This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ... XIV THE GREAT HUNTING "TT seems to me," said Machcha thoughtfully, 1 "that these Web-footed People are a very great nuisance." "They are," said Donal of the Flint People, who lived on the Farther Downs, " but what can be done about it?" "That is the question," admitted Machcha. It was a question which ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ... XIV THE GREAT HUNTING "TT seems to me," said Machcha thoughtfully, 1 "that these Web-footed People are a very great nuisance." "They are," said Donal of the Flint People, who lived on the Farther Downs, " but what can be done about it?" "That is the question," admitted Machcha. It was a question which he turned over in his mind quite often after he returned from his trading journey along that coast. He had gone to villages on all sides of the marsh which was the home of the Web-footed People, and they all told the same story. Cattle had been lost, sheep had been stolen, women and young girls carried off, grain stacks despoiled by the cunning thieves who lurked in the border of the swamp and could not be followed into its depths where they had their lair. No matter how carefully the villagers guarded their belongings, sooner or later the marsh people would spy out what they wanted and get it. They had nothing to do but to spy, and prowl and thieve; they had no business of their own. Grain will not grow in a quagmire. Cattle, sheep and goats cannot be kept there. Hunger drove the Web-footed People to live on their neighbors, and hunger is a wicked master. The legend was that their great snake taught them all their wickedness, but Machcha did not more than half believe that. The snake might have eaten some of the cattle and sheep mired in the bog; the Web-footed People might even feed him to keep him from preying on them and their wives and children. But as for his telling them how to pick and steal, Machcha had never seen a snake that could talk, and in his travels he had seen a great many thieves. "Suppose," he said to Dodi of the Ploughing People, when they met one day at the market, "you were to burn over that marsh, as you told me you...
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