Weight could be transferred from lead to floor-boards, and thence into joists, and thence into beams, and from beams into pillars, then down into footings, and thence into log piles whose strength derived from the 'stick' (as Dutchmen called it) between them and the mud they'd been hammered into. The final settling of accounts was there: if the 'stick' sufficed, the structure above it was a building, and if it didn't, it was a gradual avalanche . . .