Swaiä was off near the hill. Kówe kept going nearer the spring; she was waiting for a chance to steal the baby. At last Swaiä got so busy digging that she forgot to watch Kówe. Then Kówe ran to the spring, jumped in, went down under the water, and out of sight.
Just then Swaiä called, “Bring the baby here!” Kówe didn’t answer, and Swaiä ran around calling: “Kówe! Kówe!” She nearly lost her mind; she didn’t know which way she was going.
When her husband came, he said: “You must go one way, and I will go another. We will look everywhere. We will turn to common deer, so that we can look in the brush and among the rocks.”
Kówe traveled a long way, going underground from one spring to another. At last she came to her own place. There were lots of people there. Kówe had three babies, but she didn’t care for them; she spent all of her time taking care of the baby she had stolen. She hid the child and nobody knew that she had it till it began to walk. Then people asked one another: “Whose child is that?” When they asked Kówe, she said: “It is mine.” They didn’t believe her; some said: “No, that isn’t your child. Look at your children. They are different; they are not like this boy. Whose child is it?”
“It is mine,” said Kówe.
“No, it isn’t,” said one old woman. “Your children look just like you; this one is nice-looking.”
“He is nice-looking because I carry him around all the time,” said Kówe.
“Take up one of your own babies and carry it. Let us see if it will look like this one.”
They talked till Kówe took up one of her children and carried it around on her back. When she put it down, they [[251]]said: “It hasn’t changed a bit. We knew that it wouldn’t. This nice-looking boy is not yours; you stole him.”
“I didn’t carry my baby far enough; that is why it didn’t change.”