nothing remained but to make off
before the men arose, and to crawl away to hide ourselves in the woods
again.

What a wretched night that was! Hitherto I do not think that I had
thought much of Kahwa. I had taken her as a matter of course, played
with her and quarrelled with her by turns, without stopping to think
what life might be without her. But now I thought of it, and as I lay
awake through the morning I realized how much she had been to me, and
wondered what the men would do with her. Most of all I wondered why they
should have wanted to catch her at all. We had no wish to do them any
harm. We were nobody's enemy; least of all was little Kahwa. Why could
not men live in peace with us as we were willing to live in peace with
them?

Long before it was dusk next evening we were in the woods as near to the
men's houses as we dared to go, but we could hear no sound of my
sister's voice. There appeared to be only one man about the place, and
he was at work chopping wood, until just at sunset, when the other three
men came back from down the stream, and we noticed that they carried
long ropes slung over their arms. Were those the ropes with which they
had dragged Kahwa the night before? If so, had they again, while we
slept, dragged her off somewhere else? We feared it must be so.

Impatiently we waited until it was dark enough to trust ourselves in the
open near the houses, and then we soon knew that our fears were
justified. The door of the house in which Kahwa had been shut was open;
the men went in and out of it, and evidently Kahwa was not there. Nor
was there any trace of her about the buildings. So under my father's
guidance we started on the path down the stream by which the three men
had returned, and it was not long before we found the marks of where she
had struggled against her captors, and in places the scent of her trail
was still perceptible, in spite of the strong man-smell which pervaded
the beaten path.

So we followed the trail down until we came to more houses; then made a
circuit and followed on again, still finding evidence that she had
passed. Soon we came to more houses, at ever shortening intervals, until
the bank of the stream on both sides was either continuously occupied by
houses or showed traces of men being constantly at work there. And
beyond was the town itself. It was of no use for us to go farther. In
the town we could see lights streaming from many of the buildings, and
the shou