ay,
as he entered a hut in Lapland, bearing in his arms the bundle of sticks
he had been sent out to gather.

'Have you, my son; and what was he like?' asked the mother, as she took
off the child's sheepskin coat and shook it on the doorstep.

'Well, I was tired of stooping for the sticks, and was leaning against a
tree to rest, when I heard a noise of 'sh-'sh, among the dead leaves.
I thought perhaps it was a wolf, so I stood very still. But soon there
came past a tall man--oh! twice as tall as father--with a long red
beard and a red tunic fastened with a silver girdle, from which hung
a silver-handled knife. Behind him followed a great dog, which looked
stronger than any wolf, or even a bear. But why are you so pale,
mother?'

'It was the Stalo,' replied she, her voice trembling; 'Stalo the
man-eater! You did well to hide, or you might never had come back. But,
remember that, though he is so tall and strong, he is very stupid, and
many a Lapp has escaped from his clutches by playing him some clever
trick.'

Not long after the mother and son had held this talk, it began to be
whispered in the forest that the children of an old man called Patto had
vanished one by one, no one knew whither. The unhappy father searched
the country for miles round without being able to find as much as a shoe
or a handkerchief, to show him where they had passed, but at length a
little boy came with news that he had seen the Stalo hiding behind a
well, near which the children used to play. The boy had waited behind a
clump of bushes to see what would happen, and by-and-by he noticed that
the Stalo had laid a cunning trap in the path to the well, and that
anybody who fell over it would roll into the water and drown there.

And, as he watched, Patto's youngest daughter ran gaily down the path,
till her foot caught in the strings that were stretched across the
steepest place. She slipped and fell, and in another instant had rolled
into the water within reach of the Stalo.

As soon as Patto heard this tale his heart was filled with rage, and he
vowed to have his revenge. So he straightway took an old fur coat from
the hook where it hung, and putting it on went out into the forest. When
he reached the path that led to the well he looked hastily round to be
sure that no one was watching him, then laid himself down as if he had
been caught in the snare and had rolled into the well, though he took
care to keep his head out of the water.

Ve