Bleed! or be to your father forever a curse! You have chosen! Abide by
your choice! Up and away!"

With a high spring, the moccasins lifted their wearer bodily up from the
ground, and began executing a variety of fantastic antics, as
completely foreign to any design or will on the part of the boy as if he
had been but a wire-worked puppet. Whereat peals of elfish laughter came
ringing out, with explosive abruptness, from every side--from the leafy
heart of the forest, from the rocky breast of the hill, from the empty
depths of the sky, from the solid depths of the earth--wild and mocking
laughter, mingled with cries of "Put him through! Put him through!"
Then, as suddenly, the laughter ceased, when, with a hop, step and
prodigious jump, by way of a start, the red moccasins bounded off
through the forest, no more to be guided or curbed than the feet of a
wild and unbridled horse. Through darksome wood and glimmering glade,
over rugged hill and tangled vale, with incredible swiftness sped they
on; nor turned aside for bramble covert or reedy brake, but right
through the thick of them dashed, till the boy was covered with
scratches from head to foot, and his garments all torn into rags.

"Stop! stop! I pray you, stop!" cried poor Sprigg, in piteous accent, at
every new peril which seemed to threaten his destruction. At length, as
if in spite, the moccasins stopped, so abruptly that he was thrown
forward upon the ground, with a violence that left him stunned for
several moments. Then, with hands that shook, did he assay to free
himself from the accursed things. Too late; they clung to his feet, as
if they had grown to the flesh, and the harder he tugged at them the
closer they clung. In fear and rage he stamped with them upon the
ground, and they, in revenge, squeezed and pinched his toes, till he
screamed outright with the pain inflicted. Then, again, they were off at
the same wild speed, and with no more regard for any purpose or wish of
his than had he been but a dead load in them, and they had taken into
themselves all part of his life and all his will.

By and by, of their own accord, the moccasins came to a halt; and weary
and faint, and sick unto death, our unfortunate little hero threw
himself down at the foot of a tree to die. But scarcely had he stretched
himself along the ground, when his ear was caught, first, by a rude
roar, a far way off in the forest; then by a hoarse howl; then by a
shrill scream; then by