uld be brought against it
for the same stakes as before. The tiger brother, however, was on the
watch, and before the dog could get near his opponent, a blow from his
paw ended his career.

Still the king persisted in his unjust course, and now declared that the
wager should be finally settled by a fight between two buffaloes. Now
the buffalo brother was ashamed of the way in which he had treated the
girls in the water, and had long wished for an opportunity to retrieve
his honor, so that he now fought with such bravery against the royal
buffalo that he speedily conquered it.

Then the king, seeing that he was beaten every time, threw off all
disguise and said plainly that he had come to get the girl for his wife,
had brought soldiers to help him if necessary, and he would take her in
spite of losing the different battles, and in spite of her husband or
anybody else.

He stepped forward to take her, but he did not know that one more
brother yet remained to be heard from, for out of the jungle with a
dreadful yell came rushing the _hpea-loo_, his beak open, his claws
outstretched, and king, soldiers, and courtiers all disappeared down
his ravenous maw.

The next month the fortunate man with his beautiful wife became king in
the place of his enemy, and lived to be the oldest monarch in the whole
of the Shan country.

HOW THE WORLD WAS CREATED.

In the beginning of the world, many, many cycles ago, so long ago, in
fact, that no man knows how long it was, there were no trees, no hills,
no land, nothing but water. The wind blew the waters hither and thither,
sometimes in great waves, sometimes in quiet ripples; the wind blew, the
waves rolled, and that was all.

Now it happened that Gong Gow, the Great Spirit Spider, felt weary with
carrying around her heavy burden of eggs wrapped up so carefully in
their white covering fastened to her waist, therefore she said to
herself:

"I would fain place my eggs in a safe place, but know of none where they
can hatch themselves without danger," so she searched through the
universe to find a suitable place, and at last she spied the water that
is now the world, and in it began to spin her web.

Backward and forward, forward and backward, round and round, in and out
she wove, till at last all was done, and full of content she left her
eggs in their web prison nest and journeyed away.

The wind blew and drove the water hither and thither as aforetime, and
soon little