122 THE: WAILAKKI, ETC. 
the inmates as they came and went, counting them over and over again, 
until they were certain of their number and quality. Then at last, on some 
happy day, when all the signs of the zodiac, the sun and moon and planets, 
were favorable, and no owl screeched, and the spiders were all still, and 
everybody was gone out of the house except perhaps some old crone or 
swaddled baby, they would summon courage to make a rush, capture the 
solitary occupant, pinion him, and plunder the house with neatness and 
dispatch. 
Mr. Robinson related to me an instance where a certain house was plun- 
dered by them three Aprils in succession, punctually to a week, and almost 
toa day. It was the property of a lone wild Irishman, a shepherd, who 
was necessarily absent day-times with his flock on the mountains, thus 
leaving his household substance an easy prey to the savages. After being 
twice robbed in succession, Paddy took unto himself a wife for a bulwark 
and a defense to his possessions round about. But a third time the Lassik 
came when he looked not for them, scaled the garden fence, made a sud- 
den irruption into the house, and knowing the propensity of women to talk, 
caught the Irishman’s wife, tied up her mouth tight, and bade her escape for 
life. This she did, and they then proceeded without interruption to make 
a choice selection of household goods, which they carried away. 
This predatory gypsy life (they subsisted largely this way, not having 
a right to any fishing-grounds), insured their speedy destruction by the 
whites. In 1871 it was said there were only three of them left; these 
had returned to the ancestral valley of Mad River, and were living under 
protection of the whites. 
THE SAI’-AZ. 
As nearly as I could ascertain, the Sai’-az formerly occupied the 
tongue of land jutting down between Eel River and Van Dusen’s Fork. 
They were all carried away tothe Hoopa Valley Reservation, and had been 
so long drageed about between home, the Smith River Reservation, and this, 
that they were dwindled away to a most pitiful and miserable remnant, who 
could give no intelligible account of themselves. The only thing which 
can be stated with certainty is that they once dwelt somewhere on the east 
bank of Eel River. 
