Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/110

102 Then he began to "smell out" a certain person, and said, "It was thou who reaped my garden."

But this man drank umuteyu and vomited, so his accuser paid him in cattle to the number of five.

So the morning after he went to his garden and found it reaped still more. He "smelt out" another person, and he also drank umuteyu, and vomited likewise. He also was paid five cattle.

Again he went out to his garden and found it still more reaped. So he "smelt out" all the people, but [they having drunk umuteyu and vomited] he took all the goods he possessed and paid them. There remained only his children and his wives, these only—his cattle and his goats, and all his goods, he had parted with in paying the people.

So he said, "I will not do this. I will lie in my garden and catch the thief"

It came to pass, indeed, that, as he watched, the reed-buck came and danced in the middle of the garden, saying, "The people hereabouts reap with a knife, but, as for us, we reap with the mouth—we reap with the mouth, picking, picking."

So the man seized the reed-buck, and said, "So, then, thou hast done away with all my goods. Why so? Thou art the thief who hast reaped my garden."

And the reed-buck answered, saying, "Pardon me, father, and I, even I, will repay you all your goods."

So the man listened, and said, "Well, let us go."

He took a bark-rope, and said, "I will bind thee."

The reed-buck said, "Do not bind me with a bark-rope, but bind me with a rope of grass instead. If you bind me with a bark-rope I will break it."

So the man was a fool, and listened to the reed-buck. He took grass and made a rope, and bound the reed-buck, and went on his way with it.

And it came to pass that they came to a deep ravine, and the reed-buck stood and considered, and then, by a bound, broke the grass rope, clearing the ravine, and land-