reat two-legged jumps, and at times he moved in
immense one-legged, mud-spattering hops, and at times again, with
wide-stretched, far-flung, terrible-tramping, space-destroying legs he
ran.

He left the swallows behind as if they were asleep. He caught up on
a red deer, jumped over it, and left it standing. The wind was always
behind him, for he outran it every time; and he caught up in jumps and
bounces on Cael of the Iron, although Cael was running well, with
his fists up and his head back and his two legs flying in and out so
vigorously that you could not see them because of that speedy movement.

Trotting by the side of Cael, the Carl thrust a hand into the tail of
his coat and pulled out a fistfull of red bones.

"Here, my heart, is a meaty bone," said he, "for you fasted all night,
poor friend, and if you pick a bit off the bone your stomach will get a
rest."

"Keep your filth, beggarman," the other replied, "for I would rather be
hanged than gnaw on a bone that you have browsed."

"Why don't you run, my pulse?" said the Carl earnestly; "why don't you
try to win the race?"

Cael then began to move his limbs as if they were the wings of a fly,
or the fins of a little fish, or as if they were the six legs of a
terrified spider.

"I am running," he gasped.

"But try and run like this," the Carl admonished, and he gave a
wriggling bound and a sudden outstretching and scurrying of shanks, and
he disappeared from Cael's sight in one wild spatter of big boots.

Despair fell on Cael of the Iron, but he had a great heart. "I will run
until I burst," he shrieked, "and when I burst, may I burst to a great
distance, and may I trip that beggar-man up with my burstings and make
him break his leg."

He settled then to a determined, savage, implacable trot. He caught up
on the Carl at last, for the latter had stopped to eat blackberries from
the bushes on the road, and when he drew nigh, Cael began to jeer and
sneer angrily at the Carl.

"Who lost the tails of his coat?" he roared.

"Don't ask riddles of a man that's eating blackberries," the Carl
rebuked him.

"The dog without a tall and the coat without a tail," cried Cael.

"I give it up," the Carl mumbled.

"It's yourself, beggarman," jeered Cael.

"I am myself," the Carl gurgled through a mouthful of blackberries,
"and as I am myself, how can it be myself? That is a silly riddle," he
burbled.

"Look at your coat, tub of grease?"

The Carl did so.