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Rh starve, the old man said to the young man whom we have mentioned above—

"My dear Nobokumar, if you don't devise some remedy for this, the whole lot of us will die."

Nobokumar pondered for a moment and said—

"Very well, I will go. Give me an axe, and let somebody accompany me with a billhook." No one wished to go with Nobokumar. "We shall see about it at dinner time," said Nobokumar, and girding up his loins, he went alone, axe in hand, to bring the wood.

Ascending the bank Nobokumar saw that as far as the eye could reach there was no trace of human habitation anywhere, but only jungle. The jungle, however, was not a dense forest, nor did it consist of big trees; simply patches of ground here and there were covered with small bushes, in which Nobokumar saw no wood ·worth cutting. So he had to go further from the river-bank in search of a suitable tree. At last he found one worth cutting, and took from it as much wood as he required.