wager."

So the Queen went out to the hillside and hid herself in the bushes,
and she saw Boots blow the hares away and lie down to sleep and
afterward blow them together again in a twinkling.

Then she came out from the bushes and offered to buy the pipe. At
first the lad said no, and again no, and then no for the third time,
but in the end he sold the pipe to the Queen for two hundred dollars
and fifty kisses to go with them, and the Queen hoped the King would
never hear of it. She took the pipe and hastened home with it, but she
fared no better than the Princess, for just before she reached the
palace the pipe disappeared from her fingers, and what had become of
it she did not know.

When the King heard that he was a wroth and angry man. Now he himself
would go out to the hill and buy the pipe, for there was no trusting
the womenfolk. If he once had the pipe in his hands there would be no
losing it again, and of that he felt very sure. So he mounted his old
mare Whitey and rode over to the hillside. There he hid himself among
the bushes, and he hid old Whitey there with him, and he watched until
he had seen all that the others had told him about. Then he came out
and tried to strike a bargain with the lad. But this time it seemed as
though Boots would not sell the pipe,--neither for love nor money. The
King offered him three hundred dollars, and four hundred dollars, and
five hundred dollars for it, and still Boots said no.

"Listen!" said Boots suddenly. "If you'll go over there in the bushes
and kiss old Whitey on the mouth five-and-twenty times, I'll sell you
the pipe for five hundred dollars, but not otherwise."

That was a thing the King was loath to do, for it ill befitted a king
to kiss an old horse, but have the pipe he must and would; and besides
there was nobody there to see him do it but Boots, and he did not
count. "May I spread a handkerchief between old Whitey's mouth and
mine before I do it?" asked the King.

Yes, he might do that.

So the King went back into the bushes and spread his handkerchief over
old Whitey's mouth and kissed her through it five-and-twenty times.
Then he came back and the lad gave him the pipe, and the King mounted
and rode away with it, and he was well pleased with himself for his
cleverness, and he held the pipe tight in one hand and the bridle in
the other. "No danger of my losing it as the Queen and the Princess
did," thought he. But scarcely had the King reached the