Page:Shen of the Sea.pdf/257

Rh How fortunate that you invited us in. Our digging was most successful." He was greatly pleased. The other hunter seemed equally as well pleased. Hai Low, too, was delighted. A very fine thing he thought it that the fox had been captured. He felt sure that his brother would speak words of praise.

But such was far from being. Hai Lee tossed a sack upon the table and said, "Oh, my Little Brother, a sad mistake you made this day. Not hunters, but thieves were those men. Not a fox, but all of our money they carried off in the sack. By chance alone, I regained it. But such good luck rarely happens a second time. Now heed my words. Never again permit strangers to enter the house. Never."

Next day, as Hai Low kept house, the door shook with a great knocking. The boy peeped from a window. He beheld an old man, beating the door. Said Hai Low: "I hope you relished your dinner—but you must go away. My brother says that I am to admit no strangers. Go away. You cannot enter."

The old man remarked, in a loud tone, that