is last
morsel with a hungry dog. This covetous mind made Clutch keep all his
father's sheep when the old man was dead, because he was the eldest
brother, allowing Kind nothing but the place of a servant to help him in
looking after them.

For some time the brothers lived peaceably in their father's cottage,
and kept their flock on the grassy plain, till new troubles arose
through Clutch's covetousness.

One midsummer it so happened that the traders praised the wool of
Clutch's flock more than all they found on the plain, and gave him the
highest price for it. That was an unlucky thing for the sheep, for after
that Clutch thought he could never get enough wool off them. At shearing
time nobody clipped so close as Clutch, and, in spite of all Kind could
do or say, he left the poor sheep as bare as if they had been shaven.
Kind didn't like these doings, but Clutch always tried to persuade him
that close clipping was good for the sheep, and Kind always tried to
make him think he had got all the wool. Still Clutch sold the wool, and
stored up his profits, and one midsummer after another passed. The
shepherds began to think him a rich man, and close clipping might have
become the fashion but for a strange thing which happened to his flock.

The wool had grown well that summer. He had taken two crops off the
sheep, and was thinking of a third, when first the lambs, and then the
ewes, began to stray away; and, search as the brothers would, none of
them was ever found again. The flocks grew smaller every day, and all
the brothers could find out was that the closest clipped were the first
to go.

Kind grew tired of watching, and Clutch lost his sleep with vexation.
The other shepherds, to whom he had boasted of his wool and his profits,
were not sorry to see pride having a fall. Still the flock melted away
as the months wore on, and when the spring came back nothing remained
with Clutch and Kind but three old ewes. The two brothers were watching
these ewes one evening when Clutch said:

"Brother, there is wool to be had on their backs."

"It is too little to keep them warm," said Kind. "The east wind still
blows sometimes." But Clutch was off to the cottage for the bag and
shears.

Kind was grieved to see his brother so covetous, and to divert his mind
he looked up at the great hills. As he looked, three creatures like
sheep scoured up a cleft in one of the hills, as fleet as any deer; and
when Kind turned he saw his br