ven
if you should catch a fish, I have no fire to cook it with.'

'Let me catch my fish, and I will soon make you a fire,' he answered
gaily, for he was young, and knew nothing about the difficulties of
fire-making.

It took him some time to haul the net through bushes and over fields,
but at length he reached a pool in the river which he had often heard
was swarming with fish, and here he set the net, as his grandmother had
directed him.

He was so excited that he hardly slept all night, and at the very first
streak of dawn he ran as fast as ever he could down to the river. His
heart beat as quickly as if he had had dogs behind him, and he hardly
dared to look, lest he should be disappointed. Would there be even one
fish? And at this thought the pangs of hunger made him feel quite sick
with fear. But he need not have been afraid; in every mesh of the net
was a fine fat fish, and of course the net itself was so heavy that
he could only lift one corner. He threw some of the fish back into the
water, and buried some more in a hole under a stone, where he would be
sure to find them. Then he rolled up the net with the rest, put it on
his back and carried it home. The weight of the load caused his back to
ache, and he was thankful to drop it outside their hut, while he rushed
in, full of joy, to tell his grandmother. 'Be quick and clean them!' he
said, 'and I will go to those people's tents on the other side of the
water.'

The old woman stared at him in horror as she listened to his proposal.
Other people had tried to steal fire before, and few indeed had come
back with their lives; but as, contrary to all her expectations, he had
managed to catch such a number of fish, she thought that perhaps there
was some magic about him which she did not know of, and did not try to
hinder him.

When the fish were all taken out, he fetched the net which he had laid
out to dry, folded it up very small, and ran down to the river, hoping
that he might find a place narrow enough for him to jump over; but he
soon saw that it was too wide for even the best jumper in the world. For
a few moments he stood there, wondering what was to be done, then there
darted into his head some words of a spell which he had once heard a
wizard use, while drinking from the river. He repeated them, as well as
he could remember, and waited to see what would happen. In five minutes
such a grunting and a puffing was heard, and columns of water rose into
the