“Everything is gone!” she cried, as soon as she saw Iturim.
“What has happened?” he asked. “I don’t know,” said Miniqui, “but it is all gone—house and all! When I got home there was nothing there!”
Iturim ran to his grove at his best speed. His house had been torn to pieces, the stakes broken up, and the straw trampled in the mud. All his possessions, which he had been collecting for so many years, his pots, pans, baskets, beads, silver ornaments, clothes, tapir skins, everything had been taken away. The thieves had not left him so much as an old shoe.
He knew very well who had done it. Altisquo and his two rowers had been missed from the feast at an early hour, and it was supposed that they were too angry to remain, and had returned quietly home; and everybody was glad they had gone. But instead of that, they had been executing this vengeance upon their successful rival.
Iturim was now the poorest man in the Antis tribe, and only a few hours before he had been the richest.
“Only a flea-leap from happiness to misfortune,” he muttered.
You might suppose that this mean and shameful deed of Altisquo would arouse the whole tribe of the Upper Antis to make war upon the Lower Antis. That would have been the case with many Indian tribes. In civilized communities the friends of Iturim would have demanded that Altisquo should be tried, and properly punished. But the Antis did neither of these things. I am sorry to say that theft is so common among them, that robbing a house is considered rather a fine thing to do, provided, of course, that the house robbed is not one’s own. If an Antis, on returning home, finds his things have been stolen, he says nothing, but watches his chance to make good his loss by stealing from any house belonging to another Antis tribe.
So Altisquo was not punished at that time for his theft, and he felt that he had compensated himself for the loss of the prize.
A NEW VENTURE FOR FORTUNE.