The dog excelled in his skill as a thief, stealing pigs, chickens, tapa cloth, all kinds of property for his master.
The master told that dog to get the tabu awa roots of the king, which were growing on the hillsides of Waipio Valley.
When that place was stripped, he sent the dog [[109]]to the precipices of Waimanu, and he took nearly all that was there.
Then the king commanded his people to watch the awa fields and catch the one who was stealing his growing awa.
They began their watch. When the night was almost over and the dawn was touching the sky they found the thief. These men followed the thief and caught his master in a cave, all wrinkled from drinking much awa.
They took the master and the dog to the king Kiha as prisoners, and the king planned to have them steal that shell which troubled him. If they failed they should be put to death. This was the sentence of the king upon his prisoners.
The master talked with his dog, and told him all the word of the king. They planned to pay for the theft of the awa, but not by the death of their bodies.
The dog went out to win the shell from the gods under cover of the night, when the darkness was great and all kinds of shell voices were mingling with other voices of the woodland and wilderness.
Then came the softly resonant voice of that shell blown by the gods. According to an ancient chant, “The song of Kiha-pu calls Kauai,” meaning the song is listened to from far distant Kauai. [[110]]
The dog ran swiftly while the sound of the shell was great, and hid in a corner of a stone wall of the heiau. He waited and waited a long time. The dawn was almost at hand. Then the watchers fell into deep sleep.