"Not so; the white men had placed it there And further, these bars
were so long that no man could carry them away--so long that as far as
I could see there was no end to them."

"Nam-Bok, that is very much iron," Opee-Kwan cautioned.

"Ay, it was hard to believe with my own eyes upon it; but I could not
gainsay my eyes. And as I looked I heard...." He turned abruptly upon
the head man. "Opee-Kwan, thou hast heard the sea-lion bellow in his
anger. Make it plain in thy mind of as many sea-lions as there be
waves to the sea, and make it plain that all these sea-lions be made
into one sea-lion, and as that one sea-lion would bellow so bellowed
the thing I heard."

The fisherfolk cried aloud in astonishment, and Opee-Kwan's jaw
lowered and remained lowered.

"And in the distance I saw a monster like unto a thousand whales.
It was one-eyed, and vomited smoke, and it snorted with exceeding
loudness. I was afraid and ran with shaking legs along the path
between the bars. But it came with the speed of the wind, this
monster, and I leaped the iron bars with its breath hot on my
face...."

Opee-Kwan gained control of his jaw again. "And--and then, O Nam-Bok?"

"Then it came by on the bars, and harmed me not; and when my legs
could hold me up again it was gone from sight. And it is a very common
thing in that country. Even the women and children are not afraid. Men
make them to do work, these monsters."

"As we make our dogs do work?" Koogah asked, with sceptic twinkle in
his eye.

"Ay, as we make our dogs do work."

"And how do they breed these--these things?" Opee-Kwan questioned.

"They breed not at all. Men fashion them cunningly of iron, and feed
them with stone, and give them water to drink. The stone becomes fire,
and the water becomes steam, and the steam of the water is the breath
of their nostrils, and--"

"There, there, O Nam-Bok," Opee-Kwan interrupted. "Tell us of other
wonders. We grow tired of this which we may not understand."

"You do not understand?" Nam-Bok asked despairingly.

"Nay, we do not understand," the men and women wailed back. "We cannot
understand."

Nam-Bok thought of a combined harvester, and of the machines wherein
visions of living men were to be seen, and of the machines from which
came the voices of men, and he knew his people could never understand.

"Dare I say I rode this iron monster through the land?" he asked
bitterly.

Opee-Kwan threw up his hands, palms outward, in op