m a different tree, and winged with the feathers of
four different birds. He then made himself a bow, very light and
strong, and got down his snow-shoes. All this took some time, and he
could not start that day, but early next morning he called his little
dog Redmouth, whom he kept in a box, and set out.

After he had followed the trail for a great distance he grew very
tired, and sat upon the branch of a tree to rest. But Redmouth barked
so furiously that the boy thought that perhaps his parents might have
been killed under its branches, and, stepping back, shot one of his
arrows at the root of the tree. Whereupon a noise like thunder shook
it from top to bottom, fire broke out, and in a few minutes a little
heap of ashes lay in the place where it had stood.

Not knowing quite what to make of it all, the boy continued on the
trail, and went down the right-hand fork till he came to the clump of
bushes where the bears used to hide.

Now, as was plain by his being able to change the shape of the two
brothers, the bear chief knew a good deal of magic, and he was quite
aware that the little boy was following the trail, and he sent a very
small but clever bear servant to wait for him in the bushes and to try
to tempt him into the mountain. But somehow his spells could not have
worked properly that day, as the bear chief did not know that Redmouth
had gone with his master, or he would have been more careful. For the
moment the dog ran round the bushes barking loudly, the little bear
servant rushed out in a fright, and set out for the mountains as fast
as he could.

The dog followed the bear, and the boy followed the dog, until the
mountain, the house of the great bear chief, came in sight. But along
the road the snow was so wet and heavy that the boy could hardly get
along, and then the thong of his snow-shoes broke, and he had to stop
and mend it, so that the bear and the dog got so far ahead that he
could scarcely hear the barking. When the strap was firm again the boy
spoke to his snow-shoes and said:

'Now you must go as fast as you can, or, if not, I shall lose the dog
as well as the bear.' And the snow-shoes sang in answer that they
would run like the wind.

As he came along, the bear chief's sister was looking out of the
window, and took pity on this little brother, as she had on the two
elder ones, and waited to see what the boy would do, when he found
that the bear servant and the dog had already entered the m