two ends of the boat, the "U" shapes became narrower and narrower until at the ends they were shaped like a narrow "V." These bent reeds formed the ribs of the boat, and were held in place by wrappings of strong cord. When they were all in place, Ma-Ya took more reeds and wove them in and out lengthwise of the boat, between the ribs, making a coarse basket-work, just as he had done in making his coracle. The framework of the boat, when done, looked like a coarse wicker basket made in the shape of a canoe. For a covering, Ma-Ya used the back part of the hide of a great walrus he and some of his companions had killed upon the rocks. This hide, while still moist and soft, was placed upon the wicker framework and drawn over the upper edges, or gunwales, of the boat and fastened with thongs. At either end the hide was stretched tightly upward, and bound to the tops of the two posts or uprights at stem and stern. There were no openings or seams in the hide whatever, so that there could be no leaks. When the hide had become dry, it stretched tightly over the frame, and became very hard and tough, yet the canoe was so light that Ma-Ya could lift it in his two hands. He placed it in the water, and with a paddle such as the sea people used for their rafts, climbed aboard.