Page:Heroes of the dawn.djvu/216

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178
HEROES OF THE DAWN

took him, and unfastening his coat-tails pitched the bones on the road before him.

"Here you are, Cael," he said cheerfully. "Maybe you'll find a good picking on these bones, for sure you must be weak and starving after passing the whole night on the mountainside, without food or drink or shelter."

"May the sun cease to shine, and the whole world change to ice, before I touch the bones—or anything else—your gluttonous teeth have gone over," Cael angrily replied.

"Just as you choose," said the Carle with a laugh; "but in any case, whether you eat or don't eat, I should advise you to put on a better gait of going than you have yet done," and before Cael could make any answer the big man moved on at a tremendous speed, and was soon out of sight.

Thirty or forty miles he went without stopping, until he came to a road edged with high blackberry bushes, and here and there clumps of tall pink foxgloves growing in the hollows. The wild bees were busy gathering honey from the blooms, and for some time the Carle, smiling gently to himself, stood watch-