ng on. 'Oh,
very well; but I wish you would give me some fruit,' replied he.

'Alas! the fruit is not ripe enough yet for you to eat,' answered the
fox, who hoped that the tortoise would die of hunger long before the
seven years were over.

'Oh dear, oh dear! I am so hungry!' cried the tortoise.

'I am sure you must be; but it will be all right to-morrow,' said the
fox, trotting off, not knowing that the oranges dropped down the hollow
trunk, straight into the tortoise's hole, and that he had as many as he
could possibly eat.

So the seven years went by; and when the tortoise came out of his hole
he was as fat as ever.

Now it was the fox's turn, and he chose his hole, and the tortoise
heaped the earth round, promising to return every day or two with a nice
young bird for his dinner. 'Well, how are you getting on?' he would ask
cheerfully when he paid his visits.

'Oh, all right; only I wish you had brought a bird with you,' answered
the fox.

'I have been so unlucky, I have never been able to catch one,' replied
the tortoise. 'However, I shall be more fortunate to-morrow, I am sure.'

But not many to-morrows after, when the tortoise arrived with his usual
question: 'Well, how are you getting on?' he received no answer, for the
fox was lying in his hole quite still, dead of hunger.

By this time the tortoise was grown up, and was looked up to throughout
the forest as a person to be feared for his strength and wisdom. But he
was not considered a very swift runner, until an adventure with a deer
added to his fame.

One day, when he was basking in the sun, a stag passed by, and stopped
for a little conversation. 'Would you care to see which of us can run
fastest?' asked the tortoise, after some talk. The stag thought the
question so silly that he only shrugged his shoulders. 'Of course, the
victor would have the right to kill the other,' went on the tortoise.
'Oh, on that condition I agree,' answered the deer; 'but I am afraid you
are a dead man.'

'It is no use trying to frighten me,' replied the tortoise. 'But I
should like three days for training; then I shall be ready to start when
the sun strikes on the big tree at the edge of the great clearing.'

The first thing the tortoise did was to call his brothers and his
cousins together, and he posted them carefully under ferns all along the
line of the great clearing, making a sort of ladder which stretched for
many miles. This done to his satisfaction, he we