:

'Yes, it is you who are the clever boy'; and they divided the spoil, and
the Black Gallows Bird had one half and the Shifty Lad the other half.

* * * * *

A few weeks after that the Black Gallows Bird had news of a wedding that
was to be held near the town; and the bridegroom had many friends and
everybody sent him a present. Now a rich farmer who lived up near the
moor thought that nothing was so useful to a young couple when they
first began to keep house as a fine fat sheep, so he bade his shepherd
go off to the mountain where the flock were feeding, and bring him back
the best he could find. And the shepherd chose out the largest and
fattest of the sheep and the one with the whitest fleece; then he tied
its feet together and put it across his shoulder, for he had a long way
to go.

That day the Shifty Lad happened to be wandering over the moor, when he
saw the man with the sheep on his shoulder walking along the road which
led past the Black Rogue's house. The sheep was heavy and the man was in
no hurry, so he came slowly and the boy knew that he himself could
easily get back to his master before the shepherd was even in sight.

'I will wager,' he cried, as he pushed quickly through the bushes which
hid the cabin--'I will wager that I will steal the sheep from the man
that is coming before he passes here.'

'Will you indeed?' said the Gallows Bird. 'I will wager you a hundred
silver pieces that you can do nothing of the sort.'

'Well, I will try it, anyway,' replied the boy, and disappeared in the
bushes. He ran fast till he entered a wood through which the shepherd
must go, and then he stopped, and taking off one of his shoes smeared it
with mud and set it in the path. When this was done he slipped behind a
rock and waited.

Very soon the man came up, and, seeing the shoe lying there, he stopped
and looked at it.

'It is a good shoe,' he said to himself, 'but very dirty. Still, if I
had the fellow, I would be at the trouble of cleaning it'; so he threw
the shoe down again and went on.

The Shifty Lad smiled as he heard him, and, picking up the shoe, he
crept round by a short way and laid the other shoe on the path. A few
minutes after the shepherd arrived, and beheld the second shoe lying on
the path.

'Why, that is the fellow of the dirty shoe!' he exclaimed when he saw
it. 'I will go back and pick up the other one, and then I shall have a
pair of good shoes,' and h