This reptile had nine heads of which the midmost was immortal. When
Hercules struck off one of these heads with his club, two others
at once appeared in its place. By the help of his servant, Hercules
burned off the nine heads, and buried the immortal one beneath a huge
rock.

The blood of the Hydra was a poison so subtle that Hercules, by
dipping the points of his arrows therein, made them so deadly that no
mortal could hope to recover from a wound inflicted by them. We shall
see later that Hercules himself died from the poison of one of these
self-same arrows.

The third labor imposed upon Hercules by Eurystheus was the capture of
the Arcadian Stag. This remarkable beast had brazen feet and antlers
of solid gold. Hercules was to carry the stag alive to Eurystheus.

It proved no easy task to do this. The stag was so fleet of foot that
no one had been able to approach it. For more than a year, over hill
and dale, Hercules pursued the beast without ever finding a chance of
capturing it without killing it.

At length he shot at it and wounded it with an arrow--not, you may
be sure, with one of the poisoned ones--and, having caught it thus
wounded, he carried it on his shoulder to his brother and thus
completed the third of his labors.

In the neighborhood of Mount Erymanthus, in Arcadia, there lived, in
those far-off days, a savage boar that was in the habit of sallying
forth from his lair and laying waste the country round about, nor had
any man been able to capture or restrain him. To free the country from
the ravages of this monster was the fourth labor of Hercules.

Having tracked the animal to his lurking place after chasing him
through the deep snow, Hercules caught him in a net and bore him away
in triumph on his shoulders to the feet of the amazed Eurystheus.

Augeas, King of Elis, in Greece, not far from Mount Olympus, owned a
herd of oxen 3,000 in number. They were stabled in stables that had
not been cleaned out for thirty years. The stench was terrible and
greatly troubled the health of the land. Eurystheus set Hercules the
task of cleaning out these Augean stables in a single day!

But the wit of the hero was equal to the occasion. With his great
strength he diverted the flow of two rivers that ran their courses
near the stables and made them flow right through the stables
themselves, and lo! the nuisance that had been growing for thirty
years was no more! Such was the fifth labor of Hercules.

O