Chapter 11

Doug really wished for a large draft animal, but the only one available, besides humans, was the dog. A few dogs were living in various villages before the plague struck, but he didn't know where to find any at this time. He asked all of the hunters to be on the look out for any dogs that they could find. Doug had a little trouble getting through to the hunters that he wanted the dogs alive and not ready for the stew pot. Most of them couldn't figure out what good a live dog was, but were willing to go along with Doug, since he had yet to steer them wrong.

It took nearly 3 months before a dog was found, but it turned out to be a bonanza. A whole pack was found to be living a few miles away; there were too many to bring into town at one time, so Doug set out to capture a few. He needed adult males at this stage, so he had a couple of helpers join him when he went "dog hunting." They carried pieces of meat to use as bait, and Doug showed them how to approach the dogs with the meat to gain their trust. A few males were easy to entice with the bait, so they returned to Doug's Town with 5 dogs after only a few days of trying.

Before leaving Doug's Town, Doug had built a pen for the dogs, since they had to be acclimated to human company. The children were particularly attracted to the dogs, and the dogs recognized that the children were no threat, especially when they brought meat treats for their favorite dogs. Soon the dogs were accepted by the humans and vice versa, so Doug was ready to begin training the dogs to pull the small wagons. Eventually, he might organize a dog team to pull a larger wagon, but Doug was willing to start off at a small scale to get the idea established.

The children were invaluable in this phase of training the dogs, since both humans and animals made a game of it. Once the dogs got the idea of what was wanted, they seemed to enjoy pulling the wagons because of all of the joy it brought their human companions. Within 6 months, Doug had his stable of reliable draft animals, and they set about training every dog they could catch. By the next summer, dogs as valuable draft animals would be a common place idea, and it would be time to try for dog teams to pull the larger wagons.

At first, Doug had just looped a flexible harness over the dog to use to pull the wagons, but he soon rigged a miniature version of the rigid horse collar for the dog harness. This significantly increased the load that the dog could pull, since it put the load on its shoulders and removed it from its neck. Eventually, Doug hoped to start a breeding program to try to produce even larger dogs, but he settled for what he had at the moment for his current work.

During this time, new recruits for the town showed up occasionally and were incorporated into the community. Once they arrived and were indoctrinated into the luxuries of apartments heated by warm air from ducts and flush toilets, they were Doug's Town's most ardent supporters. A few even went so far as to recruit relatives from other villages to join them in Doug's Town. Thus, the adult population of Doug's Town grew at a rate faster than anticipated, and they were running out of living space. It became obvious that they were either going to have to move or else going to have to build more housing.

Doug realized that they were going to have to enlarge Doug's Town, since they needed to gather up enough people to insure survival during the period of ice. The problem they were going to have was keeping warm enough, assuming that they could feed themselves. Doug did some more calculations and decided that he had been too pessimistic in his estimate of how much food that they could store. They could easily stand to double the population of Doug's Town if they could find the space.

This expansion needed to be deeper into the mountain to cut down on the heat requirements. If they could go deep enough, the mass of earth would protect them from the worst of the cold, and their heat pumps would be entirely adequate for the heating they needed. They would need power for the heat pumps, but they could solve that problem after they had the living space they needed. Doug had some of the spare manpower start an exploratory shaft directly into the mountain. They had gone only about 50 feet when they ran into a small cave that extended back into the mountain like a passageway.

With lighted torches in hand, Doug led a team farther into the cave. They only had to travel about 65 feet before coming to a monstrous cavern. The air in the cavern appeared to be fresh, and there was a definite breeze stirring the flames of their torches. They could hear the sound of rushing water off to their right, so there must be a source of water within the cavern. The floor of the cavern was remarkably flat, and there were few stalagmites, so the floor was usable over all of its extent that they could see. They started in the direction of the sound of the running water and were surprised to find that they had to climb two ledges before they reached a large pool. They had to climb nearly 40 feet to reach a wall holding back this large pool of water.

They arbitrarily walked to their right, following the edge of the water. Before long, they came to a wall that looked like it was one of the cavern boundaries. As far as they could see in either direction, this wall ran from floor to ceiling, and near the top of the wall, about 7 feet above the surface of the water, there was a large waterfall pushing hundreds of gallons of water into the pool every minute. There was so much flowing water that it could be a major underground river. They could not walk any farther this way, and they turned around to walk in the other direction. The torches were running low, so Doug sent two of the men back to the storehouse to fetch some more.

Meanwhile, the remaining men looked for the outlet from the pool. It had to be a large outlet, judging from the amount of water pouring in. They had walked almost all the way around the pool before they found the outlet. It was a sizable waterfall dropping almost to the level of the main cavern floor where there was another large pool. They scrambled down to the lower pool and looked for its outlet. It was another waterfall, but only about 4 feet high this time. The stream from this waterfall ran into a hole in the wall and disappeared. Who knows where it eventually came out?

Doug was overjoyed—that middle waterfall represented a tremendous amount of potential energy if only some of it was harnessed with a water wheel. More exploring was certainly needed, but this cavern looked like the answer to all their needs for living space. There seemed to be plenty of room for housing, as well as all of the storage space they could need. There might even be room for a small manufacturing operation if they could find some metal.

Doug called a meeting that evening of his advisory council and told them all of the wonderful discoveries that had been made that day. The council members had already heard of the find, but they could not appreciate what a tremendous discovery it was until Doug had explained what could be done with the cavern. There would be room for at least 1000 people without crowding, and plenty of useful storage space. The single entrance they had made would be ideal for keeping out unwanted visitors, either animal or human pests. As far as Doug could tell, the only shortcoming of the cavern would be the lack of light. He would start looking for a solution to that problem.

Doug spent the next day conducting tours of the cavern so that people would know what he was talking about when he brought up the subject of moving there. That evening, he called a meeting of the entire community and tried to explain in detail what he had in mind about the new living space. He did not mention the coming cold weather, yet, because he did not want to divert the people into what was currently a side issue.

The very good question was brought up about building materials. Somebody complained that it would take a hell of a lot of work to cut and finish the stone blocks needed for the new apartments. Doug agreed, much to the speaker's surprise; he had hoped somebody else would think of that, so he would not have to bring it up. Doug explained about building an entire house from adobe bricks which they could make outdoors and haul into the cavern as they were needed.