Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/212

188 "Even so let it be," replied Shanggasba; "only let there be given me a bow and arrow, and provisions for many days."

All this the Queen commanded should be given to him; and he went out to seek for the great fox measuring nine spans in length, and the fur of his back striped with stripes.

Many days he wandered over the mountains till his provisions were all used and his clothes torn, and, what was a worse evil, he had lost his bow by the way.

"Without a bow I can do nothing," reasoned Shanggasba to himself, "even though I fall in with the fox. It is of no use that I wait for death here. I had better return to the palace and see what fortune does for me."

But as he had wandered about up and down without knowing his way, it so happened that as he now directed his steps back to the road, he came upon the spot where he had laid down to sleep the night before, and there it was he had left the bow lying. But in the meantime the great fox nine spans long, with the fur of his back striped with stripes, had come by that way, and finding the bow lying had striven to gnaw it through. In so doing he had passed his neck through the string, and the string had strangled him. So in this way Shanggasba obtained possession of his skin, which he forthwith carried in triumph to the King and Queen. The King when he saw it exclaimed, "Of a truth now is Shanggasba a mighty hunter, for he has killed the