But this night the wild geese were not alone on the ice, for they had a human being among them—­little as he was.  The boy had awakened when the goosey-gander spread his wings.  He had tumbled down on the ice and was sitting there, dazed.  He hadn’t grasped the whys and wherefores of all this confusion, until he caught sight of a little long-legged dog who ran over the ice with a goose in his mouth.

In a minute the boy was after that dog, to try and take the goose away from him.  He must have heard the goosey-gander call to him:  “Have a care, Thumbietot!  Have a care!” But the boy thought that such a little runt of a dog was nothing to be afraid of and he rushed ahead.

The wild goose that Smirre Fox tugged after him, heard the clatter as the boy’s wooden shoes beat against the ice, and she could hardly believe her ears.  “Does that infant think he can take me away from the fox?” she wondered.  And in spite of her misery, she began to cackle right merrily, deep down in her windpipe.  It was almost as if she had laughed.

“The first thing he knows, he’ll fall through a crack in the ice,” thought she.

But dark as the night was, the boy saw distinctly all the cracks and holes there were, and took daring leaps over them.  This was because he had the elf’s good eyesight now, and could see in the dark.  He saw both lake and shore just as clearly as if it had been daylight.

Smirre Fox left the ice where it touched the shore.  And just as he was working his way up to the land-edge, the boy shouted:  “Drop that goose, you sneak!”

Smirre didn’t know who was calling to him, and wasted no time in looking around, but increased his pace.  The fox made straight for the forest and the boy followed him, with never a thought of the danger he was running.  All he thought about was the contemptuous way in which he had been received by the wild geese; and he made up his mind to let them see that a human being was something higher than all else created.

He shouted, again and again, to that dog, to make him drop his game.  “What kind of a dog are you, who can steal a whole goose and not feel ashamed of yourself?  Drop her at once! or you’ll see what a beating you’ll get.  Drop her, I say, or I’ll tell your master how you behave!”

When Smirre Fox saw that he had been mistaken for a scary dog, he was so amused that he came near dropping the goose.  Smirre was a great plunderer who wasn’t satisfied with only hunting rats and pigeons in the fields, but he also ventured into the farmyards to steal chickens and geese.  He knew that he was feared throughout the district; and anything as idiotic as this he had not heard since he was a baby.

The boy ran so fast that the thick beech-trees appeared to be running past him—­backward, but he caught up with Smirre.  Finally, he was so close to him that he got a hold on his tail.  “Now I’ll take the goose from you anyway,” cried he, and held on as hard as ever he could, but he hadn’t strength enough to stop Smirre.  The fox dragged him along until the dry foliage whirled around him.