he
tree.

"O tree!" she cried, "most beautiful tree in the world, guard carefully
our master's strength and let no harm come to it!"

Again the dragon laughed.

"I've fooled you another time, old woman! Come here and scratch my head
some more and this time I'll tell you the truth for I see you really
love your master."

So the old woman went back and scratched the dragon's head and the
dragon told her the truth about his strength.

"I keep it far away," he said. "In the third kingdom from here near the
Tsar's own city there is a deep lake. A dragon lives at the bottom of
the lake. In the dragon there is a wild boar; in the boar a hare; in the
hare a pigeon; in the pigeon a sparrow. My strength is in the sparrow.
Let any one kill the sparrow and I should die that instant. But I am
safe. No one but shepherds ever come to the lake and even they don't
come any more for the dragon has eaten up so many of them that the lake
has got a bad name. Indeed, nowadays even the Tsar himself is hard put
to it to find a shepherd. Oh, I tell you, old woman, your master is a
clever one!"

So now the old woman had the dragon's secret and the next day she told
it to the Youngest Prince. He at once devised a plan whereby he hoped to
overcome the dragon. He dressed himself as a shepherd and with crook in
hand started off on foot for the third kingdom. He traveled through
villages and towns, across rivers and over mountains, and reached at
last the third kingdom and the Tsar's own city. He presented himself at
the palace and asked employment as a shepherd.

The guards looked at him in surprise and said:

"A shepherd! Are you sure you want to be a shepherd?"

Then they called to their companions: "Here's a youth who wants to be a
shepherd!" And the word went through the palace and even the Tsar heard
it.

"Send the youth to me," he ordered.

"Do you really want to be my shepherd?" he asked the Youngest Prince.

The Youngest Prince said yes, he did.

"If I put you in charge of the sheep, where would you pasture them?"

"Isn't there a lake beyond the city," the Prince asked, "where the
grazing is good?"

"H'm!" said the Tsar. "So you know about that lake, too! What else do
you know?"

"I've heard the shepherds disappear."

"And still you want to try your luck?" the Tsar exclaimed.

Just then the Tsar's only daughter, a lovely Princess, who had been
looking at the young stranger, slipped over to her father and whispered: