le the
dragon was out the Prince again returned to the castle.

"It is plain," he said to the Princess, "that we can never escape until
we, too, get a magic horse. We must find out where the dragon got his.
To-night when he comes home, speak him fair and caress his head and when
he is in fine humor ask him about his horse--what kind of a horse it is
and where he got it. Then I will come back to-morrow at this same hour
and you can tell me."

So that night when the dragon came home the Princess allowed him to put
his head in her lap and she scratched him softly behind the ears and
petted him until he was purring like a giant cat.

"Urrh! Urrh! Urrh!" purred the dragon. "How happy we are here, just you
and I! What a foolish young man that Prince of yours is to think I'd let
him carry you off! Urrh! Urrh! Urrh!"

"Yes," the Princess agreed, "he is foolish or he would never suppose his
horse could outrace yours."

"Urrh! Urrh!" the dragon purred. "You're right! He seems to think my
horse is an ordinary horse. Why, I got my horse from the Old Woman of
the Mountain and the only other horse in the world that can outstrip him
is another horse that the Old Woman still has. The Prince would have a
hard time getting him!"

The Princess still scratching the dragon behind his ears, just where he
loved it most, asked softly:

"Why?"

"Urrh! Urrh! Urrh! Because the Old Woman will never give that horse away
until a man comes along who is able to guard for three nights in
succession the Old Woman's mare and foal. Any one who attempts this and
fails she kills. But even if a man were to succeed he would never get
the right horse for the old witch would palm off another on him. Urrh!
Urrh! Urrh! Oh, that feels good, my dear!"

"How would she do that?" the Princess asked.

"Urrh! Urrh! Urrh! You see she says to every man who undertakes to guard
the mare: 'If you succeed you may have any horse in my stable.' Then she
shows him twelve beautiful stallions with shiny coats, but she doesn't
show him a scrawny miserable looking beast that lies neglected on the
dung heap. Yet this is the magic horse and brother to mine."

Now the Princess knew all she needed to know and the next day when the
Prince came she told him what the dragon had said. So the Prince at once
set out to find the Old Woman of the Mountain.

He traveled three days over waste places and through strange lands. On
the first day as he was riding along the shores of a