While Travers and his wife waited for the bacon to cook, Haimet hooked the bacon with a stick and began to raise his prize.

Barat ran, unburdened by bacon, and circled about in front of the homeward-hurrying Travers. Barat snatched a scarf from his waist, wrapped it about his head like a goodwife’s kerchief, and pulled his cloak about him. In a voice most wondrously like Travers’ wife, he cried, “Oh husband, is all well?”

“Well indeed. Here’s our bacon back again.”

“Give it to me, good husband, while you go about our farm to be sure those two scoundrels aren’t still lurking.”

So Travers gave up the side of bacon. He searched till he was sure all was secure, then returned home, light of heart, only to be asked by his bewildered wife, “What bacon?”

“Haimet and Barat again! Now, God willing, I’ll win back that bacon for good!”

Haimet and Barat were in the forest, sitting before a fire, prepared to cook their prize. Approaching quietly, Travers quickly stripped down to his long white shirt, daubed his face and body with white clay, and climbed a tree. There he slipped a rope about his upper body, so it seemed to be about his neck as well. Then, with a terrible groan, he let himself dangle from a branch, limp and swaying as any hanged corpse.

Both thieves yelled, staring at the horrid sight. “Father!” gasped Haimet. “He’s come to haunt us!”

“Or drag us with him down there!” cried Barat. “I’m not ready yet to go with him! Brother, run!”

Haimet and Barat took to their heels. Travers let himself down from the rope, reclaimed his bacon, and went home.

"“Come, wife. Let’s finish the job those two thieves started, and cook up some bacon."