Treasure Number 55

As they were getting ready to continue, the old man announced that they were not to prepare for continuation of the journey but that they should make tents for the night. So, they pulled out camping equipment from long bags and began to set up their shelters for the night. Although it was getting cold and dark as they finished setting up the tents, the fires around the youngsters kept them warm and gave enough light. Thereafter, the old man called the boys and girls together and they sat around the largest of the five fires. The old man beckoned to each one of the leaders of the groups to explain their hunting experiences to everybody. The leader of the first group stood up to talk. As she rose from the ground and shook dry grass off of her behind, there was commotion coming from behind the circle. Kokow reappeared with a group of nineteen members of the last group in tow. Even though it was dark, it was still easy to see that they were dirty and disheveled. Some of them had scratches on their bodies and the leader had a black eye, his clothes were torn too. The rest of the young crowd followed the old man's eyes and turned around to look at their fellow boys and girls. Their reaction was one of incredulity, a long unintelligible chorus of surprise. They wondered how they could have not noticed that this unit was still not back to the camp until then. Kokow led the bedraggled lot around their fellows. They went with him and stood beside the old man, facing the rest of the group. The old man addressed the leader of the late unit. "What happened to you?” He opened his mouth to speak but a burly young male member of his group interrupted him. "We happened to him." The rest of the group joined in. One voice said loudly that they had to be dragged out of the woods because their leader had a terrible approach to hunting. Their leader remained silent while they railed at him. They complained that they had caught many animals and fishes and plucked a good amount of fruits. If they had left the forest as soon as they had enough, they would have arrived on time like everybody else. As soon as they had all gathered together at the appointed place with their bush bounty, their leader had looked at what they brought. Then he did something really strange. He took everything that he thought was too little or too young to eat and separated them from the lot. He returned small fish back into the water and let young animals go. He was selective about which bird to take and which one to let go. He wouldn't kill rare and low population species either. He would not pick eggs and demanded that the ones picked be returned to their nests. By the time he had finished fussing with them there was almost nothing but fruits left for this unit to take back to the camp. They had to return to the job of hunting and catching more selectively. Some of them still kept the animals he wanted them to return to the bush. He found out about their tricks and still wanted them to return their catch like he had said the first time. Then, they had snapped and got into a scuffle with him.