ful was under the ground at this place. It was the ring
of brass. Now it will be found and brought into the house. And when I
stand here and crow in the morning the earth will rock as it does in
every other place in the world."

"It will, it will," said the Feather-legged Hen.

"It must, O Top of Valor," said the Blue Hen.

"And you will tell us how the ring of brass came to be there, Hero-son
of my heart," said the Little Slate-colored Hen that was the Cock's
mother.

"In the course of the evening I may do so," said the Cock
condescendingly.

When they were beside the sunny wall, the Hens on the ground
scattering dust over their feathers and their lord standing on one leg
with his comb hanging over one eye the Cock said "No Cock of our
breed ever told this story before. They would not frighten the hens
with it. However, since you have persuaded me I will tell you the
tale. My grandfather told it to my father who told it to me. It is the
story of the Big Man who came to this place and who wore the ring of
brass that we uncovered to-day."

He did not put it over his head as you might think from the size of
the ring. No. He wore it on his arm. Never was a bigger man seen by
anyone living. The whole countryside stood outside their houses to see
him come over the hills. When he came to where the stones are he
stooped down to take a drink and he drank the well dry. The people
came out of the house to meet him, and he spoke to them, and out of
what he said to them they drew his story.

As I am to a Bantam, the Big Man was to the other men of the country.
And if they were surprised at his bigness, he was astonished at their
smallness. For he came from a time when all were as big as he. A
hundred and a hundred years before he had hunted with his companions,
and he was then called, not Big Man, but Little Fawn.

And one day--a hundred and a hundred years ago it was--he had gone to
chase a deer. The deer fled into a cave. He followed with his hounds
and his sword, his trumpet and his missile-ball. He went astray and
fell asleep in the Cave. And when he wakened up, his hounds were heaps
of dust beside him. He went into the world, and he found that his
companions were dead for a hundred and a hundred years and that the
men of the earth had become smaller and smaller. In the Cave he left
his sword and his trumpet and his missile-ball.

* * * * *

The Cock put his two feet on the ground and