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