Koongooroo had lain in the street but a short time, when some passing kites saw him and inquired threateningly, “What are you doing here in our town?”
With many a moan he replied, “My companions have beaten me and turned me out of their town because I advised them to obey Mwayway, sultan of the kites.”
When they heard this they picked him up and took him before the sultan, to whom they said, “We found this fellow lying in the street, and he attributes his involuntary presence in our town to so singular a circumstance that we thought you should hear his story.”
Koongooroo was then bidden to repeat his statement, which he did, adding the remark that, much as he had suffered, he still held to his opinion that Mwayway was his rightful sultan.
This, of course, made a very favorable impression, and the sultan said, “You have more sense than all the rest of your tribe put together; I guess you can stay here and live with us.”
So Koongooroo, expressing much gratitude, settled down, apparently, to spend the remainder of his life with the kites.
One day his neighbors took him to church with them, and when they returned home they asked him, “Who have the best kind of religion, the kites or the crows?”
To which crafty old Koongooroo replied, with great enthusiasm, “Oh, the kites, by long odds!”
This answer tickled the kites like anything, and Koongooroo was looked upon as a bird of remarkable discernment.
When almost another week had passed, the sultan of the crows slipped away in the night, went to his own town, and called his people together.