ays and one evening he came to the house of an
old witch (hutibudhi) and he went up to it and asked the witch if he
might sleep there. She answered "My house is rough and dirty, but
you can choose a corner to sleep in; I can give you nothing more,
as I have not a morsel of food in the house." "Then," said he,
"I must go to bed hungry" and he lay down supperless.

In the middle of the night the witch began to gnaw at Lakhan's bow
and he heard her gnawing and called out "What are you munching? Give
me at bit," but she answered that it was only a little pulse which
she had gleaned from the fields and she had finished it. So Lakhan
said no more; but during the night the witch bit his bow to pieces
and when he saw this in the morning, he was very unhappy; for it was
useless to find the bison, if he had nothing to shoot them with.

So he went home and had an iron bow and arrows made by a blacksmith,
and then started off again. As before he came to the witch's house
and arranged to sleep there; and in the night the witch tried to
bite the bow to pieces, and Lakhan heard her crunching it and asked
her what she was eating: she said it was only a little grain which
she had gleaned. In the morning he found the bow all right, but the
witch's jaws were badly swollen. Lakhan laughed at her and asked what
was the matter and she said that she had toothache.

So Lakhan went on his way rejoicing and at last reached the place
where the wild buffaloes rested at night; he waited there and while he
waited he swept away all the droppings and made the place clean, and
then climbed up into a tree. At evening great herds of buffaloes came
to the place and they were so many that Lakhan was afraid to shoot. So
he stayed there, and every day he used to sweep the place clean, while
the buffaloes were away, and at night time hid himself in the tree.

The buffaloes determined to find out who their benefactor was, and they
chose an old cow to stay behind and watch. The next day the old cow
pretended that she was too weak to rise, and was left behind when the
herd went out to graze. Lakhan thought that she was too old to do him
any harm, so, although she was there, he got down from the tree and
cleaned up the place as usual, and even swept quite close up to the
old cow buffalo. In the evening the other buffaloes came back and the
old cow told them that it was a human being who swept their resting
place clean; and when they promised not to hurt him, s