the sun down out of the sky?"

Koogah interposed, and Nam-Bok went on.

"As I say, when we were near to that village a great storm blew up,
and in the night we were helpless and knew not where we were--"

"Thou hast just said the head man knew--"

"Oh, peace, Opee-Kwan! Thou art a fool and cannot understand. As I
say, we were helpless in the night, when I heard, above the roar of
the storm, the sound of the sea on the beach. And next we struck with
a mighty crash and I was in the water, swimming. It was a rock-bound
coast, with one patch of beach in many miles, and the law was that I
should dig my hands into the sand and draw myself clear of the surf.
The other men must have pounded against the rocks, for none of them
came ashore but the head man, and him I knew only by the ring on his
finger.

"When day came, there being nothing of the schooner, I turned my face
to the land and journeyed into it that I might get food and look upon
the faces of the people. And when I came to a house I was taken in and
given to eat, for I had learned their speech, and the white men are
ever kindly. And it was a house bigger than all the houses built by us
and our fathers before us."

"It was a mighty house," Koogah said, masking his unbelief with
wonder.

"And many trees went into the making of such a house," Opee-Kwan
added, taking the cue.

"That is nothing." Nam-Bok shrugged his shoulders in belittling
fashion. "As our houses are to that house, so that house was to the
houses I was yet to see."

"And they are not big men?"

"Nay; mere men like you and me," Nam-Bok answered. "I had cut a stick
that I might walk in comfort, and remembering that I was to bring
report to you, my brothers, I cut a notch in the stick for each person
who lived in that house. And I stayed there many days, and worked, for
which they gave me _money_--a thing of which you know nothing, but
which is very good.

"And one day I departed from that place to go farther into the land.
And as I walked I met many people, and I cut smaller notches in the
stick, that there might be room for all. Then I came upon a strange
thing. On the ground before me was a bar of iron, as big in thickness
as my arm, and a long step away was another bar of iron--"

"Then wert thou a rich man," Opee-Kwan asserted; "for iron be worth
more than anything else in the world. It would have made many knives."

"Nay, it was not mine."

"It was a find, and a find be lawful."