on the anvil.

Then Teddy raised the hammer, and the ruby of the ring he wore throbbed
and burned until his hand was hot, and his arm was so strong that the
hammer was like a feather in his grasp.

As he beat and turned the nail he sang, and it seemed to him that the
fire sang with him, clear and thin, and sounding like the voice of the
Counterpane Fairy,--

"Hammer and turn!
The fire must burn,
The coals must glow,
The bellows blow.
Beat, good hammer, loud and fast;
So the chain will be made at last.

"Clankety-clink!
We forge the link.
My hammer bold,
This chain must hold.
The snow shall melt, the ice fly fast,
For the magic chain is wrought at last."

With these words Teddy threw down the hammer and lifted the chain he
had made, and it was as thin as a hair, as light as a breath, and yet so
strong that no power on earth could break it.

The dwarfs sprang forward with a shout and caught the chain in their
crooked fingers. "Wonderful! wonderful!" they cried. "It is indeed the
magic chain that we have been trying to make for all these years. Who
are you, wonderful stranger, for there is no smith among all the dwarfs
who can do what you have done?"

Then without a word Teddy raised his hand, and held it up with the palm
turned toward them so that they saw the ruby in his ring, and when they
saw it they shouted again in their wonder and joy. "It is King Fireheart
himself come back to rule the country!"

Then all the dwarfs, even from the farthest forges, came running up and
gathered about the archway of the forge where Teddy stood, and when they
saw that it was indeed King Fireheart they shouted and leaped and threw
their caps up into the air.

When they had grown quieter Teddy bade them take him to the Ice-Queen,
so all the dwarfs led him out, and up the mountain, on and on, until
they came to a great castle built of ice, but ruddy with the cold light
of the aurora borealis that shone behind it.

They went into the hall, past the rows of white spearsmen, and when the
spearsmen would have stopped them the dwarfs told them that they were
carrying the magic chain that binds all but one's self to the Queen,
and so they let the little men pass on, but all the while Teddy kept the
ruby ring hidden under his cloak.

At last they came to the great chamber, where the Queen sat on a
magnificent throne of ice, and when she saw t