are you going, then, dear bear?" asked Snow-white.

"I must go into the forest and guard my treasures from the wicked
dwarfs. In the winter, when the earth is frozen hard, they are obliged
to stay below and cannot work their way through; but now, when the sun
has thawed and warmed the earth, they break through it, and come out to
pry and steal; and what once gets into their hands, and in their caves,
does not easily see daylight again."

Snow-white was quite sorry for his going away, and as she unbolted the
door for him, and the bear was hurrying out, he caught against the bolt
and a piece of his hairy coat was torn off, and it seemed to Snow-white
as if she had seen gold shining through it, but she was not sure about
it. The bear ran away quickly, and was soon out of sight behind the
trees.

A short time afterwards the mother sent her children into the forest to
get fire-wood. There they found a big tree which lay felled on the
ground, and close by the trunk something was jumping backwards and
forwards in the grass, but they could not make out what it was. When
they came nearer they saw a dwarf with an old withered face and a
snow-white beard a yard long. The end of the beard was caught in a
crevice of the tree, and the little fellow was jumping backwards and
forwards like a dog tied to a rope, and did not know what to do.

He glared at the girls with his fiery red eyes and cried, "Why do you
stand there? Can you not come here and help me?"

"What are you about there, little man?" asked Rose-red.

"You stupid, prying goose!" answered the dwarf; "I was going to split
the tree to get a little wood for cooking. The little bit of food that
one of us wants gets burnt up directly with thick logs; we do not
swallow so much as you coarse, greedy folk. I had just driven the wedge
safely in, and everything was going as I wished; but the wretched wood
was too smooth and suddenly sprang asunder, and the tree closed so
quickly that I could not pull out my beautiful white beard; so now it is
tight in and I cannot get away, and you silly, sleek, milk-faced things
laugh! Ugh! how odious you are!"

The children tried very hard, but they could not pull the beard out, it
was caught too fast. "I will run and fetch some one," said Rose-red.

"You senseless goose!" snarled the dwarf; "why should you fetch some
one? You are already two too many for me; can you not think of something
better?"

"Don't be impatient," said Snow-white,