But they drew nearer and nearer; the old bird turned his head
uneasily from side to side; it was strange that they should venture
so far out.

At last they stopped, and the men set to work with spades and axes.
The raven could see that they were struggling with a huge root
which they wanted to loosen.

"They will soon tire of that," thought the raven.

But they did not tire, they hacked with their axes--the sharpest
the raven had ever seen--they dug and hauled, and at last they
actually got the huge stem turned over on its side, so that the
whole tough net-work of roots stood straight up in the air.

The small boys wearied of digging canals between the water-holes.
"Look at that great big crow over there," said one of them.

They armed themselves with a stone in each hand, and came sneaking
forward behind the hummocks.

The raven saw them quite well. But that was not the worst thing it
saw.

Not even out on the morass was antiquity to be left in peace. He
had now seen that even the gray tree-roots, older than the oldest
raven, and firmly inwoven into the deep, bottomless morass--that
even they had to yield before the sharp axes.