let me sleep until morning, I think that I'll
be able to manage with that clasp."

But Wind-Rush was impatient, and he rushed forward and pinched the boy
in the leg. That sort of treatment the boy didn't care to suffer from a
crow. He jerked himself loose quickly, ran a couple of paces backward,
drew his knife from the sheath, and held it extended in front of him.
"You'd better be careful!" he cried to Wind-Rush.

This one too was so enraged that he didn't dodge the danger. He rushed
at the boy, just as though he'd been blind, and ran so straight against
the knife, that it entered through his eye into the head. The boy drew
the knife back quickly, but Wind-Rush only struck out with his wings,
then he fell down--dead.

"Wind-Rush is dead! The stranger has killed our chieftain, Wind-Rush!"
cried the nearest crows, and then there was a terrible uproar. Some
wailed, others cried for vengeance. They all ran or fluttered up to the
boy, with Fumle-Drumle in the lead. But he acted badly as usual. He only
fluttered and spread his wings over the boy, and prevented the others
from coming forward and running their bills into him.

The boy thought that things looked very bad for him now. He couldn't run
away from the crows, and there was no place where he could hide. Then he
happened to think of the earthen crock. He took a firm hold on the
clasp, and pulled it off. Then he hopped into the crock to hide in it.
But the crock was a poor hiding place, for it was nearly filled to the
brim with little, thin silver coins. The boy couldn't get far enough
down, so he stooped and began to throw out the coins.

Until now the crows had fluttered around him in a thick swarm and pecked
at him, but when he threw out the coins they immediately forgot their
thirst for vengeance, and hurried to gather the money. The boy threw out
handfuls of it, and all the crows--yes, even Wind-Air herself--picked
them up. And everyone who succeeded in picking up a coin ran off to the
nest with the utmost speed to conceal it.

When the boy had thrown out all the silver pennies from the crock he
glanced up. Not more than a single crow was left in the sandpit. That
was Fumle-Drumle, with the white feather in his wing; he who had carried
Thumbietot. "You have rendered me a greater service than you
understand," said the crow--with a very different voice, and a different
intonation than the one he had used heretofore--"and I want to save your
life. Sit down on my