fore it
every mystery-light fled back into the darkness, and still kept up its
ghostly dance. Who knows what kind of amusement that was to them?

The horseman was sleeping again. The terrible hay-rick was now so near
that one might have gone straight to it, but the steed knew better;
instead, she went around the spot in a half-circle, until she reached a
little lake that cut off the hay-rick. Here she halted on the water's
edge and began to toss her head, with a view to quietly awakening the
rider from his sleep.

The latter looked up, dismounted, took saddle and bridle off his horse,
and patted her on the back. Therewith the steed leaped into the water,
which reached to her neck, and swam to the other side.

Why did she not cross over dry ground? Why did she go only through the
water? The horseman meanwhile squatted down among the broom, rested his
gun upon his knee, made sure that it was cocked and that the powder had
not fallen from the pan, and noiselessly crouched down, gazing after the
retreating steed, as she reached the opposite bank. Suddenly she drew in
her tail, bristled her mane, pricked up her ears. Her eyes flashed fire,
her nostrils expanded. Slowly and cautiously she stepped forward, so as
to make no noise, bowed her head to the earth, like some scenting hound,
and stopped to listen.

On the southern side of the hay-rick,--the side away from the
village,--there was a narrow entrance cut into the pile of hay: a
plaited door of willow-twigs covered it, and the twigs were plaited
together in their turn with sedges to make the color harmonize with that
of the rick. This was done so perfectly that no one looking at it, even
from a short distance, would have suspected anything. As the steed
reached the vicinity of the door, she cautiously gazed upon it: below
the willow-door there was an opening, through which something had broken
in.

The mare knew already what it was. She scented it. A she-wolf had taken
up her abode there in the absence of the usual occupants, she had young
ones with her, and was just now giving suck; otherwise she would have
noticed the horse's approach; the whining of the whelps could be heard
from the outside. The mare seized the door with her teeth, and suddenly
wrenched it from its place.

From the hollow of the hay-rick a lean, hungry wolf crept out. At first
in wonder she raised her eyes, which shone in the green light,
astonished at this disturbance of her repose; and she see