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 natives peep out, scared to death almost already—for you know they didn’t dare out ever after dusk for fear of Taipo—there was this here horrible face in the pum’kin, all a-lit up, an’ a-grinnin’ at ’em!

“So they knew there was a Taipo after them that time for sure, not only havin’ heard but seen him; an’ the next day some o’ the women come down to mother, an’ says, did she see that Taipo last night? an’ to take care o’ our pigs because Taipo he’d a-gone off with one o’ theirs. If they’d a-looked into Larry’s house on the way back, they’d a-seen where he’d gone off with it to; an’ mother she said she never felt so mean in all her born life, an’ not a bite o’ that pig would she demean herself for to touch, nor yet any of the others—for, after that, whenever Larry felt like fresh pork, he’d up an’ play another game o’ Taipo. Three fine fat pigs he got for nothin’ that way, an’ goodness knows how many more it might ha’ been, but that one mornin’, very early, before any of us was up, we heard a great squealin’ o’ pigs up at the pa, an’ mother, she says, ‘I doubt Larry won’t get much more Maorified pork, an’ a very good thing, too; for they seem to be killing the lot.’ An’ then, while we was a-dressin’, we saw their biggest canoe a-goin’ out the Bay, an’ ‘There goes the Maori pigs up to Town,’ says mother again.

“But, O dearie me! it wasn’t the Maori pigs as had gone to Town. When father went down for to feed ’em, he found it was ours! ours, an’ that thief of a Larry’s! It seems, the natives they’d tumbled at last to the Taipo business, an’ this here was the way they was a-settlin’ the fresh-pork bill, an’ a-havin’ their little joke all in one—they’d stole all