d, carefully
choosing a spot where the driver could not help seeing him, yet where
the reindeer would not tread on him; and all fell out just as he had
expected. The sledge-driver pulled up sharply, as his eyes lighted on
the beautiful animal lying stiffly beside him, and jumping out he
threw the fox into the bottom of the sledge, where the goods he was
carrying were bound tightly together by ropes. The fox did not move a
muscle though his bones were sore from the fall, and the driver got
back to his seat again and drove on merrily.

But before they had gone very far, the fox, who was near the edge,
contrived to slip over, and when the Laplander saw him stretched out
on the snow he pulled up his reindeer and put the fox into one of the
other sledges that was fastened behind, for it was market-day at the
nearest town, and the man had much to sell.

They drove on a little further, when some noise in the forest made the
man turn his head, just in time to see the fox fall with a heavy thump
on to the frozen snow. 'That beast is bewitched!' he said to himself,
and then he threw the fox into the last sledge of all, which had a
cargo of fishes. This was exactly what the cunning creature wanted,
and he wriggled gently to the front and bit the cord which tied the
sledge to the one before it so that it remained standing in the middle
of the road.

Now there were so many sledges that the Lapp did not notice for a long
while that one was missing; indeed, he would have entered the town
without knowing if snow had not suddenly begun to fall. Then he got
down to secure more firmly the cloths that kept his goods dry, and
going to the end of the long row, discovered that the sledge
containing the fish and the fox was missing. He quickly unharnessed
one of his reindeer and rode back along the way he had come, to find
the sledge standing safe in the middle of the road; but as the fox had
bitten off the cord close to the noose there was no means of moving it
away.

The fox meanwhile was enjoying himself mightily. As soon as he had
loosened the sledge, he had taken his favourite fish from among the
piles neatly arranged for sale, and had trotted off to the forest with
it in his mouth. By-and-by he met a bear, who stopped and said: 'Where
did you find that fish, Mr. Fox?'

'Oh, not far off,' answered he; 'I just stuck my tail in the stream
close by the place where the elves dwell, and the fish hung on to it
of itself.'

'Dear me,' s