hanging there. While he was going, and looking up at every tree
as he went, the youth leapt down and took his ox and went off with
it. Any one may easily imagine what a fury the man fell into
when he came back and saw that his ox was gone. He wept and
he raged, but at last he took comfort and told himself that the best
thing to do was to go home and take the third ox, without letting
his wife know anything about it, and then try to sell it so well
that he got a good sum of money for it. So he went home and
took the third ox, and drove it off without his wife knowing
anything about it. But the robbers knew all about it, and they told
the youth that if he could steal this as he had stolen the two
others, he should be master of the whole troop. So the youth
set out and went to the wood, and when the man was coming along
with the ox he began to bellow loudly, just like a great ox
somewhere inside the wood. When the man heard that he was right
glad, for he fancied he recognised the voice of his big bullock, and
thought that now he should find both of them again. So he tied
up the third, and ran away off the road to look for them in the
wood. In the meantime the youth went away with the third ox.
When the man returned and found that he had lost that too, he fell
into such a rage that there was no bounds to it. He wept and
lamented, and for many days he did not dare to go home again, for
he was afraid that the old woman would slay him outright. The
robbers, also, were not very well pleased at this, for they were forced
to own that the youth was at the head of them all. So one day
they made up their minds to set to work to do something which it
was not in his power to accomplish, and they all took to the road
together, and left him at home alone. When they were well out of
the house, the first thing that he did was to drive the oxen out on
the road, whereupon they all ran home again to the man from whom