was gone, and he never saw it again.

Well, he went on with the two dogs, looking for something to shoot at;
and when the dark night fell he was still far from home, away in the
deep forest.

"I am tired," he thought, "and perhaps there will be birds stirring in
the early morning. I will sleep the night here, and try my luck at
sunrise."

He made a fire of twigs and broken branches, and lay down beside it,
together with his dogs. He had scarcely lain down to sleep when he
heard the dogs talking together and calling each other "Brother." He
understood every word they said.

"Well, brother," says the first, "you sleep here and look after our
master, while I run home to look after the house and yard. It will
soon be one o'clock, and when the master is away that is the time for
thieves."

"Off with you, brother, and God be with you," says the second.

And the hunter heard the first dog go bounding away through the
undergrowth, while the second lay still, with its head between its
paws, watching its master blinking at the fire.

Early in the morning the hunter was awakened by the noise of the dog
pushing through the brushwood on its way back. He heard how the dogs
greeted each other.

"Well, and how are you, brother?" says the first.

"Finely," says the second; "and how's yourself?"

"Finely too. Did the night pass well?"

"Well enough, thanks be to God. But with you, brother? How was it at
home?"

"Oh, badly. I ran home, and the mistress, when she sees me, sings out,
'What the devil are you doing here without your master? Well, there's
your supper;' and she threw me a crust of bread, burnt to a black
cinder. I snuffed it and snuffed it, but as for eating it, it was
burnt through. No dog alive could have made a meal of it. And with
that she ups with a poker and beats me. Brother, she counted all my
ribs and nearly broke each one of them. But at night, later on--just
as I thought--thieves came into the yard, and were going to clear out
the barn and the larder. But I let loose such a howl, and leapt upon
them so vicious and angry, that they had little thought to spare for
other people's goods, and had all they could do to get away whole
themselves. And so I spent the night."

The hunter heard all that the dogs said, and kept it in mind. "Wait a
bit, my good woman," says he, "and see what I have to say to you when
I get home."

That morning his luck was good, and he came home with a couple of
hares and three