Aggo-dah-gauda - Page 2

Do not hate me, Do not hate me, Ah me!"

In the meantime Aggo-dah-gauda came home, and finding his daughter had been stolen he determined to get her back. For this purpose he immediately set out. He could easily trace the king till he came to the banks of the river, and then he saw he had plunged in and swum over. When Aggo-dah-gauda came to the river, however, he found it covered with a thin coating of ice, so that he could not swim across nor walk over. He therefore determined to wait on the bank a day or two till the ice might melt or become strong enough to bear him. Very soon the ice was strong enough, and Aggo-dah-gauda crossed over. On the other side, as he went along, he found branches torn off and cast down, and these had been strewn thus by his daughter to aid him in following her. The way in which she managed it was this. Her hair was all untied when she was captured, and as she was carried along it caught in the branches as she passed, so she took the pieces out of her hair and threw them down on the path.

When Aggo-dah-gauda came to the king's lodge it was evening. Carefully approaching it, he peeped through the sides and saw his daughter sitting there disconsolately. She saw him, and knowing that it was her father come for her, she said to the king, giving him a tender glance--

"I will go and get you a drink of water."

The king was delighted at what he thought was a mark of her affection, and the girl left the lodge with a dipper in her hand. The king waited a long time for her, and as she did not return he went out with his followers, but nothing could be seen or heard of the girl. The buffaloes sallied out into the plains, and had not gone far by the light of the moon, when they were attacked by a party of hunters. Many of them fell, but the buffalo-king, being stronger and swifter than the others, escaped, and, flying to the west, was never seen more.