y gave him spare scraps now and then in order to
get him to go away as soon as possible. However, he found himself, at
last, approaching the forest of dead trees. He knew that it was the
forest, although there was nobody there to tell him so. He had not, in
fact, seen any human being for the last three days, but he felt that
he could not be mistaken. A vast forest of enormous trees lifted
leafless, sapless branches to the sky, and every breath of wind
rattled them together like the bones of a skeleton. When he was about
twenty yards from the forest a terrible sound came from it. It was as
though a thousand horses were neighing and screaming all at once.
Fritz's heart stood still. He wanted to run away, but his legs refused
to move. As he stood there, shaking and quaking, there rushed out of
the forest a huge unicorn with a spiral golden horn on his forehead.

"What seek you here?" asked the unicorn, in a voice of thunder. Fritz
stammered out that he sought the sparkling golden water.

"What want you with the sparkling golden water, which is in my
charge?" thundered the unicorn.

Fritz was almost too frightened to speak. He fell on his knees, put up
his hands, and cried: "Oh, good Mr. Unicorn, oh, kind Mr. Unicorn,
pray don't hurt me!"

The unicorn stamped furiously on the ground with his right forefoot.
"Say this instant," he cried, "what it is that you want with the
sparkling golden water!"

"I want to get money to buy land and become a Count," Fritz was just
able to gasp out. The unicorn said nothing; he simply lowered his
head, and with his golden horn tossed Fritz three hundred and
forty-five feet in the air. Up went Fritz like a sky-rocket, and down
he came like its stick, turning somersaults all the way. Fortunately
for him, his fall was broken by the branches of one of the dead trees.
If it had not been for this he would probably have been seriously
hurt. Through these branches he crashed until he reached the point
where they joined the trunk. The tree was hollow here, and Fritz
tumbled down to the bottom of the trunk and found himself a prisoner.
While he was feeling his arms and legs, to find out if any bones were
broken or not, he had the satisfaction of hearing the unicorn, as he
trotted back into the forest, muttering, loud enough for his words to
pierce the bark and wood of Fritz's prison:--

"So much for you and your Countship!"

Fritz tried to get out, but in vain. The tree was too smooth and
sli