Once upon a time in the Bush, there lived a beautiful girl who was the daughter of a Piaiman. The girl fell in love with a brave and strong hunter, but the hunter did not seem to notice her when she tried to get his attention. He only seemed interested in hunting, and his hunting dogs followed him wherever he went. After a time, the girl felt that there wasn’t much more that she could do to get the hunter to notice her, so she went to her father and asked him to use his magical powers to help her win the hunter’s heart.
Now, the Piaiman was very powerful, his powers know far and wide; and he was known to have no weakness, but save that of his love for his daughter. But even though he loved his daughter with all his heart, the Piaiman told her that he couldn’t help her win the hunter’s heart because his duty and obligation was to all of the People, and not just to her. He would do nothing, he said, to make the hunter love her against the hunter's own purpose.
But the girl begged and begged her father so that he would relent. She finally lamented that she would even be glad to be close to the hunter and always be with him even as one of his hunting dogs. She did not like to hunt, but she would do anything to be close to the hunter, she said. When the Piaiman heard this he looked down at her and nodded in agreement. His daughter stopped crying, and his heart was again without the strong grief that he had felt at not being able to help her.
So, the Piaiman put a magic skin over the shoulders of his daughter and she transformed into one of the hunter’s hunting dogs. The Piaiman himself went about replacing the hunter’s own hunting dog with his daughter in her new form so that the hunter would not suspect that he now had a new companion in the form of one of his dogs.
The girl now had her wish, and she especially looked forward to the time when the hunter and his dogs would be home from the hunt. Soon, it came about that each time that the hunter went out hunting with his four dogs, one always ran back home and would never join in the hunting. More than this, the hunter found that whenever he got home from the hunt, there was the fire burning, food cooked, and all his hut was neat and clean. At first, the hunter was only a little suspicious, but it seemed to him that he was being helped by some of his neighbors who appreciated that he was out at the hunt and was without a wife.
Eventually the hunter went to thank his neighbors, but it was soon clear that his neighbors were not the ones behind the help that he had been receiving. The hunter then became very suspicious and set out to understand what was happening.
On the next occasion, then, as soon as he missed one of his dogs, the hunter tied the other three up to a tree, and returned home without making the slightest sound. Taking a good position, he saw a lovely girl in his hut making Pepper Pot, and bustling around doing other things, while at one side there hung the charmed skin. The hunter swiftly rushed in, seized the skin, and threw it on the already lighted fire. He then claimed the girl from her father for his wife, with both daughter and father very happy to oblige.
