startled by a sound behind him. Surely he had heard a
paddle. But all was silence when he paused to listen. When he came
to the river he shouted with delight, for his journey was half over,
and there in the sun sparkled his treasure. Taking his gourd from
the boat, he filled it with sand and then started the long process
of washing it away. Always in the bottom would be left a few of
the bright grains. These he poured on a leaf, but he discovered in
dismay that they stuck there, and when he tried to brush them off,
they sank into the leaf.

While he was pondering on his predicament he heard the chatter of a
hablar-bird, and he chuckled to himself. He searched his banco for
his bow and arrows, but was astonished to find only the bow. What a
misfortune! He must have lost the arrows on the trail. Nothing daunted,
little Piang set about his task in another manner. Scattering a handful
of parched corn in a clearing, he laid the noose of his rope around
it, and taking the end of it in his hand, silently withdrew into the
thicket and waited.

Soon the big bird discovered the handy meal and, loudly proclaiming
its rights to possession, flapped its way to the earth and lighted
right in Piang's noose. The hablar-bird fluttered and chattered as it
settled to the task of filling its craw with the good food. Cautiously
Piang watched his chance and, with a deft twitch of the rope, secured
the noose around the bird's foot. Such screaming and flapping! "Now
you be good bird, and I no hurt you," Piang admonished. Catching hold
of the creature behind the head, Piang held it firmly and quickly
plucked three large feathers from its brilliant plumage. He then set
it free and laughed to see it searching for its lost glories.

Piang would have enjoyed watching it, as it scolded him from a high
limb, but he could not delay and he set about his task quickly. Cutting
off the end of each quill, he scraped it clean inside and washed the
pithy part out. He had seen his father prepare a quill in this way
for packing tobacco-powder.

When these receptacles were ready to receive the gold-dust, he
began washing the sand again; and when he had secured enough to
fill all three quills he stuck a piece of green banana on the ends
for a stopper. Now he would have the treasures for his mother--that
beautiful cloth and the funny, thin thing that played pranks on you
when you looked into it.

What was that sound? Surely some one was spying on him. In a