the best bow and shoot the most skilful arrow.

As Robin Hood was passing through the forest on his way to Nottingham,
he met a group of the King's foresters, who were there to see that
nobody transgressed the laws; and they made fun of his beardless face
and boyish figure--still more of the bow he carried, since they knew he
was on his way to shoot at Nottingham and they did not believe that
such a youth could ever hope to gain the prize.

After bearing their jests for a time Robin became angry, and challenged
any one of them to test his skill with the bow. They replied that he
did but boast, for they had no target. And then, looking down the
glade, Robin espied a herd of the King's deer a great distance away and
he cried:

"Look you, now, if you think that I am no archer, I shall slay the
noblest of that herd at a single shot, and I'll wager twenty marks upon
it into the bargain!"

"Done!" cried one of the foresters. Whereupon Robin laid an arrow to
his bow and shot so cleverly that the deer lay dead in its tracks.

The foresters were greatly angered that he had succeeded, and not only
refused to pay him, but when he set forth again one of them sprang to
his feet and sent an arrow after him. Whereupon Robin turned like a
flash and made even a better shot than his first one--for the fellow
who had loosed his bow upon him lay dead on the greensward with an
arrow in his heart.

The King's foresters could not be slain with impunity in those days and
Robin was made an outlaw--not only because he had slain his man, but
because he had killed the King's deer; and in such a way it came to
pass that he gathered a band of followers about him in Sherwood Forest
and his fame as an outlaw soon became known throughout the land.

But although Robin Hood was a robber, the common people soon learned to
love him, for no poor man was ever the poorer on account of his
outlawry--rather were the countryfolk in the neighborhood of Sherwood
Forest better off than before, because he made it a point of honor to
rob the rich only to bestow large gifts upon the poor--and many a
present of food and gold was brought by him to the starving serfs and
humble people in the neighborhood.

Now the Sheriff of Nottingham was eager for the King's favor and the
deeds of Robin Hood were soon brought to his notice. He sought more
than once to capture the bold outlaw, but always failed, and he was so
clumsy and so cowardly that Robin Hood became embol