Loambudd brought him back to earth with a bump as she commented to Nordo, “Aye, my grandson has strength that he has not used yet, but he also has an appetite to match. He could eat your tribe out of house and home. You should try feeding him for a season—he’s a bottomless pit, that one.”

Log-a-log knew all there was to know about boats. Pikkle sat watching him as he deftly set about repairing the damaged craft. Taking a saw-edged dagger, the shrew leader cut away the damp splintered wood from the boat’s side. Working with wet clay and pine pegs, he fitted a neatly cut piece of oak into the space, bedding it with clay and boring the wood with a red-hot rapier until the pegs secured the new piece firmly. Taking a bubbling pan of pine resin from the fire, he brushed on several thick coats, rendering the whole job waterproof.

Pikkle stood back to admire the repair. “I say, good show, wot! I’ll bet the old boat’ll go as fast as the day it was built now, Log-a-thing.”

Log-a-log dipped his brush in the resin pan. “She certainly will, Pikkle my friend. This pine resin is a marvelous glue—they say that two coats of this around the mouth of a hare will stop him chattering and eating too much. Hold still now while I try it on you!”

The entire camp roared with laughter as Log-a-log chased Pikkle round the boat, brandishing the resin brush.

“Gerraway, you moldy ol’ shrewfeller,” the young hare whooped as he ducked and weaved. “Go an’ try that stuff out on old Tubbguts. He needs it more than me!”

Ashnin leaped about, cackling. “Get him, Log-a-log. That Pikkle eats more than Urthwyte an’ Tubgutt put together. I should know—it was me who served them lunch today.”

34