d the rest of the tribe left their
country and went eastward, and they have never been heard of since, but
those who chose to stay with us explained their disappearance in this
way.

A woman, one cold night, after making up her fire on the hearth, went to
sleep. In the middle of the night the fire had spread, and spread, and
began to lick up the litter on the floor, and from the litter it crept
to her bed of dry banana-leaves, and in a little time shot up into
flames. When the woman and her husband were at last awakened by the
heat, the flames had already mounted into the roof, and were burning
furiously. Soon they broke through the top and leaped up into the
night, and a gust of wind came and carried the long flames like a stream
of fire towards the neighbouring huts, and in a short time the fire had
caught hold of every house, and the village was entirely burned. It was
soon known that besides burning up their houses and much property,
several old people and infants had been destroyed by the fire, and the
people were horror-struck and angry.

Then one voice said, "We all know in whose house the fire began, and the
owner of it must make our losses good to us."

The woman's husband heard this, and was alarmed, and guiltily fled into
the woods.

In the morning a council of the elders was held, and it was agreed that
the man in whose house the fire commenced should be made to pay for his
carelessness, and they forthwith searched for him. But when they sought
for him he could not be found. Then all the young warriors who were
cunning in wood-craft, girded and armed themselves, and searched for the
trail, and when one of them had found it, he cried out, and the others
gathered themselves about him and took it up, and when many eyes were
set upon it, the trail could not be lost.

They soon came up to the man, for he was seated under a tree, bitterly
weeping.

Without a word they took hold of him by the arms and bore him along with
them, and brought him before the village fathers. He was not a common
man by any means. He was known as one of Masama's principal men, and
one whose advice had been often followed.

"Oh," said everybody, "he is a rich man, and well able to pay; yet, if
he gives all he has got, it will not be equal to our loss."

The fathers talked a long time over the matter, and at last decided that
to save his forfeited life he should freely turn over to them all his
property. And he did so. H