ises reached us--shouts and stamping; and then,
mixed with the other sounds, I clearly heard Kahwa's voice. She was
crying in anger and pain, as if she was fighting, and fighting
desperately. A minute later we were near enough to see, and a miserable
sight it was that we saw.

Out in the middle of the berry-patch, in the brilliant moonlight, was
poor Kahwa with four men. They had fastened ropes around her, and two of
them at the end of one rope on one side, and two at the end of one on
the other, were dragging her across the middle of the patch. She was
fighting every inch of the way, but her struggles against four men were
useless, and slowly, yard by yard, she was being dragged away from us.

But if she could not fight four men, could not we? There were four of
us, and I said so to my father. But he only grunted, and reminded me of
the thunder-sticks. It was only too true. Without the thunder-sticks we
should have had no difficulty in meeting them, but with those weapons in
their hands it would only be sacrificing our lives in vain to attempt a
rescue. So there we had to stand and watch, my mother all the time
whimpering and my father growling, and sitting up on his haunches and
rubbing his nose in his chest. We dared not show ourselves in the open,
so we followed the edge of the patch, keeping alongside of the men, but
in the shadow of the trees. They pulled Kahwa across the middle of the
patch into the woods on the other side, and down to the riverbank,
where, we knew, there began an open path which the men had beaten in
going to and from their houses half a mile farther on. Here there were
several houses in a bunch together. Inside one of these they shut her,
and then all went in to another house themselves. We stayed around, and
two or three times later on we saw one or more of the men come out and
stand for a while at Kahwa's door listening; but at last they came out
no more, and we saw the lights go out in their house, and we knew that
the men had gone to sleep.

Then we crept down cautiously till we could hear Kahwa whimpering and
growling through the walls. My mother spoke to her, and there was
silence for a moment, and then, when mother spoke again, the poor little
thing recognized her voice and squealed with delight. But what could we
do? We talked to her for awhile, and tried to scratch away the earth
from round the wall, in the hope of getting at her; but it was all
useless, and as the day began to dawn