‘ And it happened that when she came to him, she moved him to ask of her father a field, and she lighted from her ass, and Caleb said to her, “What is it you want?” And she said to him, “Give me a blessing, for you have set me in the land of the South. Give me also springs of water.” And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs.'
The dowry Othniel requested, at her suggestion, was land, and when his wife discovered where this was, in the South, she approached her father to ensure good waters supplies, necessary in that region, by asking for permanent springs, which he gave her as a wedding gift.
This account is paralleled in Joshua 15:16-19. It may have been copied from there, but more probably both were taken from a record made of the wars in Canaan similar to ‘the book of the wars of Yahweh' (Numbers 21:14). For such were looked on as religious events confirming the covenant, not just as history.